When Pant so abruptly deserted Johnny Thompson’s service, leaving only a vaguely worded note to tell of his going, he had, indeed, a plan and a purpose. So daring was this purpose that had he taken time to think it through to its end, he might never have attempted it. But Pant thought only of beginnings of enterprises, leaving the conclusions to work themselves out as best they might, effectively aided by his own audacity.
His purpose can best be stated by telling what he did.
When he left the schooner that night and crossed over the shadowy shore ice, a blizzard was rising. Already the snow-fog it raised had turned the moon into a misty ball. Through it the gleaming camp fires of the Bolshevik band told they had camped for the night not five miles from the mines.
The blizzard suited Pant’s purposes well. It might keep the Russians in camp for many hours, and would most certainly make an effective job of a little piece of work which he wished to have done.
With a watchful eye he skirted the cabin they had left but a brief time before. A pale yellow light shone from one of the windows. Either the place was being looted by natives, or the yellow men had taken refuge there. The presence of a half-score of dogs scouting about the outside led him to believe that it was the natives. Where, then, were the Orientals?
Breathing a hope that they might not be found in the mines or the machine sheds, he hurried on. With a hand tight gripped on his automatic, he made his way into Mine No. 1. All was dark, damp and silent. The very ghost of his dead comrade seemed to lurk there still. Who was it that had killed Frank Langlois, and how had it been done? Concerning these questions, he now had a very definite solution, but it would be long before he knew the whole truth.
Once inside the mine, he hastened to the square entrance that had been cut there by the strange buzz-saw-like machine of the Orientals. The wall was thin at this place. With a pick he widened the gap until the machine could be crowded through, and with great difficulty he dragged it to the entrance of the mine. Once here his task was easier, for the machine was on runners and slid readily over the hard-crusted snow. With a look this way, then that, he plunged into the rising storm. Pushing the machine before him, he presently reached the mouth of Mine No. 3 in which three days of steam-thawing had brought the miners to a low-grade pay dirt. The cavity was cut forty feet into the side of the bank which lay over the old bed of the river.
Having dragged the machine into the farthest corner, he returned to the entrance and at once dodged into the machine sheds. To these sheds he made five trips. On a small dog-sled he brought first a little gasoline engine and electric generator, next eight square batteries, then some supplies of food, a tank of gasoline, and some skin garments from the storeroom. His last journey found the first gray streaks of dawn breaking through the storm. He must hasten.
With a long knife he began cutting square cakes of snow and fitting them into the entrance of the mine. Soon, save for a narrow gap well hidden beneath a ledge of rock, the space was effectively blocked.
He stretched himself, then yawned sleepily.