The Young Treasure Hunter Part 18

The long whips cracked, Holfax gave his Indian yell to the dogs, they settled into their harness, and once more the sleds were being pulled northward. The dogs seemed to be in better humor after their unexpected meal of frozen fish, and they hauled well together.

It was a bleak and cheerless landscape that lay before the travelers.

The vast snow-covered plain stretched out before them, and, at their backs, was the desolate, black wilderness. Only the hope of gold kept their hearts stout.

Over the hard crust scurried the dogs, their toe-nails scratching the hard ice. Occasionally they yelped or barked, probably in protest at being made to haul such heavy loads. But Holfax kept them at their tasks.

As they advanced the day became dreary in the extreme. The sun was hidden by misty clouds, and the wind was cold and cutting. Then a few fine flakes of snow sifted down.

"Storm come," remarked Holfax, tightening the robes about him.

"Guess you're right," admitted Mr. Baxter. The moisture in the air, which preceded the storm, had, with his breath, condensed on his beard, and about his mouth was a ball of snow, as large as his two fists. He actually had to crush it off his beard before he could speak.

Then with a sudden fury the snow came down in a blinding cloud. Only the fact that the four dog teams were fastened together by a long piece of deer hide prevented them from becoming separated in the fog of frozen crystals.

"Can Holfax see to guide us?" shouted Fred, above the howl of the wind.

"I guess so," answered Mr. Baxter. "We'll have to trust to him, anyhow."

It was the worst weather they had yet met with, and it was all the Indian could do to induce the dogs to continue. It needed the spur of his long whip, and his angry voice, calling to them in strange words, to keep them on the trot.

At last even the hardened Indian had to give it up. It was almost certain death to face that blast from the north any longer.

"Got to camp!" shouted Holfax, above the roar of the gale, and he began to unharness the dogs.

It was desperate work to get the tent up, but they managed to do it, and also to build a roaring fire of logs which the Indian dug out from under the snow with one of the shovels that had been brought along. Then, in the combined shelter of the tent and the upturned sleds, with a big pot of hot tea and some sizzling bacon, the gold hunters tried to forget their hards.h.i.+ps.

But it was not easy to do, and there were grave apprehensions that night whether they would not be frost-bitten before morning. The storm continued all the next day, and it was impossible to proceed. The dogs were buried from sight in big snowdrifts, and Holfax had one hand slightly frozen in digging them out to give them a feed of fish.

But troubles cannot last so very long at a time, and on the morning of the third day the sun came out once more.

"Forward!" cried Mr. Baxter. "We are nearing the place, Fred. In a couple of days we ought to be able to tell whether we are on a wild-goose chase or not."

They crossed the big plain by the next night, and camped at the foot of the mountain range where the gold was supposed to be buried. Mr. Baxter consulted the map, and thought they had come very close to the trail down which Stults had made his way to the settlement, where he had related his strange story.

By daylight Mr. Baxter's views were confirmed by Holfax, who closely examined the map. There was to be seen a tracing of a vast ravine, near which the party had made camp, and this ravine was one of the landmarks by which the place was known. Several expeditions, seeking the gold, had gotten thus far, but when they penetrated the mountains they lost all traces. Either the map was wrong, or they did not properly follow the directions. Would these fortune hunters have any better luck?

Breakfast was hurriedly eaten, the dogs harnessed, and a start made.

Travel had to be very slow now, and it was necessary for the adventurers to walk beside the sleds, as the dogs could not pull the pa.s.sengers and the heavy loads up the steep, snow-covered mountain.

They reached a shoulder of the incline, and stopped to rest. Here Mr.

Baxter consulted the map again.

"I think we had better bear off more to the left," he said. "It looks as if there was a stream there, but it's frozen over."

Holfax agreed with him. It was now quite certain they were at least on part of the very ground mapped out by Stults. But whether they were near the hidden treasure was another question.

They followed the course of the stream as nearly as they could with the sleds, and, after a toilsome climb found themselves on a sort of level place.

"Doesn't look as though we were going to find a waterfall around here,"

remarked Mr. Baxter.

"It certainly does not," added Jerry.

Fred felt his heart sinking. They had come far enough, according to the map, to be at the fall, but there was no sign of It. Was the story all a myth? Was there no waterfall, no cave, no gold?

Fred went a little way ahead. As he turned a place where a big ledge of rock jutted out, hiding what was behind from view, he uttered a cry.

"What's the matter?" asked Mr. Baxter, hurrying up, thinking the lad had been hurt.

"The waterfall!" cried Fred. "There it is, frozen solid! See!"

And so it was. The great cold had solidified, into fantastic shapes, the falling water, until it looked like nothing but a vast ledge of ice, with great columns, like spears, hanging down here and there.

"Now for the cave!" cried Fred, hurrying forward. "It must be at one side of the fall."

Mr. Baxter, Fred, and Jerry hastened forward, while Holfax and Johnson remained behind to look after the dogs, that seemed to develop a sudden wild desire to run away.

It was hard climbing, over the piled-up ma.s.ses of frozen water, and great icicles, but the gold-seekers managed it. Mr. Baxter was in the lead. He pa.s.sed across a frozen pool, into which, during what summer there was in that cold region, the waters of the cataract fell, and then, with a loud shout, he pressed forward.

The boys, close at his heels, saw him headed toward a dark opening. They hurried to join him.

"The cave!" cried Fred. "It's the cave where Stults hid his treasure!"

Mr. Baxter was just at the entrance. As he was about to pa.s.s under the icy ledge, there was an ominous crackling overhead. Fred looked up. To his horror he saw a great icicle, that had become detached from the ma.s.s at the frozen waterfall, come toppling straight down toward where Mr.

Baxter was standing, he having hesitated a moment to look into the black interior of the cavern.

"Look out!" cried Fred. "Go into the cave!" Mr. Baxter comprehended his danger. He took a step forward, but, just then, his foot slipped, and he fell.

The great ma.s.s of ice, sharp as a spear, and weighing a ton or more, was falling straight down on the prostrate man, as if to transfix him.

CHAPTER XVI

DIGGING FOR TREASURE

Fred never could distinctly recall, afterward, how he accomplished it, but he did. As he saw the ma.s.s of ice descending toward Mr. Baxter, the boy, with a swift, comprehensive look, took in the situation. A daring scheme came into his head.

From where he and Jerry stood, on a sort of little hill, the ice descended, in a slope, to the mouth of the cave. The frozen surface was almost as smooth as gla.s.s.

"My father will be killed!" cried Jerry.

Falling downward the great icicle struck with a tinkling sound against the ma.s.ses of ice on either side. Down, down it came.

With a sudden motion Fred threw himself face forward on the icy slope, like a boy coasting down hill on a sled. Only Fred had no sled. But his thick fur garments protected him as much as a contrivance of wood and steel could have done.

Right down the steep, icy slope he slid, straight at the prostrate figure of Mr. Baxter. The man, hampered as he was in his heavy suit of furs, was struggling in vain to rise and get out of the way of the falling ma.s.s of ice.