"Real pleased you come, too! Real pleased," was the answer the littlegray man gave in a high, piping treble.
The boys took in the details of the tent. The small sheet-iron stovewith its pipe going through the roof, the queer-looking snowshoes, andthe pile of duffle left in a corner just as it had been thrown from thesled. Old Joe looked more taken aback than ever. He had come prepared tofight some rascal who would put up a desperate resistance. Instead, hefound a little wasted man who had nothing to say but that he was glad tosee them.
There was a pause while Joe reconstructed things. It was broken in uponby another piping up of the thin voice of the man on the ground.
"See that sack over thar, stranger?" said the little man, indicating apartially filled pack-bag in one corner of the tent.
"Oui! I see heem," rejoined Joe in a dazed voice.
"Wa'al, thar's fish in thar. I'd take it real kind in yer ef yer'd jes'feed my dorgs, mister. They ain't hed much ter sot their teeth inlately, me being hurried like along the trail."
The boys exchanged glances. They had met with many strange experiences,but this appeared to be the cap-sheaf of them all. Old Joe simplyshrugged his shoulders; he was bereft of speech. In the face of thisastonishing end to their long, grim chase, he was, for the time being,incapable of finding words.
He crossed over to the sack and began pulling out fish, but in the midstof the operation he found his voice again.
"Say, you, what's zee matter weez you, anyhow?"
"I'm sick," responded the man under the shabby blanket, "right sick."
"I see you seeck, all right," said Joe, "but what ails you? Boosh!" heconcluded, puffing out his sun-burned cheeks.
"I don't rightly know," rejoined the other; "it's a sorter pain allover."
He moved uneasily under the shabby blanket and the boys saw his hands,which lay outside the covering, clench and unclench, as if he weresuffering a sudden spasm of pain.
Outside the tent there came a sound of plaintive yapping and howling.The little man's mamelukes had smelled the fish.
"Reckon they're hungry, poor beasts," said the little man.
Joe did not reply, but moved to the door of the tent. He threw out thefish. The dogs sprang upon it ravenously, tearing it as if they hadfasted for days. Joe watched them for a minute with an odd look on hisbearded face. Then he turned to the man again.
"What your name, anyhow?"
"Dolittle--Peabody Dolittle," said the man, "but somehow folks mostlycall me Pod."
Pod! The boys, despite the situation, could almost have laughed at thename.
Here was a bold thief who, by all the rules of fiction, should haveborne some name that would fit with his supposedly desperate character,and instead of that he told them that he was "mostly called Pod."
As for Joe, he could only gasp and shrug his shoulders helplessly.
"Boosh!" he exclaimed after an interval. "Pod, you an' me and desegarcon got to have some talk, Pod."
"Go right ahead, mister," said Pod.
CHAPTER XXI--THE LITTLE GRAY MAN.
Old Joe was fairly stumped. So were the boys. The little gray man wassick, feeble and apologetic, and yet they knew that he had stolen thosefurs and he must be made to give them up.
"Guess we'll leave this thing to Joe," whispered Jack to Tom.
"The only thing to do. I don't like this at all. I'd almost rather he'dput up a fight."
"Say, there's no more wood by that stove," said Jack; "guess he was toosick to cut any more. We'd better go and get some ourselves. What do yousay?"
"All right. Let Joe do the talking. I'd feel like a ruffian myself tocross-question a sick man, even if he is a thief."
The two boys drew Joe aside. Then they left the tent. As they went,their talk ran upon the strangeness of the twist of circumstances thathad made them become ministers to the comfort of a man who had wrongedthem and led them a long, hard chase through the frozen lands to recovertheir own.
As they chopped wood, they stopped every now and then and looked at eachother.
"This beats our experience with the two crazy miners," said Tom, duringone of these pauses.
"Beats it! I should say so. I thought that was about the limit of queeradventures, but this is an odder one still."
"How a sick man could have gone through all that Pod has, I can'timagine," said Tom.
"And he's pretty sick, too, I guess," commented Jack. "Well, let's getahead with our wood chopping and go back and find out what Joe haslearned."
