In the meantime, on shore Curlie had made his way back to the reindeer herd. A careful study of the deer convinced him that certain of them were sled deer.
“Got their antlers half cut off; just stubs left,” he told himself. “Stands to reason that the Eskimo cut them off so they’d travel lighter in harness.”
Making a packing rope into a lasso, he succeeded in catching one of these deer by the stubs of his antlers. The marks of a harness told him he was right about these sled deer.
“I’ll just catch three of them and tie them to old Whitie. Then I’ll lead all four out to meet Joe and the explorers. They’ll be glad enough to have some fresh reindeer meat. We’ll make these three into venison, but not old Whitie! Never! He’s been my pal through too many narrow escapes. He’s going to live to tell the story.”
Some ten hours later, as the exploring party, weakened by lack of proper food, struggled forward over the tumbled ice, they were surprised to see the stubby antlers of a white sled deer appear around an ice pile.
“Reindeer!” someone shouted.
“Reindeer and Curlie Carson!” exclaimed Joe, fairly overcome with joy at meeting his old pal after so long a lapse of time.
Three hours later, having struggled forward to the safe and solid shore-ice, the whole party sat down to a real feast of reindeer steak, while a little distance away, chained to their sled, Major, the old guard, sent out short woof-woofs in the direction of old Whitie, and Pete, the huskie, who was nine-tenths wolf, sawed at his chain and ki-yied his desire to leap at the reindeer’s throat.
When they had finished, and had made such shift as they could for a night’s rest before making the remaining twenty-five miles to the food depot on Flaxman Island, Joe and Curlie sat long upon an overturned sled talking.
“So you think it was the smuggler chief?” said Joe as Curlie finished telling of his adventure at the food depot.