“His trail will lead us twenty miles out of the way. Flaxman Island is twenty miles to the east of us; these explorers are straight ahead. We follow this stream straight to the sea. Hard-packed river trail all the way. The outlaw, unless I miss my guess, will turn off soon to cut across the hills.”
“We haven’t much food to take to them.”
“We have our dogs,” said Jennings grimly. “Men eat dogs when they are starving.”
Joe looked at his old leader, Ginger, who lay with feet stretched out before the fire. The dog rose, stretched himself, then walked over to rub his cold nose against his young master.
Joe gulped, “Y-e-s, I suppose they do.”
“We’ll unload everything we don’t need, all the radiophone equipment except the light set, and cache them here. Then we’ll make a flying trip of it. And,” he said, noting Joe’s discomfort at the thought of sacrificing his faithful four, the team that had fought with him, starved with him and carried him so far, “we’ve got rifles and ammunition. Who knows what game may bob up to take the place of our dogs?”
CHAPTER XXII
A MAD DREAM
It was with a feeling of great astonishment that Curlie, early in the afternoon of the next short Arctic day, came upon the pile of radiophone instruments and other articles which had been piled beside the trail by his companions.
“Now what does this mean?” he said, addressing his reindeer. “Can’t be they’ve been ambushed and robbed. Things are piled away too carefully for that.”
“Hello!” he exclaimed a moment later, “they’ve left the trail of the outlaw! Of all the unbelievable things! What could have induced them to do that? Can’t be trying to outflank him. Trail they’ve taken is a lot longer than his.”