They drift into Edmonton, and then an invisible bond draws them one and all to the Prince George. There in the lobby they sit and talk of timber drives along some unknown river, of mineral in the Rockies, of musk ox, of reindeer on the tundra, of fish in Great Slave and Great Bear Lakes, of fur from the far flung barrens, of petroleum and of tar-sands, of gold outcroppings, and a hundred other curious industries and discoveries.
“The thrill one gets from it!” Curlie said to Jerry that evening, after they had followed the carrier pigeon to the lone cabin and had left it there, to continue their flight to McMurray and then to Edmonton. “The thrill comes from knowing that every man of them is sure that he is going to make his fortune at once, or at least after the break-up in the spring.”
“That,” said Jerry, “is the pioneer spirit. It is not dead. It still lives here.”
“Yes!” exclaimed Curlie. “And I am glad it does! How wonderful it is to live in a land where men still dream!”
“Ah, yes.” Jerry settled back and closed his eyes as if he, too, would dream.
Curlie was in no mood for dreaming. The incident of the carrier pigeon was too fresh in his mind for that.
Drawing a slip of paper from his pocket, he began studying it. “I’d give a pretty penny to be able to read it,” he grumbled to himself after a time. He was looking at his copy of the code message he had taken from the carrier pigeon. So absorbed did he become that he did not notice that a tall, dark-haired man moved across the room to take a chair directly behind him. The man had small, piercing eyes. He wore no beard, yet the very blueness of his chin suggested that he might recently have had a beard. His eyes, as they fell upon the paper in Curlie’s hand, became strangely fixed.
Curlie did not read the message. Indeed, as we have said, since no two words of it made sense as they stood, how could he? It was one of those messages that impart information only after they are rearranged. It is possible that every fifth word, plucked from the rest and set in order, would make a sentence. Then again, it might be every third or every sixth word. Or perhaps the first and fourth, then the fifth and eighth words might be combined with the ninth and twelfth, and so on. The thing had so many possibilities that Curlie gave it up very soon and, folding the paper, put it back into his pocket.
Perhaps this was just as well, for the man of the eagle eye, if one were to judge by the tense look on his face, even from his point of disadvantage was making progress at deciphering the message.
“Curlie,” said Jerry starting up from his reverie, “why did you allow that little fellow back in the cabin to keep the carrier pigeon?”