Again he began convincing himself that she did not exist, that it was all a hoax invented by the mind of this clever outlaw. The more he thought of it the more sure he became that this was true. The more sure he became of it the more his anger grew.
“To be shamed, to be tricked, deceived, buncoed by the man you are pursuing!” he exploded. “That is adding insult to injury!”
With the plain trail stretching straight out before them, they now traveled far into the night, traveled until dogs and men were ready to drop. Only then did they turn to the right of the trail and set their weary muscles to the task of making camp.
CHAPTER X
ON THE YUKON
To follow the trail of the outlaw of the air for the first four days was but to trace out his sled-tracks in a wilderness that was trackless save for the footprints of caribou, wolf and bear. But once he had reached the Yukon, all this was changed. There were three trails to choose from. Which had he taken? The one to the left which led up the river, the one to the right, down the river; or the one which led straight before them up one of the branches of the mighty Yukon? The last trail, less traveled than the others, led away toward the Arctic Ocean.
“He may have taken the down-river trail, for that would carry him farther and farther from communication with the outside world,” said Jennings, as he searched in vain to distinguish his track from those of scores of other travelers.
“Might have taken the up-river trail,” he went on. “He’d be in some danger of getting caught by a message sent on ahead but since the telegraph wires are down the message would have to be sent by radiophone, so he could listen in and take up some branch and over the hills if he needed to.”
“You don’t think he’d go straight ahead, up the branch?” said Curlie.
“Why should he?” the miner looked at him in surprise. “Up that trail for fifty or a hundred miles you’ll find Indian huts and miners’ cabins here and there. After that you’ll find nothing but a blind trail that grows steeper and steeper. There’s no food to be had save wild game and little enough of that. Why should he go up there?”
“Might run up there for a blind and live with an Indian for a time.”