In the meantime old Joe was almost equally at a loss. He needed time toadjust himself to circumstances so utterly different from those that hehad imagined would await them at the end of the long trail. At last,however, he found words:
"Say you, Pod, or what'ev' yo' name ees," he began, "you know what forme, Joe Picquet, an' zee two garcons come here, eh?"
"I kin guess," was the response, accompanied by a mild smile.
Old Joe smoked furiously. Here was a man he had come prepared to fightover the stolen skins, and the man smiled at him.
"Ah ha! You can guess!" he burst out at last. "You bet my life youguess. You guess bien dat you one beeg teef, eh? You guess dat? Boosh!"
There was no answer from the man lying under the shabby skin rug.
Old Joe began to find his task becoming more and more difficult. If onlythe man would say something, make some aggressive move, he would have nodifficulty in letting loose his long bottled-up rage. But as it was, hefelt almost as helpless as the recumbent figure on the ground.
"Why you no answer, you--you Pod!" he exclaimed. "I want know._Comprenez-vous?_ Joe Picquet wan' know wha' for you break in his skeenkeg an' take _un-deux-trois_ nice skeen?"
Again there was silence. Old Joe rose and came close to the man. Thistime he shook a finger in his face.
"Attendez, you leetle coyote! You do worse as zees. You steal from twogarcons one black fox skeen. Where dose skeens? We come to get dem."
The little man blinked as the finger was shaken in his face, but he madeno other sign that he had heard. Old Joe's eyes began to blaze. This wassheer obstinacy.
"You answer pret' queeck or we load you on sled an' take you Red Foxtrading pos'. Have you give up to zee jail. Now you talk."
The little man made a peevish face and waved his arms about feebly. "Idunno nuthin' 'bout yer skins," he said. "What's the matter with you?"
This time it was Joe who did not answer. Near the head of the man, halfunder the sacks that served him as pillows, Joe had seen some skinssticking out. With scant regard for "Pod's" comfort, he began pulling atthese.
For the first time, Pod began to grow restless.
"Them's all mine," he insisted, "t'aint no use your lookin'. Ain't noneof yours thar, mister."
"Where are dey, den? Where is dat black fox skeen you take from _lesgarcons_ on zee Porc'pine Riviere?"
"I dunno, I'm telling you. I ain't never been near the Porcupine River.Dunno whar' it is."
"You don't, eh? Boosh! Let me tell you, _mon ami_, you tell one beegstory! Zee two garcons, dey trail you all zee way from dere, you beegteef. You' snowshoes make different track, an' see zee cigareettestumps!" Several of the yellow paper wrappings were littered about thetent. "Now do you say you are not zee same man?"
"Stranger, honest to mackerel, I dunno what yer talkin' erbout."
Joe turned to the pile of skins once more.
"We search every corner dees tent, den," he said, with finality.
But as he was stooping over the skins, throwing them out one by one, andscanning the pile the while with eager eyes for his own and the boys'property, some subtle sixth sense made him suddenly wheel.
Out of the corner of his eye he had seen the little man's hands make asudden move. He was on him with a bound. In a flash he had both thelittle gray man's hands pinioned in his own powerful grip, one over andone under the shabby covering.
Then, with a swift movement, he yanked the skin blanket down. Hedisclosed a hand ho
lding a wicked looking revolver of heavy caliber. Itwas fully loaded and cocked.
Pod was not the harmless individual he had appeared to be.
CHAPTER XXII--"THE WOLF'S" TEETH.
"Boosh! So you would try keel me, eh, mon brave?" puffed old Joe,wresting the weapon from the hand of the little gray man and hurling itacross the room. "Vous etes one fine fellow, n'est-ce pas?"
Leaving him for an instant, old Joe fairly slid across the tent and didsomething which, but for his excitement, he would have accomplished inthe first place. He "broke" the pistol and extracted the six cartridges.
The little man under the tattered blanket watched with glittering eyes.Then Joe Picquet turned to him once more.
"Where ees zee black fox skeen, you beeg rascal?"
