CHAPTER X ON THE YUKON
To follow the trail of the outlaw of the air for the first four days wasbut to trace out his sled-tracks in a wilderness that was trackless savefor the footprints of caribou, wolf and bear. But once he had reached theYukon, all this was changed. There were three trails to choose from.Which had he taken? The one to the left which led up the river, the oneto the right, down the river; or the one which led straight before themup one of the branches of the mighty Yukon? The last trail, less traveledthan the others, led away toward the Arctic Ocean.
"He may have taken the down-river trail, for that would carry him fartherand farther from communication with the outside world," said Jennings, ashe searched in vain to distinguish his track from those of scores ofother travelers.
"Might have taken the up-river trail," he went on. "He'd be in somedanger of getting caught by a message sent on ahead but since thetelegraph wires are down the message would have to be sent by radiophone,so he could listen in and take up some branch and over the hills if heneeded to."
"You don't think he'd go straight ahead, up the branch?" said Curlie.
"Why should he?" the miner looked at him in surprise. "Up that trail forfifty or a hundred miles you'll find Indian huts and miners' cabins hereand there. After that you'll find nothing but a blind trail that growssteeper and steeper. There's no food to be had save wild game and littleenough of that. Why should he go up there?"
"Might run up there for a blind and live with an Indian for a time."
"If he did we'd trap him like a rabbit in a hollow stump!" declared theminer emphatically.
"Well, since we don't know which way to go and it is getting dark,"suggested Joe, "I move that we make camp right here."
This suggestion was acted upon and some two hours later Curlie might havebeen seen nodding over his radiophone boxes. His companions were fastasleep but he had remained up with the receiver clamped over his head inthe rather forlorn hope that the outlaw would let slip some fragment ofmessage which might reveal his whereabouts.
"Fact is," he told himself, "that in spite of all the evidence againstit, I still have a sneaking feeling that the Whisperer is a real person,a girl, and that she's up here somewhere in the white wilderness. I--Isort of hope that sooner or later she'll whisper some more secrets tome."
In this hope, for the night at least, he was doomed to disappointment. Nowhispered secrets came to him from out the air.
A message came, however, a message which set his mind at work. He hadfallen quite asleep when he was suddenly wakened by a voice in his ear.He recognized at once the voice of the government official who haddictated that other message regarding the band of smugglers caughtoperating on Behring Straits.
The message itself to him was unimportant, or at least for the time itseemed so. It gave more definite details of the evidence procured andstated one fact that was most important: The big man, the one higher up,the brains of the smugglers, had not been apprehended. Indeed, it was noteven known who he was. It was thought that he might be at this moment inAlaska, but where? This question could not be answered.
The message had proceeded to this point. Curlie had maintained a drowsyinterest in it, when he sat up with a sudden start, all awake.
The message had been broken in upon by a powerful sending set which wasmuch nearer to Curlie than was that of the government man.
"Got--gotta get him," he mumbled as his slim fingers caressed hisradio-compass coil.
"There! Got him! That's it!"
He was not a moment too soon, for not only had the message ceased but theinterruption as well.
"Huh!" he grunted, scratching his head. "Huh! Up there. Wouldn't havebelieved it. Why, good gracious, it can't be! Yet I couldn't have missedit. How that man travels! Two hundred miles! And no trail to speak of.Probably none at all."
For a moment he sat in a brown study. Then he suddenly shook his fisttoward the north.
"We'll get you now, old boy!" he exclaimed. "We'll get you! You'rebreaking trail for us. We'll follow that trail if it takes us right outon the ice-floes of the Arctic and we'll get you, just as Jennings says,like a rabbit in a hollow tree. That is," he said more soberly, "if theredoesn't come a heavy snow."
The man, so the radio-compass had said, had taken the trail which ledstraight away toward the Arctic Ocean.
Then for a long time Curlie sat staring at the knob of his tuner. He didnot see the knob. He did not see anything. He was concentrating,reasoning, thinking hard, trying to put a lot of facts together and makethem fit.
So the master-mind of the smugglers had not been caught. What if theoutlaw of the air proved to be that man. Why might he not? That wouldexplain why he was so continually breaking in upon the message regardingit.
"And that," he whispered, leaping to his feet and dashing out of the tentin his excitement, "that would explain why he appears so eager tofrustrate all of Munson's plans to keep in touch with the outside worldby radiophone. Munson assisted in breaking up the smuggler band. If theoutlaw is their leader, there is nothing he would not do to wreakrevenge.
"And--and"--he breathed hard because of the thoughts that came troopinginto his mind mind--"that might explain the man's change of plans. Thevery night that Munson sent his message telling of his supply of food onthe shore of the ocean this outlaw, who probably listened in, turnedabout and started straight north, to--to where?"
Dashing back into the tent, he unfolded a map. For a moment with strainedattention he studied it.
When he straightened up it was to whisper, "Yes, sir! That's it! FlaxmanIsland! His present course will bring him straight to Flaxman Island andMunson's food supply."
He sat down again. "Now," he asked himself, "once he arrives there, whatwill he do? Will he winter there, living upon the explorer's supplies andthus save himself from prison, or will he, out of revenge, destroy thesupplies? If he stays and lives on the supplies, what will happen ifMunson comes ashore with his band? Huh, some interesting problems there!"
"Interesting and foolish," he told himself as he dropped into anothermood. "All imagination, I guess. Suppose there's nothing to it. Probablyhe's not the king of smugglers at all, but just a plain mischief-maker ofthe air. When he caught Joe's message to me, that night when we foughtthe wolves, he knew he was being pursued and turned back. Now he's hidingout till the storm blows over. Possibly knows where there is a nativereindeer herder up there at the end of the stream and over the hills!
"Well, old top," he again shook his fist toward the north, "you mightjust as well come out of your hole. The storm isn't going to blow over.Your little cabin of false dreams is going to be wrecked by it, and thatbefore many days."