The Young Treasure Hunter Part 14

Suddenly Fred, whose sled was in advance, uttered a cry, and pointed to what seemed like a black rock on the snow.

"What is it?" called Mr. Baxter.

"A moose! A big moose! I'm going to have a shot at it!"

As he spoke Holfax gave a cry, and the dogs of all the sleds stopped.

Fred was busy loosening the fur robe that covered him in order to get up.

"Take the snowshoes!" advised Mr. Baxter.

The driver of Fred's sled must have understood, for he handed the boy a pair of the contrivances which enable one to walk on top of soft snow.

Fred, with the Indian's aid, quickly adjusted them. By this time the moose, which had been nosing under the snow to get the mosses which grow there, and on which it feeds, lifted its immense head with the sweeping horns.

"Oh! He's a beauty!" cried Fred. "I wonder if I can get him?"

"I'll help!" cried Jerry.

"No, let Fred see if he can't get it alone," advised Mr. Baxter.

With a snort the big animal was off, but the snow was deep, and it sank down at every step. Holding his rifle in readiness, Fred glided forward on the snowshoes. They gave him a great advantage over the beast, for otherwise he would not have been able to get anywhere near it.

As it was, even with sinking to its shoulders at every plunge, the big brute was slowly distancing the boy. Fred determined on a long shot, for he was a fair marksman. Taking as good aim as he could in the excitement of the moment, he fired.

The moose plunged on.

"You've missed!" cried Jerry.

Fred fired once more. But there was no need. By great good luck his one bullet had reached a vital spot, and a moment later the big moose sank down in the snow.

CHAPTER XII

LOST IN THE SNOW

With shouts of joy at the prospect of plenty of fresh meat, the Indians leaped from the sleds, donned showshoes, and were soon at the side of the dead moose. Mr. Baxter, Jerry and the colored man followed.

"Yo' suah am a good shot, Ma.s.sa Fred," complimented Johnson. "I once shot a wild turkey, an' goodness, I was so puffed up I hardly knowed mahself."

"I guess it was more due to good luck than anything else that I hit him," said Fred modestly.

"Well, it's just in time for dinner," remarked Mr. Baxter. "It will be a welcome relief from the canned stuff."

"I'se gwine t' look out fo' suthin' t' shoot after dis," announced Johnson. Absent-mindedly he had taken off his heavy mittens to feel of the antlers of the moose, and without thinking what he was doing, he took hold of his rifle barrel in his bare hand. The next instant he uttered a howl of anguish.

"What's the matter?" asked Mr. Baxter quickly.

"Mah hand! It's froze fast t' mah gun! Ah cain't git it off!"

This was true. So intense was the cold that the moment the colored man placed his warm and somewhat moist hand on the steel the flesh had frozen fast. This is a common occurrence in the far north, and travelers, knowing it, are careful never to grasp anything of metal in their bare hands. But the colored man, though he had been warned against this, had forgotten it.

"Quick! Put some snow on and then wrap his hand up in a blanket!" called Mr. Baxter. "He'll lose a finger or two if we don't."

It was the work of but an instant for Fred to scoop up some snow in his big mitten, place it over the negro's hand and part of the rifle barrel and then throw a fur robe over his whole arm, thus shutting out the terrible cold for a moment. The treatment was effective, the snow melted the ice between Johnson's hand and the metal, and in a few seconds the hand had thawed loose.

"It done feel jest laik a burn," remarked Johnson as he drew on his mitten again.

"Yes, intense cold such as we are now in does feel for a moment almost like heat to the naked flesh," said Mr. Baxter. "Let this be a lesson to all of us. We must exercise the greatest care, or some of us will have frost-bitten hands or feet, to say nothing of our noses."

By this time the Indians were skinning and cutting up the moose. It would have been hard work in a region where everything froze solid almost the minute life left it, but Holfax and his men built a big fire, and in the warmth of that they worked. Every one had a good dinner, even the dogs, who feasted to their hearts' content on moose meat. Some was left to freeze, to be packed on the sleds for future use.

Once more they started the dogs northward, the day soon coming to a close, as the short-lived sun went down, and the Northern Lights began to play.

Their camp that night was not disturbed by any wolves, and they made an early start the next day, coming a few miles nearer to the mountains which they hoped held the store of buried gold.

As they approached a region where the going would be hard, for it was mostly up hill, Mr. Baxter decided to make a camp where they could remain a day or so to give the dogs a chance to rest. Some of the animals had sore feet, where they had been cut by the sharp ice, and, as the dogs were their only means of transportation, it was necessary to take good care of them.

Accordingly they stopped that afternoon on the edge of a big wood which, Holfax said, would take them two days to get through. It was a gloomy forest, stretching for miles and miles throughout the heart of Alaska, and beyond it lay the mountain range where Stults, the German hunter, had been pursued by the fierce Indians, to escape from whom he had hidden his gold.

The tent was put up for the adventurers, and the Indians made themselves a shelter of the sleds, heaping snow up around them and spreading blankets across the top. Then, with a good fire, there was more comfort than at first would seem possible to get in a country where, at that season, it was seldom warmer than ten or fifteen degrees below zero.

They slept better that night than they had any previous one since starting on their land journey, for the terrible cold had somewhat abated. The next day the sun shone brightly, and the two boys decided to take a little trip for exercise, since sitting on a sled, weighted down by fur robes, had made their muscles stiff.

They put on their snowshoes, and with their rifles started off. They hoped they might see another moose, or a musk ox, or, at least, an Arctic fox, at which to take a shot.

"Don't go too far," cautioned Mr. Baxter. "There's no telling when a snowstorm may come up, and you can lose your way very easily up here."

They started off, and, as Holfax had said it was rather dangerous to go into the forest because of the numbers of fierce wolves that might be there, they moved southward across the plain over which they had just come.

The sun shone brightly on the snow, which was unrelieved by a single dark object. It was one vast extent of dazzling white.

At first it was beautiful, so still and quiet, and with the sun up there was some relief from the piercing cold, that even seemed to strike through their thick garments. But there was a danger they did not know about.

"See tracks of anything?" asked Fred when they had gone some distance and were out of sight of the camp, which was down in a sort of hollow.

"No. Do you?"

"Not a thing. Let's keep on a little farther."

They walked on for perhaps another mile, their snowshoes making travel easy. But there was no sight of game. Not even a wolf showed itself.

"Guess we'd better go back," remarked Fred at length. "There doesn't seem to be anything here. Say, my eyes smart something fierce. How about yours?"

"Mine do, too. I wonder what it is?"

"I don't know. Say, the sun must be going down. It's getting dark. We must have been out longer than we thought."