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 both
hands. 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!”
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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.
S
moke 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.
VI.
On the relay out of Sixty Mile, Smoke had next to his poorest team,
and though the going was good, he had set it a short fifteen miles.
Two more teams would bring him in to Dawson and to the Gold-
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Recorder’s office, and Smoke had selected his best animals for the
last two stretches. Sitka Charley himself waited with the eight
Malemutes that would jerk Smoke along for twenty miles, and for the
finish, with a fifteen-mile run, was his own team–the team he had
had all winter and which had been with him in the search for
Surprise Lake.
The two men he had left entangled at Sixty Mile failed to overtake
him, and, on the other hand, his team failed to overtake any of the
three that still led. His animals were willing, though they lacked
stamina and speed, and little urging was needed to keep them jumping
into it at their best. There was nothing for Smoke to do but to lie
face-downward and hold on. Now and again he would plunge out of the
darkness into the circle of light about a blazing fire, catch a
glimpse of furred men standing by harnessed and waiting dogs, and
plunge into the darkness again. Mile after mile, with only the
grind and jar of the runners in his ears, he sped on. Almost
automatically he kept his place as the sled bumped ahead or half-
lifted and heeled on the swings and swerves of the bends. First
one, and then another, without apparent rhyme or reason, three faces
limned themselves on his consciousness: Joy Gastell’s, laughing and
audacious; Shorty’s, battered and exhausted by the struggle down
Mono Creek; and John Bellew’s, seamed and rigid, as if cast in iron,
so unrelenting was its severity. And sometimes Smoke wanted to
shout aloud, to chant a paean of savage exultation, as he remembered
the office of the Billow and the serial story of San Francisco which
he had left unfinished, along with the other fripperies of those
empty days.
The grey twilight of morning was breaking as he exchanged his weary
dogs for the eight fresh Malemutes. Lighter animals than Hudson
Bays, they were capable of greater speed, and they ran with the
supple tirelessness of true wolves. Sitka Charley called out the
order of the teams ahead. Big Olaf led, Arizona Bill was second,
and Von Schroeder third. These were the three best men in the
country. In fact, ere Smoke had left Dawson, the popular betting
had placed them in that order. While they were racing for a
million, at least half a million had been staked by others on the
outcome of the race. No one had bet on Smoke, who, despite his
several known exploits, was still accounted a chechaquo with much to
learn.
As daylight strengthened, Smoke caught sight of a sled ahead, and,
in half an hour, his own lead-dog was leaping at its tail. Not
until the man turned his head to exchange greetings, did Smoke
recognize him as Arizona Bill. Von Schroeder had evidently passed
him. The trail, hard-packed, ran too narrowly through the soft
snow, and for another half-hour Smoke was forced to stay in the
rear. Then they topped an ice-jam and struck a smooth stretch
below, where were a number of relay camps and where the snow was
packed widely. On his knees, swinging his whip and yelling, Smoke
drew abreast. He noted that Arizona Bill’s right arm hung dead at
his side, and that he was compelled to pour leather with his left
hand. Awkward as it was, he had no hand left with which to hold on,
and frequently he had to cease from the whip and clutch to save
himself from falling off. Smoke remembered the scrimmage in the
creek bed at Three Below Discovery, and understood. Shorty’s advice
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had been sound.
“What’s happened?” Smoke asked, as he began to pull ahead.
“I don’t know,” Arizona Bill answered. “I think I threw my shoulder
out in the scrapping.”
He dropped behind very slowly, though when the last relay station
was in sight he was fully half a mile in the rear. Ahead, bunched
together, Smoke could see Big Olaf and Von Schroeder. Again Smoke
arose to his knees, and he lifted his jaded dogs into a burst of
speed such as a man only can who has the proper instinct for dog-
driving. He drew up close to the tail of Von Schroeder’s sled, and
in this order the three sleds dashed out on the smooth going, below
a jam, where many men and many dogs waited. Dawson was fifteen
miles away.
Von Schroeder, with his ten-mile relays, had changed five miles
back, and would change five miles ahead. So he held on, keeping his
dogs at full leap. Big Olaf and Smoke made flying changes, and
their fresh teams immediately regained what had been lost to the
Baron. Big Olaf led past, and Smoke followed into the narrow trail
beyond.
“Still good, but not so good,” Smoke paraphrased Spencer to himself.
Of Von Schroeder, now behind, he had no fear; but ahead was the