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Updated: June 1, 2025
All the gangs groaned, and sighed, and wept, the tears streaming and freezing down their cheeks as they toiled; and it was patent that their agony was real. The situation was desperate, and Smoke's prescription was heroic.
Smoke hesitated, then dropped his rifle and came up to them. "Go through him, Louis, an' take his weapons," the black-bearded man ordered. Louis, a French-Canadian voyageur, Smoke decided, as were four of the others, obeyed. His search revealed only Smoke's hunting knife, which was appropriated.
Beside the fire, within arm's length, sat Shorty, smoking a brown-paper cigarette and intently watching him. Smoke's lips moved, but a throat paralysis seemed to come upon him, while his chest was suffused with the menace of tears. He reached out his hand for the cigarette and drew the smoke deep into his lungs again and again.
"About what?" he asked, so innocently that Wolf Larsen was disconcerted, while the others smiled. "Oh, nothing," Wolf Larsen said lamely. "I just thought you might want to register a kick." "About what?" asked the imperturbable Smoke. Smoke's mates were now smiling broadly. His captain could have killed him, and I doubt not that blood would have flowed had not Maud Brewster been present.
The snow-fall was deeper than in the lower valleys, and every step of the way was snow-shoe work. Furthermore, Smoke's captors, all young men, traveled light and fast; and he could not forbear the prick of pride in the knowledge that he easily kept up with them.
"Now, what have you got to say for yourself, Stranger, before I shoot you dead?" the black-bearded man demanded. "That you're making a mistake if you think I killed that man," Smoke answered. A cry came from one of the voyageurs. He had quested along the trail and found Smoke's tracks where he had left it to take refuge on the bank. The man explained the nature of his find.
To Smoke's surprise, Big Olaf rose up and with oaths and leather proceeded to fetch out the last ounce of effort in his animals. It was a spurt that should have been reserved for the last hundred yards instead of being begun three miles from the finish. Sheer dog-killing that it was, Smoke followed. His own team was superb. No dogs on the Yukon had had harder work or were in better condition.
Smoke felt the sled heel up on one runner as it rounded an invisible curve, and from ahead came the snarls of beasts and the oaths of men. This was known afterward as the Barnes-Slocum Jam. It was the teams of these two men which first collided, and into it, at full career, piled Smoke's seven big fighters.
Then, placing his hand upon Smoke's flank, he leapt up behind Wulf, the horse never stirring. "Say, Peter, are you minded to take a companion for this ride?" asked Masouda; and as she spoke a strange look came into her eyes, a wild look that was new to the brethren. "Surely," answered Godwin, "but where is the companion?"
Here was cached a quantity of dried salmon and a sort of pemmican, which the Indians added to their packs. From this camp a trail of many snow-shoes led off Shorty's captors, was Smoke's conclusion; and before darkness fell he succeeded in making out the tracks Shorty's narrower snow-shoes had left. On questioning the Indians by signs, they nodded affirmation and pointed to the north.
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