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Counting his journey to Tatpan's camp, he had been traveling almost steadily for seventeen hours. Not until he stretched himself out on his back in a grassy hollow where a little stream a foot wide rippled close to his ears did he realize how tired he had become. At first he tried not to sleep. Rest was all he wanted; he dared not close his eyes. But exhaustion overcame him at last, and he slept.
As Tatpan had no saddle-deer in his herd, and the swiftest messenger would require many hours in which to reach Amuk Toolik, Alan set out for his range within half an hour after his arrival at Tatpan's camp. Stampede, declaring himself a new man after his brief rest and the meal which followed it, would not listen to Alan's advice that he follow later, when he was more refreshed.
His blue eyes twinkled, and in what seemed to be a moment of embarrassment he gave his gun a sudden snap that drew an exclamation of amazement from Alan. Only one man in the world had he ever seen throw a gun into its holster like that. A sickly grin began to spread over his own countenance, and all at once Tatpan's eyes began to bulge. "Stampede!" he cried.
By nine or ten the next morning he would be facing Rossland, and at about that same hour Tatpan's swift messengers would be closing in about Tautuk and Amuk Toolik. He knew the speed with which his herdsmen would sweep out of the mountains and over the tundras.
He was comparatively fresh, as his trail to Tatpan's camp had not been an exhausting one, and his more intimate knowledge of the country gave him a decided advantage over Stampede. He believed he could make the distance in ten hours, but to this he would be compelled to add a rest of at least three or four hours during the night. It was now eight o'clock.
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