“Oh! Jennings!” exclaimed Joe. “Mebby he doesn’t know so much. He’s been gone too long already. What’s that package he took with him? Gave us the slip already, maybe. Might be just a frame-up to keep us from making good time.”
“Jennings looks all right to me,” persisted Curlie.
He gave the aerial another turn.
“Well, anyway!”—
“Sh”—Curlie held up a warning finger. His nose was wiggling like a rabbit’s when he eats clover. Joe knew what that meant; Curlie was getting something from the air.
Curlie started as the first word came to him—a whisper. He had heard that whisper many times before. For many days it had been silent. Now she was speaking to him again, that mysterious phantom girl of the air.
As he eagerly pressed the receivers to his ears, he caught, faint as if coming from afar, yet very distinctly, the whispered words:
“Hello - Curlie - I - wonder - if - you - are - listening - in - to-night. You - are - on - your - way - north. I - wanted - to - tell - you - the - man - you - are - after - is - on - the - Yukon - Trail - coming - south. He - started - yesterday. You - may - meet - him - Curlie - but - be - careful. It - is - big - Curlie - and - awful - awful - dangerous.”
Cold beads of perspiration stood out upon the tip of Curlie’s nose as the whisper ceased.
He had measured the distance. The girl was a thousand miles away to the north. So that was it? The man he had been sent to track down by means of the radio-compass was coming south over the trail. They would meet. He wondered how and where. There were wild, desolate stretches of tundra and forest on that trail. Inhabited only by Indians and wolves, these offered fitting background for a tragedy. Whose tragedy would it be?