At night, camp made and supper over, Curlie, his instruments before him, his receiver over his head, always sat on his sleeping-bag. With arms crossed over his feet, with head dropping forward, like Jack London’s primitive man, he listened for sounds. The sounds he expected to hear were from the air, not from the forest; that was the only difference. Otherwise he was that same primitive man, hunting and being hunted in turn. He was ever pursuing the outlaw, but who could tell when this same outlaw might face about upon the trail and become himself the hunter?
So they moved forward. Once Curlie received a thrill. On examining a camp lately deserted by the one who went before, he came upon a strange footprint, a single print of moccasin or skin-boot in the snow. Yet how it made his heart beat! This footprint was much smaller than that of the outlaw. Could this be the Whisperer? At first it seemed to him that there could be but one answer: “It is.” But at that time they were not beyond the creeks and rivers inhabited and traveled by Indians. Two Indian sleds had not long since passed that way. Might it not be that some Indian woman or girl had visited the camp of the outlaw? So Curlie’s certainty was destroyed, yet he still had a feeling that this might have been the footprint of the Whisperer.
Nothing more came to him from the air. The outlaw was silent. So too was the Whisperer. Night after night he caught only now and again a fragment of some song or some orchestra production being broadcasted thousands of miles away. Now and again there would come fragments of messages from afar, but never anything of importance.
From the air they learned nothing of the position of the outlaw, but by examining the signs of camp and trail Jennings, long accustomed to these signs, was able to announce to them each night that they were drawing closer, ever nearer to the man they sought. Now they were three days’ journey from him; now two, now one and a half, now only one. Faint and far distant they fancied they caught sight of the column of smoke rising straight above the forest from his camp fire.
Food became scarce. They had bought dried fish from the last Indian camp they had come upon. Now this had to suffice for both men and dogs. The outlaw, they knew by signs of the trail, had been more fortunate. Once, a reindeer straying from some distant domestic herd had forfeited life by crossing his path; at another time a caribou doe and her fawn had fallen victim to his rifle.
“It’s tough luck,” Jennings had exclaimed. “Him with all that fresh meat and us with none; but the tables will turn. We’re gaining, gaining every day. The soft trail for him becomes hard for us, after the night’s freeze. You’ll see, we’ll get him yet.”
“But where do you think he’s heading for?” Joe demanded.
“Can’t tell,” Jennings scratched his head. “Maybe some Eskimo village, maybe some reindeer camp and maybe—did you say Munson had a supply camp somewhere?”
“Yes.”
“Well, maybe he’s heading for that.”