The old trapper felt like pouncing upon the other and shaking the truthout of him, especially following his discovery of the little man'sweapon. But the fellow appeared to be genuinely sick and he throttleddown his anger.
The man remained silent. Old Joe thought he resembled a littleglittering-eyed weasel as he lay there watching the old trapper withfurtive eyes, that though they appeared averted followed old Joe's everymove. But he did not speak in rejoinder to Joe's direct command. Hemerely grinned in a sickly fashion, showing a double row of yellow,uneven teeth. Seen thus, he looked more like some little wicked animalthan ever. The sympathy that Joe had felt for him began to evaporate.
"See here, you, you no play 'possum weez old Joe Picquet," he saidroughly, putting on an appearance of ferocity. "He no stand formonkey-doodle business. Non, mon ami."
The man lay in silence for a space. Then he moved and spoke.
"Look in that sack yonder," he said, indicating a bulging gunny-bag in acorner near the sled.
Old Joe lost no time in ripping open the deerskin fastenings of the bagand dragging out its contents. These he dumped in a heap on the floor.There were marten skins, ermine skins and weasel skins galore, but noneof his skins nor so much as a hair of a black fox pelt.
Joe turned angrily on the other.
"I geev you one chance," he said; "you fool me no more. You tell mewhere dat skeen ees or les garcons go to Red Fox for zee autarkies."
The sick man grinned again, showing his yellow molars, that looked likestumps protruding from the sands at low tide.
"I tole yer, yer wouldn't find it, Frenchy," said he, "an' I reckon youwon't. I ain't got it, an' that's the truth."
Joe's jaw closed with a click. His teeth clenched and his old eyesflashed.
"Ver' well den, mon ami. I search your blankets."
It might have been fancy, but Joe thought that he saw the man on theground turn a shade paler. Old Joe approached the bed. In the dim lighthis face looked as ferocious as the countenance of a wolf. Perhapssomething warned Peabody Dolittle that it was no use to evade thequestion of his guilt any longer.
"It's under the lower blanket," he said weakly.
Old Joe thrust his hand under and then, for the second time, he lookedup just in the nick of opportunity. As he stooped low, the sick man hadraised himself on his bed, and now had a knife poised above the oldFrench-Canadian's back.
With a shout of rage, the trapper struck the upraised arm and sent theblade halfway across the tent. It fell ringingly to the ground. At thesame instant, the boys, who had heard Joe's shout, came running into thetent, their arms full of wood.
"Aloons, mes enfants!" cried the angry old man. "Do not give good woodto such as dis man. Twice he try to keel me. Once weez pistol, once weezknife. Let heem freeze in zee snows if he weel. We weel help heem nomore."
He thrust a hand under the man's blankets where the latter hadindicated. Then, with a shout of triumph, he drew out a beautiful skin.A black fox pelt, shimmering, glossy, beautiful!
The boys gave a cry. It was theirs beyond a doubt, the skin of the fineblack fox that they had last seen barking and howling for his liberty,and whom the two partners in the fox-raising enterprise had set suchstore by. They were still looking at the skin, petrified, when old Joeuttered another cry of triumph.
This time, from beneath the blankets he drew out the skins the thief hadfilched from his own cabin. His rage knew no bounds. He appeared angriernow that he had found the skins than he was before. He shook his fist atthe sick man and upbraided him unmercifully.
"You are one skunk! One homme mechant!" he roared. "You first rob andden try to keel. Above all, you lie. Boosh! I have for you no use."
"Well, you've got yer skins now, ain't ye?" asked the man on the ground,in a feeble voice. "What more d'ye want?"
"A good deal more," struck in Tom. "How did you come to know of thefoxes on the Porcupine River?"
"I overhearn two fellers at the tradin' post talkin' about 'em,"whimpered the crest-fallen Pod.
"You did, eh?" exclaimed Jack. "What sort of looking fellows?"
The man lying stretched out there with an abject, fawning look on hisface turned a beseeching glance on them. But they knew of the cowardlycrime he had tried to perpetrate and hardened themselves toward him. Inhis high-pitched, plaintive voice, Pod gave a description of the two menhe had declared were responsible for his knowledge of the fox kennels onthe Porcupine.
