The tea was gulped, the hardtack swallowed, and the travelers were under way again almost before their sweaty bodies had begun to chill. On they hurried, mile after mile, sweeping past bends, eagerly, hopefully scanning every empty tangent that opened up ahead of them. They made fast time indeed, but the immensity of the desolation through which they passed, the tremendous scale upon which this country had been molded, made their progress seem slower than an ant-crawl.
Eventually 'Poleon shouted something and pointed to the trail underfoot. Rock fancied he could detect the faint, fresh markings of sled runners, but into them he could not read much significance. It was an encouragement, to be sure, but, nevertheless, he still had doubts, and those doubts were not dispelled until Doret again halted his team, this time beside the cold embers of a fire. Fresh chips were scattered under the bank, charred fagots had embedded themselves in the ice and were frozen fast, but 'Poleon interpreted the various signs without difficulty.
"Here dey mak' breakfas'—'bout daylight," said he. "Dey go slower as us."
"But they're going pretty fast, for all that. We'll never get them this side of Forty Mile."
"You don' spec' it, do you? Dey got beeg scare, dem feller. Dey runnin' so fas' dey can."
Forty Mile, so called because the river of that name enters the Yukon forty miles above the Boundary, was a considerable camp prior to the Dawson boom, but thereafter it had languished, and this winter it was all but deserted. So, too, was Cudahy, the rival trading-post a half-mile below. It was on the bars of this stream that the earliest pioneers had first found gold. Here at its mouth, during the famine days before the steamboats came, they had cached their supplies; here they had brewed their hootch in the fall and held high carnival to celebrate their good luck or to drown their ill-fortune.
Rock and his companion pulled up the bank and in among the windowless cabins during the afternoon; they had halted their dogs before the Mounted Police station, only to find the building locked and cold. The few faithful Forty-Milers who came out to exchange greetings explained that both occupants of the barracks had gone down-river to succor some sick Indians.
Rock was disgusted, but his next question elicited information that cheered him. Yes, a pair of strangers had just passed through, one of them an active, heavy-set fellow, the other a tall, dark, sinister man with black eyes and a stormy demeanor. They had come fast and they had tarried only long enough to feed their dogs and to make some inquiries. Upon learning that the local police were on the main river somewhere below, they had held a consultation and then had headed up the Forty Mile.
"UP Forty Mile?" Rock cried, in surprise. "Are you sure?"
"We seen 'em go," his informant declared. "That's what made us think there was something wrong. That's why we been on the lookout for you. We figgered they was on the dodge and hard pressed, but we couldn't do nothing about it. You see, it's only about twenty-three miles to the Line up Forty Mile. Down the Yukon it's forty. They been gone 'most two hours, now."