“He’s leaving! He—he—he’s running away!”
This seemed true. Certainly a tall, fur clad man, driving four huge wolfhounds hitched to a long sled, left the cabin and was now racing along a narrow plateau at top speed. And ever as he ran, he appeared to urge his dogs to greater effort.
“He’s leaving!” Gordon Duncan said more quietly. “He’s running away, and he has the treasure on his sled. You don’t think—” He turned troubled, questioning eyes on his granddaughter. “You don’t believe Timmie’d run away with the green gold?”
“No,” said the girl without knowing why, “No, I don’t think he would. He probably does not know you are Gordon Duncan.”
“Unless it is the years. Man’s mind is queer,” said Gordon Duncan. “God knew best when he said, ‘It is not well for man to dwell alone.’”
“But see!” the girl exclaimed suddenly. She pointed across the flood.
A strange procession was taking off from the distant shore. Three dog teams drawing three loaded sleds, lashed one before the other, went fearlessly into the flood. Clinging to the sleds were ten or more human beings, men, women and children.
“Bravo!” exclaimed Gordon Duncan. “They will win yet. They can’t swim. No matter. Their dogs can. They will cling to the sleds. The rawhide line will save them from the terrible flood and land them safely on this shore.”
“But come on!” the girl shouted. “We must be downstream to help them.”
She sped downstream, closely followed by her sturdy grandfather whose eyes ever and anon looked longingly away to the spot where the team of great gray dogs was fast disappearing.