Both teams were loaded light; neither driver carried stove, tent, or camp duffle. Sleeping-bags, a little cooked food for themselves, a bundle of dried fish for the dogs, that was the limit the pursuers had allowed themselves. Given good weather, nothing more was needed. In case of a storm, a sudden blizzard, and a drop in temperature, this lack of equipment was apt to prove fatal, but neither traveler permitted himself to think about such things. Burdened thus lightly, the sleds rode high and the malamutes romped along with them. When the late dawn finally came it found them far on their way.
That wind, following the snowfall of the day before, had been a happy circumstance, for in many places it had blown the trail clean, so that daylight showed it winding away into the distance like a thread laid down at random. Here and there, of course, it was hidden; under the lee of bluffs or of wooded bends, for instance, it was drifted deep, completely obliterated, in fact, and in such places even a seasoned musher would have floundered aimlessly, trying to hold it. But 'Poleon Doret possessed a sixth sense, it appeared, and his lead dog, too, had unusual sagacity. Rock, from his position in the rear, marveled at the accuracy with which the woodsman's sled followed the narrow, hard-packed ridge concealed beneath the soft, new covering. Undoubtedly the fellow knew his business and the officer congratulated himself upon bringing him along.
They had been under way for five or six hours when the tardy daylight came, but even thereafter Doret continued to run with his hand upon his sled. Seldom did he ride, and then only for a moment or two when the going was best. For the most part he maintained a steady, swinging trot that kept pace with the pattering feet ahead of him and caused the miles rapidly to drop behind. Through drifts knee-deep, through long, soft stretches he held to that unfaltering stride; occasionally he turned his head and flashed a smile or waved his hand at the man behind.
Along about ten o'clock he halted his team where a dead spruce overhung the river-bank. By the time Rock had pulled in behind him he had clambered up the bank, ax in hand, and was making the chips fly. He sent the dry top crashing down, then explained:
"Dem dogs go better for l'il rest. We boil de kettle, eh?"
Rock wiped the sweat from his face. "You're certainly hitting it off, old man. We've made good time, but I haven't seen any tracks. Have you?"
"We see 'em bimeby."
"Kind of a joke if they hadn't come, after all—if they'd really gone out to Hunker. Gee! The laugh would be on us."
"Dey come dis way," 'Poleon stoutly maintained.
Soon a blaze was going; then, while the ice in the blackened tea-bucket was melting, the drivers sliced a slab of bacon into small cubes and fed it sparingly to their animals, after which they carefully examined the dogs' feet and cleaned them of ice and snow pellets.