"The mameluke is an habitual thief, too. His idea of a nice littlemidnight repast is to pull the boots off your feet while you are asleepand indulge in a hasty lunch. His seal-hide harness, also, appeals tohis epicurean tastes; in fact, he will eat anything, including his bestfriend, if he gets a chance!
"Besides the mameluke, the husky is an aristocrat and a highly-bredgentleman, although his manners are nothing to brag about. Anotheraccomplishment of the mameluke is opening provision boxes and gettingout the tin cans they contain.
"He carries his own can-opener in the form of his powerful teeth. Histaste is not particular. Canned tomatoes, fruit, vegetables,sardines--in fact, anything a man can put into a can, a mameluke can getout of it! Any leather covered goods are also appetizing to themameluke. Trunk covers, saddles, and so on. He'll eat any of themwithout sauce, and not leave any bones either!
"It seems strange that these dogs--which are the mainstay of thetraveler in the northern wilds--live through their whole lives withoutever getting a kind word. They have performed wonderful feats ofendurance and, with all their wolfish greed and viciousness, they havetime and time again saved human lives by their wonderful stamina.
"'A mameluke knows only one law, and that is contained in the end of aclub or whip,' an old driver told me once; and yet some, like JoePicquet, have succeeded in getting them to do much of their work throughkindness. But such cases are so very rare as to prove the rule.
"There is another remarkable difference between the husky's characterand that of his disreputable relative. Food that he has stolen tastessweeter to the mameluke than any other delicacy. The fact that he haspilfered it from the camp or the sled appears to give it an added zest.
"The husky, however, will go off fishing or hunting for himself if givena chance. In this he shows his wild origin. Just like a wolf or a bear,he will take his place in a stream and seize any fish that may be castup on the shallows.
"The average speed of a dog team in good condition is ten miles an hour,and, as you know, in the States we call that good 'reading' even for ablooded horse. The dogs travel various distances daily, depending on thestate of the trail they are following. I have heard of dogs that madeseventy miles a day. Such animals are very valuable and carefullywatched, for there are plenty of dog-thieves in this country.
"When the thermometer drops too low for horse travel, what horses thereare in the country are stabled. From then till spring the dog is theAlaskan locomotive. With the coming of the snows the dogs become theconstant traveling companions of the men of this northland, and dopractically all the transportation work.
"The dogs can travel in weather so terrifically cold that men would notdare to stir abroad. The lowest temperature recorded so far at Dawsonwas eighty-three below zero. No need for an ice-box, then, up here inthe winter.
"But these great falls of temperature only occur occasionally, for whichwe are duly thankful. When it gets so very cold the air becomes filledwith a thick fog. It is hard to see even a hundred yards. Nobody stirsoutside, and it is like a dead world.
"One curious thing about the extreme cold is the tendency it has to makeyou want to hibernate just like a wood-chuck. We sleep sixteen andfifteen hours when we are not on the trail, and could do with more.Wouldn't it be tough if some time we all overslept and didn't wake uptill spring! How Jack would eat! He can put away a man's sized portionof grub now, anyhow.
"Travel up here is not usually done by a man alone. There is greatdanger of his eyelids becoming frozen together, and perhaps ice willform about his nostrils or mouth, half choking him and keeping him busyremoving the accumulation. There is also the Arctic drowsiness tocontend against, that overpowering desire to sleep that it is almostimpossible to fight off. If this overtook a solitary traveler it wouldmean his almost certain death in some drift.
"The freezing of the waters of the rivers comes on very suddenly.Sometimes in a night. The only warning that you get is the glow of thesun-dogs--like little suns--scattered all round the central luminary.
"You have to watch out, then, if you are in a canoe or a rowboat. Thewater may be free from ice, but as you paddle or handle the oars, youmay notice bubbles and particles of ice bobbing to the surface.
"That's a danger signal!
"It means that the bottom of the river has begun to freeze. If you don'tmake a quick landing you are soon hemmed in by ice too thick to row orpaddle through, but too thin to walk on. You may be frozen before youcan escape.