When he concluded his description Tom and Jack exchanged astonishedglances.
"Uncle Dacre!" cried Jack.
"Mr. Chillingworth!" cried Tom. "I'll bet they were talking business andthis fellow here crept up and listened."
Although they were both very angry, somehow the thought that they hadsucceeded in the hard task they had set out to accomplish, made themless disturbed than they might have been.
"What did you do it for?" asked Tom.
"I can't tell yer now," was the rejoinder. "It was fer many reasons.Some day perhaps you'll know. Now I can't say nothin'."
"At least, tell us if it was you that tried to frighten us by howlingthrough a birch-bark megaphone?" asked Tom.
The little man grinned.
"Yes, I did it, all right," he said, with the same soft, foolish smile."I calcerlated to shake you off'n my trail. But I didn't do it. It wasjes' a plum foolish joke, that's all, and----"
"Stand right where you are!"
The order came from a voice behind the boys and old Joe, who had beenbending over the stricken little gray fellow.
They all wheeled like a flash. In the doorway stood three figures--tall,rough-looking men dressed in the ordinary garb of the trail. All threewere armed and each had assigned himself to "take care of" one of ouradventurers.
The "sick" man broke into a shrill laugh.
"He! he! he! Thought you'd fooled Wolf Ericsen, didn't you? Well, by theeternal, you've got another guess coming, I reckon. Dick! Sarsen! Flem!keep 'em covered while I get up."
CHAPTER XXIII--SANDY ALONE.
The day following the departure of Tom and Jack from the camp of the_Yukon Rover_, Sandy decided that he would take a stroll along the trapline for some little distance to see if any of the smaller traps,interspersed with the big box traps for catching the live foxes, hadcaught anything. Before he departed he carefully fed the animals in the"kennels."
This done, he wrapped himself up as warmly as possible in a thickparkee, heavy lumbermen's boots and a cap that came down over his ears.Before leaving he took care to write a note and leave it on the table inthe cabin, informing the two partners briefly where he had gone and whathad taken place during their absence, in case they should return beforehe got back again.
When all this had been attended to, Sandy filled a haversack with foodand packed a small aluminum kettle and set out on snowshoes on hissolitary travels. He wondered what his companions were doing and whatsuccess they had had in their pursuit of the thief. The boy feltlonesome without his chums, but as he made his way over the crunchingsnow the keen air brightened him up and raised his spirits considerably.
Since Tom and Jack had left, nothing to cause alarm had occurred, andalthough Sandy had passed an anxious night, he ha
d seen nothing toindicate that any further harm was meditated to the valuable live thingsnow left in his sole care.
The traps were strung in a regular line, whose general direction wasmarked by blazed trees and here and there some piled rocks. Near to the_Yukon Rover's_ mooring place there were no box traps. These werestationed far back in the remoter districts, for the valuable foxes theywere after were wild, shy creatures, seldom coming within miles of aspot where they could detect the presence of human kind.
At the first trap Sandy found a white weasel. The bait, the head of ahare, was intact. The luckless weasel had not even had the satisfactionof a meal.
Sandy placed the little creature in his pocket, not withoutdisappointment. The Bungalow Boys' traps, the steel ones, that is, wereset for food, such as hares and rabbits. They did not care to captureweasels and ermine particularly, although red foxes, which have a habitof scaring away the more valuable varieties, were welcome to theirtraps.
Tom and Jack, as we know, had already encountered the track of awolverine. It was now Sandy's turn to come across the funny, bear-likeimprints of one of these destructive creatures.
"Whist!" he exclaimed, as he saw it, "no more animals in the traps thenoo! A wolverine has a bigger appetite than a cormorant. They're thereal game hogs, all right."
As he had expected, the next trap showed plentiful evidences of thewolverine's visit. All that was left of the marten that had been caughtin it was some bits of skin and about an inch of the tail. Bloodstainson the snow around the trap showed where the wolverine had enjoyed ameal at the expense of the young trappers.