“No,” he said to himself, “it might not have been them. I don’t really know that the Whisperer exists at all. I don’t—”
He paused suddenly, to stare away to the left of him where was another stream and a second long clump of willows. The wind had dropped to a whisper. The air was keen and clear. From the midst of this clump of willows, straight up a hundred feet there rose a thin, pencil-like column of white vapor which appeared to be smoke.
“Now who,” he asked himself, “can be camping down there?”
His heart beat fast. Was it Jennings and Joe? He would see.
Hurriedly, yet with utmost caution, he made his way down the hill toward that clump of willows from which the thin column continued to rise.
CHAPTER XV
CURLIE VANISHES
As soon as morning broke, Joe and Jennings were out of the tent and away to make a search for their lost comrade.
With Joe’s team of four dogs and an empty sled they struck away up the hill in the direction of their old camp. They found the tattered handkerchief still fluttering in the breeze and Joe’s note safe beside it.
“Not been here,” said Joe. “Better drive out there in the direction he took when he went after that caribou.”
Taking his team to the right of the old camp site he led them backward and forward until Ginger, the leader, suddenly pricked up his ears and whined.