"Non," muttered Giraud, "she be de same on dis side."
Britton was lying out as far as possible, watching past the dogs as they swung down by the little cache near the Ridge. Suddenly he uttered a half-suppressed exclamation.
"The rascal's left the trail here," he confided to Pierre. "Hold on; we're past it. Rein in your dogs. There, off to the left! That's his track. It leads down to the little cache. I can see something moving. Maybe the beggar's looting it, too." He stood up, balancing himself deftly in order to see the better. Acting on a swift impulse, he threw his hands up to his mouth in trumpet-fashion and gave a loud hail.
"Hello!–the cache," he bawled. "Who's down there?"
An oath came back in answer. There was a scuttering through the snow, the frantic cracking of a whip, whining of punished dogs, and the desperate rush of a loaded sled.
"Caught red-handed!" roared Britton. "Cut him off, Pierre. He's trying to make the beaten trail."
Giraud whipped his dogs up, running at an angle to the fugitive dog-train. The plunderer had reckoned badly in trying this mode of escape. His one team and laden sleigh struck only a snail's pace compared with the speed of Pierre's double team and empty sled. The voyageur's mad driving caught him before he reached the main trail. Whooping aloud, Pierre drove his galloping animals right on top of the other's dogs, anchoring them there in the loose side-snow to snarl and battle in the traces.
Britton and the voyageur leaped off and made for the piled-up packs on which the strange driver was seated. Realizing that he was thus suddenly brought to bay, the fellow rose to his feet and whirled the butt-end of his whip aloft. "Stay back, curse you!" he cried.
"Better give in," Britton warned him. "It's best for you." He jumped upon the rear bundles of the sled.
A vicious blow of the whip was the answer, but Rex was watchful. He caught the descending wrist, back-tripped the ruffian with a swift leg movement, and choked resistance out of him.