It's a hundred and ten miles, and you'll have to relay as frequently as you can.'
'Oh, I see, you want me to go in for it,' Smoke drawled.
'If you haven't the money for the dogs, I'll—'
She faltered, but before she could continue, Smoke was speaking.
'I can buy the dogs. But—er—aren't you afraid this is gambling?'
'After your exploits at roulette in the Elkhorn ,' she retorted, 'I'm not afraid that you're afraid. It's a sporting proposition, if that's what you mean. A race for a million, and with some of the stiffest dog-mushers and travellers in the country entered against you. They haven't entered yet, but by this time to-morrow they will, and dogs will be worth what the richest man can afford to pay. Big Olaf is in town. He came up from Circle City last month. He is one of the most terrible dog-mushers in the country, and if he enters he will be your most dangerous man. Arizona Bill is another. He's been a professional freighter and mail-carrier for years. It he goes in, interest will be centred on him and Big Olaf.'
'And you intend me to come along as a sort of dark horse.'
'Exactly. And it will have its advantages. You will not be supposed to stand a show. After all, you know, you are still classed as a chechaquo. You haven't seen the four seasons go around. Nobody will take notice of you until you come into the home stretch in the lead.'
'It's on the home stretch the dark horse is to show up its classy form, eh?'
She nodded, and continued earnestly. 'Remember, I shall never forgive myself for the trick I played on the Squaw Creek Stampede until you win this Mono claim. And if any man can win this race against the old-timers, it's you.'
It was the way she said it. He felt warm all over, and in his heart and head. He gave her a quick, searching look, involuntary and serious, and for the moment that her eyes met his steadily, ere they fell, it seemed to him that he read something of vaster import than the claim Cyrus Johnson had failed to record.
'I'll do it,' he said. 'I'll win it.'
The glad light in her eyes seemed to promise a greater need than all the gold in the Mono claim. He was aware of a movement of her hand in her lap next to his. Under the screen of the tablecloth he thrust his own hand across and met a firm grip of woman's fingers that sent another wave of warmth through him.
'What will Shorty say?' was the thought that flashed whimsically through his mind as he withdrew his hand. He glanced almost jealously at the faces of Von Schroeder and Jones, and wondered if they had not divined the remarkableness and deliciousness of this woman who sat beside him.
He was aroused by her voice, and realized that she had been speaking some moments.
'So you see, Arizona Bill is a white Indian,' she was saying. 'And Big Olaf is—a bear wrestler, a king of the snows, a mighty savage. He can out-travel and out-endure an Indian, and he's never known any other life but that of the wild and the frost.'
'Who's that?' Captain Consadine broke in from across the table.
'Big Olaf,' she answered. 'I was just telling Mr Bellew what a traveller he is.'
'You're right,' the Captain's voice boomed. 'Big Olaf is the greatest traveller in the Yukon . I'd back him against Old Nick himself for snow-bucking and ice-travel. He brought in the government dispatches in 1895, and he did it after two couriers were frozen on Chilcoot and the third drowned in the open water of Thirty Mile.'
III.
Smoke had travelled in a leisurely fashion up to Mono Creek, fearing to tire his dogs before the big race. Also, he had familiarized himself with every mile of the trail and located his relay camps. So many men had entered the race, that the hundred and ten miles of its course was almost a continuous village. Relay camps were everywhere along the trail. Von Schroeder, who had gone in purely for the sport, had no less than eleven dog teams—a fresh one for every ten miles. Arizona Bill had been forced to content himself with eight teams. Big Olaf had seven, which was the complement of Smoke. In addition, over two-score of other men were in the running. Not every day, even in the golden north, was a million dollars the prize for a dog race. The country had been swept of dogs. No animal of speed and endurance escaped the fine-tooth comb that had raked the creeks and camps, and the prices of dogs had doubled and quadrupled in the course of the frantic speculation.
Number Three Below Discovery was ten miles up Mono Creek from its mouth. The remaining hundred miles was to be run on the frozen breast of the Yukon . On Number Three itself were fifty tents and over three hundred dogs. The old stakes, blazed and scrawled sixty days before by Cyrus Johnson, still stood, and every man had gone over the boundaries of the claim again and again, for the race with dogs was to be preceded by a foot and obstacle race. Each man had to re-locate the claim for himself, and this meant that he must place two centre-stakes and four corner-stakes and cross the creek twice, before he could start for Dawson with his dogs.
Furthermore, there were to be no 'sooners.' Not until the stroke of midnight of Friday night was the claim open for re-location, and not until the stroke of midnight could a man plant a stake. This was the ruling of the Gold Commissioner at Dawson , and Captain Consadine had sent up a squad of mounted police to enforce it. Discussion had arisen about the difference between sun-time and police-time, but Consadine had sent forth his fiat that police time went, and, further, that it was the watch of Lieutenant Pollock that went.
The Mono trail ran along the level creek-bed, and, less than two feet in width, was like a groove, walled on either side by the snow– fall of months. The problem of how forty-odd sleds and three hundred dogs were to start in so narrow a course was in everybody's mind.
'Huh!' said Shorty. 'It's goin' to be the gosh-dangdest mix-up that ever was. I can't see no way out, Smoke, except main strength an' sweat an' to plow through. If the whole creek was glare-ice they ain't room for a dozen teams abreast. I got a hunch right now they's goin' to be a heap of scrappin' before they get strung out. An' if any of it comes our way you got to let me do the punchin'.'
Smoke squared his shoulders and laughed non-committally.
'No you don't!' his partner cried in alarm. 'No matter what happens, you don't dast hit. You can't handle dogs a hundred miles with a busted knuckle, an' that's what'll happen if you land on somebody's jaw.'
Smoke nodded his head.
'You're right, Shorty. I couldn't risk the chance.'
'An' just remember,' Shorty went on, 'that I got to do all the shovin' for them first ten miles an' you got to take it easy as you can. I'll sure jerk you through to the Yukon . After that it's up to you an' the dogs. Say—what d'ye think Schroeder's scheme is? He's got his first team a quarter of a mile down the creek an' he'll know it by a green lantern. But we got him skinned. Me for the red flare every time.'
IV.
The day had been clear and cold, but a blanket of cloud formed across the face of the sky and the night came on warm and dark, with the hint of snow impending. The thermometer registered fifteen below zero, and in the Klondike-winter fifteen below is esteemed very warm.
At a few minutes before midnight, leaving Shorty with the dogs five hundred yards down the creek, Smoke joined the racers on Number Three. There were forty-five of them waiting the start for the thousand-thousand dollars Cyrus Johnson had left lying in the frozen gravel. Each man carried six stakes and a heavy wooden mallet, and was clad in a smock-like parka of heavy cotton drill.
Lieutenant Pollock, in a big bearskin coat, looked at his watch by the light of a fire. It lacked a minute of midnight.
'Make ready,' he said, as he raised a revolver in his right hand and watched the second hand tick around.
Forty-five hoods were thrown back from the parkas. Forty-five pairs of hands unmittened, and forty-five pairs of moccasins pressed tensely into the packed snow. Also, forty-five stakes were thrust into the snow, and the same number of mallets lifted in the air.
