Jerry laughed nervously at the professor’s obvious dismay. “I mean he was big like Charley. Of course it wasn’t Charley. Heck, it could have been that big French cook. All I know is that he was big and strong.”
“By the way,” Dr. Steele said suddenly, “where is Charley?”
No one answered for a long moment. Then Sandy said, “I guess he’s still out with the dogs. Or maybe he’s back swapping stories with the old-timers in the barracks.”
Just as Lou Mayer was about to turn down the lamp, after the others were all in bed, the cabin door swung in and Tagish Charley tramped into the room. His hood and parka were encrusted with snow and ice, as were his boots and trousers. He looked as if he had been out in the storm for a long time. In the crook of his left arm he held a rifle.
“Good lord, Charley!” the professor exclaimed, sitting upright on his cot. “Where have you been, man?”
The Indian walked over to the fireplace and shook himself like a great dog. Carefully he leaned the rifle against the wall and shrugged out of his parka. “I drink coffee in kitchen with Frenchy when man run in and say someone break into this cabin. I take rifle and follow him.”
“In this storm!” Sandy said. “You could have gotten lost and frozen to death.”
Charley grunted and tapped a finger to his temple. “Indian have thing up here like pigeon. Always find way home. Bad man have sled and dogs waiting in trees. No use follow him. If snow stop in morning, maybe I look around some more.” He kicked off his boots, stepped out of his wet trousers and spread them out over the back of a chair near the fire. Then, like a big animal, he padded across the floor to an empty bunk. Seconds after his head hit the pillow, the rafters shook from his mooselike snores.
Jerry leaned over the side of his top-deck wall bunk and grinned at Sandy in the bunk underneath. “Now I know those guys up in Tibet are all wet. There isn’t any Abominable Snowman. They bumped into Tagish Charley when he was out for one of his evening strolls.”
Sandy grinned back, but it was a weak grin. He was bothered alternately by twinges of suspicion and pangs of guilt. It couldn’t be Charley; he knew it! Yet, anything was possible.