"Well, I've told you enough to let you see that life up here is not abed of roses, but, as my uncle says, 'it makes men'. At any rate, nomollycoddle could get along very well in a northern winter. But we areenjoying all of it--the rough and the smooth. We have each gained inweight--and eat!--Fatty Dawkins at school was a mere invalid compared tous!"
So closed Tom's letter and, by the time it was finished, old Joe wasready to resume the trail. The storekeeper took charge of the boys'mail, to be delivered to the dog-teams when the post came by.
CHAPTER XVI--COMING STORM.
It was after the noonday halt of the next day that the Indian's prophecyof the coming snow was verified. All that morning they had pushedfeverishly along under sullen skies. Signs were not few that the chasewas drawing to a close. Old Joe's examination of the man's lastcamp-fire convinced him that it was not more than a very short timesince the man had "moved on."
Ominous slate-colored clouds began to roll up. There was a strangestillness in the air, like but very different from the hush thatprecedes a thunderstorm. They had about finished their noon snack whenthe boys noticed the dogs beginning to sniff about uneasily, elevatingtheir noses and pacing up and down, giving from time to time shortyapping barks.
"Aha!" cried old Joe as he saw this, "zee snow, he come. Beeg snow, Iteenk. Malukes know. Boosh! It weel wipe out zee trail--bah!"
He knocked the ashes from his pipe disgustedly. The boys, in fact, feltequal disappointment. It appeared that the forces of nature had leaguedthemselves with their enemy. They pictured to themselves how the unknownfugitive must be chuckling as he saw the signs of the approaching stormwhich must obliterate his tracks.
"Are we going on?" asked Tom, as old Joe rose to his feet and lookedabout him.
"Boosh! Non, mon garcon! It ees not well to travel in the snow. We mustcamp. Dat is all dere is for us to do. Maybe he not be bad. But lookplenty bad now."
"You mean to make camp, then?"
"Yes. Back by dose trees. Eet is good place. Zee wind is from zee nort'.Zee trees hold zee dreeft, bon. Eet might have come in much worseplace."
"Is the storm likely to last long?"
Joe Picquet gave one of his expressive shrugs.
"Maybe. Perhaps one day, maybe two, t'ree days. I do not know."
Feeling rather low in spirits, the boys set about making a camp underJoe's directions. It was the same kind as the one in which they hadpassed the night on a previous occasion. Great quantities of wood werechopped, and from the way Joe kept eying the sky, the boys could seethat he was afraid the storm would be on them before they could geteverything in readiness.
The old man himself worked like a beaver. It would have seemedimpossible that a man of his age and apparently feeble frame couldperform so much work. But Old Joe Picquet was capable of doing a day'swork with men of half his age, and the way he hustled about that campshowed it.
The dogs were fed, but instead of fighting as usual, they devoured theirfood in silence and then began looking about for places to burrow.
"Ah-ha! Mameluke, he know. He ver' wise, all same one tree full of zeeowl," declared old Joe, noting this.
At last all was finished and they were ready to face whatever theweather was preparing to launch upon their heads. About three o'clockthe sky was full of tiny flakes which came through the still, silent airwith a steady, monotonous persistency that presaged a heavy downfall. Bynight, which closed in early, the air was white with whirling flakes. Itwas impossible to see more than a few feet.
br /> "You see. She get worse before she get better," declared Joe oracularlyas, after an early supper of jerked meat and hot tea, they sought theirblankets.
When morning came the worst of the storm was over. But what a scene!Every landmark was obscured. Nothing met their eyes but a broad sheet ofunbroken snow. Every track was obliterated. Only some bumps in the snow,like the hummocks over graves, showed where the mameluke dogs slept,securely tucked in by a snowy blanket.
Joe shook his head despondently.
"Boosh! No good, dees!" he grumbled. "That rascal, he moost be most gladto see. 'Ha! Ha!' he teenk to himself, 'now I get away.'"
"I guess he's dead right in that, too," muttered Tom despondently.
"Courage! Mon garcon, we not geev up yet. We come long way get deesfellow, we get him. Get breakfast, den we open trail. Joe Picquet knowdees country lak he know zee bumps in hees mattress."
