第52章

"How many ahead?" Smoke asked, as he dropped his tired Hudson Bays and sprang on the waiting sled at the first relay station.

"I counted eleven," the man called after him, for he was already away behind the leaping dogs.

Fifteen miles they were to carry him on the next stage, which would fetch him to the mouth of White River.There were nine of them, but they composed his weakest team.The twenty-five miles between White River and Sixty Mile he had broken into two stages because of ice- jams, and here two of his heaviest, toughest teams were stationed.

He lay on the sled at full length, face-down, holding on with bothhands.Whenever the dogs slacked from topmost speed he rose to his knees, and, yelling and urging, clinging precariously with one hand, threw his whip into them.Poor team that it was, he passed two sleds before White River was reached.Here, at the freeze-up, a jam had piled a barrier allowing the open water, that formed for half a mile below, to freeze smoothly.This smooth stretch enabled the racers to make flying exchanges of sleds, and down all the course they had placed their relays below the jams.

Over the jam and out on to the smooth, Smoke tore along, calling loudly, "Billy! Billy!"Billy heard and answered, and by the light of the many fires on the ice, Smoke saw a sled swing in from the side and come abreast.Its dogs were fresh and overhauled his.As the sleds swerved toward each other he leaped across and Billy promptly rolled off.

"Where's Big Olaf?" Smoke cried.

"Leading!" Billy's voice answered; and the fires were left behind and Smoke was again flying through the wall of blackness.

In the jams of that relay, where the way led across a chaos of up- ended ice-cakes, and where Smoke slipped off the forward end of the sled and with a haul-rope toiled behind the wheel-dog, he passed three sleds.Accidents had happened, and he could hear the men cutting out dogs and mending harnesses.

Among the jams of the next short relay into Sixty Mile, he passed two more teams.And that he might know adequately what had happened to them, one of his own dogs wrenched a shoulder, was unable to keep up, and was dragged in the harness.Its team-mates, angered, fell upon it with their fangs, and Smoke was forced to club them off with the heavy butt of his whip.As he cut the injured animal out, he heard the whining cries of dogs behind him and the voice of a man that was familiar.It was Von Schroeder.Smoke called a warning to prevent a rear-end collision, and the Baron, hawing his animals and swinging on the gee-pole, went by a dozen feet to the side.Yet so impenetrable was the blackness that Smoke heard him pass but never saw him.

On the smooth stretch of ice beside the trading post at Sixty Mile,Smoke overtook two more sleds.All had just changed teams, and for five minutes they ran abreast, each man on his knees and pouring whip and voice into the maddened dogs.But Smoke had studied out that portion of the trail, and now marked the tall pine on the bank that showed faintly in the light of the many fires.Below that pine was not merely darkness, but an abrupt cessation of the smooth stretch.There the trail, he knew, narrowed to a single sled-width.Leaning out ahead, he caught the haul-rope and drew his leaping sled up to the wheel-dog.He caught the animal by the hind-legs and threw it.With a snarl of rage it tried to slash him with its fangs, but was dragged on by the rest of the team.Its body proved an efficient brake, and the two other teams, still abreast, dashed ahead into the darkness for the narrow way.

Smoke heard the crash and uproar of their collision, released his wheeler, sprang to the gee-pole, and urged his team to the right into the soft snow where the straining animals wallowed to their necks.It was exhausting work, but he won by the tangled teams and gained the hard- packed trail beyond.