  Toma and Dick no longer could hear Sandy hallooing, and Dick judged that his chum was safely in hiding. Yet, as they waited, guns trained on the door, a rifle shot shattered the silence. It came from the direction taken by the man who had gone to investigate the calls for help. Dick’s face paled. What did it mean? Had poor Sandy fallen? Had the man found him? “I’m going out,” Dick said tensely to Toma a moment later. Whatever Toma’s reply was Dick did not hear it, for with an impatient leap he flung open the door and disappeared. Toma remained behind, not sure that his young white friend’s move had been wise, yet believing he could do more to help if he stayed in the cabin. When Dick left the cabin he made straight for the point from which he thought the rifle shot had come. It was growing lighter. In the east a faint gray fan of light showed over the forest—dawn. He ran on for a little way, then he came upon tracks. Pursuing these at a run, he came in sight of the man who had left the cabin an hour before. The meeting was a surprise for both. Dick dodged behind a tree as the other fired from his hip. The ball whizzed harmlessly over Dick’s head, and he shot hastily. His shot also went wild, but the other took to his heels. Dick did not pursue him, but began calling for Sandy. Presently he was rewarded by a distant shout and in a few minutes the chums were reunited. “Did he shoot at you?” Dick queried anxiously. “No, I don’t know what he shot at. Maybe he thought it was me,” Sandy replied. “I’m half frozen. Gosh, it seemed hours out here.” “Let’s hurry back to the cabin,” Dick hastened. “Toma is there, and we’ve captured the scar faced Indian.” Sandy was too cold to care how many Indians had been captured, and he hobbled along after Dick like a stiff, old man. “I hope Toma is all right,” Dick said anxiously as they neared the cabin. On the threshold of the cabin they stood a moment later in stark amazement. Toma lay bleeding and silent on the floor, and the scar faced Indian was gone! “Well, if that doesn’t beat anything!” Dick ejaculated, rushing to Toma. The young guide came to at the application of a little water. His head had been struck with something; an overturned chair revealed what the escaped Indian had probably used. “He slip out ropes some way,” Toma explained when he could sit up once more. “I watch door when him jump on me. That all I know.” “I’m glad you’re alive—that’s all I can say,” Dick said thankfully. “Hello, what’s this?” Sandy hurried from the fireplace where he had been warming himself to the crude wooden table. A slip of paper with writing on it lay among the scattered playing cards. Dick also hastened forward and read the roughly scrawled words:
Dick and Sandy read it aloud to Toma. “This my big brother’s cabin,” Toma explained simply. “Last night I see no one when look in window. I go in. That Many-Scar and other fella come in, ketch me. I not know where Big John is. They not find um black fox. Big John sell um black fox t’ree weeks go by.” Dick and Sandy dropped their eyes. They now felt sure who the man was that Dick had fallen over—the dead man. How could they tell Toma? At last Dick took the guide’s arm. Silently they went out, Sandy following. Toma showed no emotion as they showed him the body partly covered with snow. He might have been a wooden image as he said quietly: “Him Big John Toma; I know before I see. I feel he dead. That Many-Scar——” something choked off his voice. His dark eyes suddenly flashed and glowed like coals of fire. “I wouldn’t give ten cents for Many-Scar’s life, slick as that Indian is,” Sandy whispered. Dick nodded. Though all felt they had no time to lose, since Govereau’s men might be expected to follow them, they could not leave Toma’s brother without burial. All three set to work under the spruce trees, hacking through the frozen soil with axes. In a half hour they had dug a shallow grave. Wrapped in blankets, they gently lowered the body of Big John Toma to its last resting place. Dick fashioned a rude cross from two saplings, which he showed to Toma. The young Indian nodded. “Good; him Christian—me too,” said the guide. When they had placed the last sod on the mound, Dick and Sandy left their friend alone by the grave and went to the cabin to prepare for continuing their journey. They found much pemmican and dried fish, upon which Big John Toma had existed, but nowhere any flour or coffee. By the time they had arranged shoulder packs and had donned whatever warm clothes they had found, Toma had joined them. He seemed his old self once more, though Dick and Sandy knew that behind his mask of indifference was deep sorrow and a mighty resolve for the redskin’s revenge upon the murderer of his brother. The guide refused to take the money Dick offered him for the food and clothing they had taken from Big John’s cabin. “We three days from Fort Dunwoody now,” Toma told them when they were ready for the trail. “Not sure we make um three days. Big blizzard come pretty soon now. Mebbe tomorrow. We get um dog sled then. Need um bad.” All that day Toma led them due southeast, across higher ground, where vegetation was sparse. They crossed one shallow valley where there were no trees at all, and upon a ridge at the other side made camp. It was an advantageous spot from which to watch the back trail, and before they started on they were disturbed by the sight of three tiny figures. The men were undoubtedly on their trail. Straight across the valley they toiled and they were coming fast. “I’ll bet it’s Govereau!” Dick exclaimed in alarm. “Yes, and it looks as if we were only about three miles ahead of him,” Sandy declared. “Let’s get a move on. I don’t want to get mixed up with him again.” “Neither do I,” Dick heartily agreed. Toma was of the same mind, and they all set off at a fast pace when once more they took to the trail. They felt confident they could lengthen the lead on their pursuers, but two hours after noon, when they paused to rest on a high ridge, they looked back and were astounded to see the three men not more than a mile behind them. “Them best trail men Govereau got,” Toma protected his own prowess on finding that he had been outpaced. They started on again, doubling their former speed. A half hour more brought them to the banks of a river. “Him Saskatoon River,” Toma told them. “Him full slush ice. We make um raft in hurry; get over, then we safe from Govereau.” Dick and Sandy looked off across the sullen expanse of the Saskatoon. As Toma had said, it was filled with a slow-moving mass of slush, formed by night freezes and day thaws. They fell to work like Trojans on a raft, lashing dead logs together with tiny saplings and tough vines. It was a cumbersome raft that they at last shoved out into the icy stream. With poles to propel the unwieldy craft, they began the perilous trip across the river. The delay caused by the building of the raft had given their pursuers time to overtake them, and at any moment they expected to hear a shout or rifle shots from the shore they were slowly leaving behind. One side of the raft was heavier than the other, and out in the current they came near being spilled off, before they followed Toma’s example and balanced the logs by shifting their weight from side to side. Pushing on desperately, they reached midstream, when their pursuers reached the river. But the few shots that were fired fell short. The boys had poled the raft out of range. Waving their hands to the chagrined men they reached the other shore and, abandoning their raft, hastened on. Once more snow was spitting out of the gray heavens, and it was growing steadily colder. They hiked for three miles, then Toma advised a halt The guide began immediately throwing up a shelter of boughs. Dick and Sandy helped with a will, and they finished none too soon. With the fall of night the blizzard Toma had prophesied swept down upon them like a thousand, shrieking demons. |
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