Soon afterward they took to their snowshoes, pressing forward over anunbroken expanse of white. Both boys now wore old Joe's bark "snowglasses." As for the old trapper himself, he had merely blackened hiseyes underneath with a burned stick to relieve the glare. It gave him anodd and startling appearance, but it averted the danger of temporarysightlessness.
"Dat beeg rascal, he have to keep to dees valley," said Joe as theypushed along. "No can get out till reach White Otter Lake. Maybe dere westrike hees trail once more."
Encouraged by this hope, they made good progress till noon, when old Joedeclared that they were within striking distance of White Otter Lake.
"But there he can take more than one road," declared Tom, recalling whatJoe had said.
"Dat ees so. Two valley branch off dere, one to zee north, zee ozeer tozee south."
"Then it will be like looking for a needle in a haystack," said Jackdisgustedly.
Old Joe looked up quickly.
"Maybe we find heem, maybe not," he said; "all we can do is try. No goodget sore, mon garcon. Boosh!"
Jack looked rather abashed, but said nothing, and they went on again insilence. Late in the afternoon, when near White Otter, they came upontwo Indians fishing through the ice. They had a decoy, one of the oddestof its kind the boys had ever seen. It was a fish skin blown out like abladder and anchored at the edge of the ice. They seemed to have hadgood luck, for a big pile of fish lay beside them.
Old Joe bought a good supply of these for the dogs, whose food wasbeginning to run low. Then, after the usual palaver, the Indians wereasked about other passers along the trail. But they had not been therelong, they said. Their camp lay to the south. Since they had beenfishing they had seen no one.
The trapper paid for the fish, gave some of it at once to the dogs, andthen they went on again. It was a monotonous journey, trying to the bodyand the spirits. A silence, tragic, gloomy and sinister hung overeverything. Although the snow had ceased and the sky was clear, thegoing was heavy and tiring, and the uncertainty of picking up thethief's trail again added to their depression.
But the silence did not always hang heavy, brooding and unshattered.
From time to time a cry like the scream of a banshee would split theair, startling the boys, used as they were to it. The cry was that ofthe hunters of the north, the gaunt, gray rangers of the wilds--thewolves.
CHAPTER XVII--THE LOUPS GALOUPS.
At such times old Joe would shrug his shoulders and say:
"Zee wolves, hey? Les Loups Galoups? Ever you heard of zee LoupsGaloups, mes enfants?"
"The galloping wolves?" said Tom, more for the sake of breaking thesilence than for any great curiosity he felt. "No, what are they?"
Old Joe looked mysterious.
"We do not lak to talk of zem," he said. "Dey are not of zee earth,comprenez vous? Dey are from above."
He pointed upward at the heavens.
"Above?" repeated Tom, puzzled. "What do you mean?"
"Dat at night, when you hear dem rush tru zee air, howling and crying,you know dat you hear noteeng dat is of dees eart'. Dey are what youcall zee ghosts, are zee Loups Galoups. Always before a pairson ees todie you hear dem rush tru zee air ovair zee house."
"What a queer notion!" laughed Tom, although Jack's face was long andserious. "Have you ever heard them?"
Joe Picquet's face looked serious. Then he spoke slowly.
"Once, long time ago in Quebec Province, I hear zee Loups Galoups," hesaid slowly. "My wife was ver' seeck. She sit up in zee bed one nightand call to me:
"'Joe! Oh, Joe! allez vous ici!'
"I run queeck, and she hold oop her fingaire--so--and say to me:
"'Leesten, Joe!'
"I leesten, an' pretty soon I hear noise passing ovair zee house. Eetsound lak zee galloping of someteengs tru zee air. Den I hear zee howlof zee pack. Den I know dat I have hear zee Loups Galoups. Zee next daymy wife die, and I--I come away. I have nevaire been back. Dat long timeago, when Joe Picquet, who is old, was yoong man, strong and full oflife. But old Joe nevaire forget zee Loups Galoups. Always when you heardem, dey mean death."
Had the boys listened to such a fantastic bit of superstition in anyother surroundings, they would have laughed at it as ridiculous. Buthearing it as they did in that forlorn, man-forsaken waste, and told sosolemnly by the old trapper, it took a singular hold on theirimaginations. The Loups Galoups legend, which comes from old France, isone of the most widely spread superstitions of the French Canadians. Tohear the Flying Wolves is to be certain that death or serious misfortuneis at hand.
Not long after Joe had concluded his story a large white Arctic harelimped across their trail a few rods ahead. As it paused and gazed backfor an instant, Tom's rifle jerked up to his shoulder, and the nextinstant the hare lay kicking in the snow.
"Bon! Good shot, mon garcon!" cried old Joe. "To-night we have fine stewfor suppaire. Dat bettaire dan all zee time eat jerk meat."
Darkness overtook them that night near to Otter Lake. They made camp inan abandoned shanty of some gold-seeker or hunter on the banks of thefrozen river. It had once been quite a pretentious cabin, but had falleninto disrepair. Among other of its unusual features was an openfireplace set in a big chimney.
They did not light a fire in this, however, preferring to camp outside,for the cabin was musty and damp and the floor had given way in manyplaces. Joe declared that it was certain to be infested with rats, andthey could see how the creatures had gnawed the timbers. Instead, theyestablished comfortable quarters outside the abandoned hut, and sat latearound the fire, talking over their strange quest and the ill fortune ofthe snowstorm which had overtaken them.
It was just about as they were getting ready to turn in that Jack, whowas sitting nearest the hut, started and turned pale. He held up onehand to command attention, and then he cried out:
"Gracious! Hark at that! What is it?"
What was it, indeed? Not the cry of the wolf pack, although that hadcome closer. Nor did it resemble anything else earthly. It was a boomingsound like that produced by a giant bass fiddle and appeared to comefrom the air.
Old Joe crossed himself as he heard it.
"Sacre!" the boys heard him exclaim.
Again came the booming sound. It appeared to fill the air, to come fromall directions. Mingled with it there burst suddenly on their ears aseries of appalling shrieks, which also seemed to come from above.
Startled beyond power of controlling themselves, the boys jumped totheir feet.
"It's there! Up in the air!" cried Tom excitedly.
"But what can it----" began Jack, but he broke off suddenly. Into hismind, as well as into his brother's, and, to judge by his expression,old Joe's, there had burst simultaneously a sudden explanation.
The Flying Wolves!
At almost the same instant old Joe fell on his knees in the snow.
"Les Loups! Les Loups Galoups!" he burst out.
Jack's teeth fairly chattered. But Tom grabbed him roughly by theshoulder and shook him vigorously.
"Don't be a chump!" he remonstrated. "Remember
the last scare you had,and how simply it was explained."
Jack turned red and rallied his fears.
"Do you think it is the thief trying to scare us again?" he asked inrather quavery tones.
"I don't know. But, by hookey! I'll find out and----"
Over their heads came a rush like the sweeping of a hundred wings. A bigwhite form flew downward, almost striking the old guide in the face.With a howl he rolled over, scattering the ashes of the fire right andleft.
Jack also uttered a shout.
"Ow-ow! Did you see that?" he gasped.
"I did," said Tom sternly, "and unless you also want to see stars youhad better dry up, Jack Dacre. There's some excuse for old Joe, but nonefor you."
"Ber-ber-but these woods seem full of ghosts!" complained poor Jack.
"And cowards," supplemented Tom dryly.
Old Joe got to his feet. A strong smell of scorching pervaded the camp.Some coals, too, had lodged in his white whiskers, singeing thosevenerable appendages. In spite of the scare he had got, Jack couldn'thelp laughing at the old man's woebegone appearance.
"Oh, mes enfants!" wailed the old trapper, "les Loups Galoups havepassed ovair us!"
"Rot!" snapped Tom. "Your Loop of Glue was only an old white owl. As forthe other noises, I have a theory which I will prove in the morning. Nowlet's turn in."
CHAPTER XVIII--TOM PLAYS DETECTIVE.
While the others were getting things in readiness for resuming the marchthe next day Tom began an investigation. He had at first thought thatthe mysterious noises of the night had been caused by their old enemy,but some reflection made him believe that he was mistaken.