CHAPTER X THE MUTINEER

Three days out from the mounted police detachment the weather grew suddenly cold and the first snow fell. Without preliminary warning, winter had come. It swept down from the north, a mad trumpeter blowing his blast at the head of a vengeful, icy column. On the morning of the second day after the storm six inches of snow covered the earth.

Dick’s first act was to remove the packs from the ponies and place them on the dog sleighs. This task took less than an hour. With the malemute and husky teams transporting their supplies, they pushed on, discovering that, despite the cold, they now made better progress. Dick drove the mail sledge, while Sandy and Toma had charge of the team which conveyed most of the medicine, not to mention the worthy and genial Dr. Brady himself.
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Brady was popular with everyone. Always in good spirits, he became known for his wit and humor. Although considerably past middle age, he had never contrived to outgrow the young man’s viewpoint. He felt like a boy again. He talked and laughed and played pranks like a boy. To him this incursion into a vast wilderness region was an experience long to be remembered. He insisted upon doing a share of the work, soon learned to drive a dog team and often took his turn in breaking trail.

For the most part, cloudy weather prevailed, with an occasional light snowfall. The country was new to Dick and he was compelled to leave the charting of their route to the guide who had joined their party just previous to their departure.

The guide’s name was Martin Lamont. He was probably of French extraction, although he claimed to be a full-blood Indian. For a native, his skin was too light, his cheekbones too low, and, what was most incredible of all, his dark hair was curly. His nose was large and unsightly, while his lips were thin—thin and bloodless. A slight cast in one hawk’s eye gave him a peculiar squint.

“He can’t help being so murderous-looking, I don’t suppose,” Sandy declared one morning. “Just the same, that eye of his chills me to the bone whenever he looks my way. And did you ever notice, Dick, that horrible scar on his left cheek?”
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“Yes,” Dick replied, “I’ve noticed it. But I think I could endure his looks if only he had a more pleasant disposition. He seldom talks. When he does, it’s usually a grunt or a snarl. A while ago he acted queerly when I asked him to relieve one of the drivers, who was breaking trail.”

Dr. Brady was walking right behind the two boys and evidently had been listening to their conversation, for, at this juncture, he suddenly broke forth:

“He did act queerly—only I think I’d call it defiant. There was a mutinous look in that squint eye of his.”

“It was unprovoked,” said Dick, a little bitterly. “I asked him in a friendly way. It’s only fair that we should all take turn in breaking trail. He’s the only one that seems to object.”

“But what did he say?” Sandy demanded impatiently.

“Nothing,” answered Dick. “Merely muttered something under his breath, glared at me, then walked back behind the last team. He’s sulking there now.”

“I can’t understand it,” Sandy wagged his head. “He volunteered his services and yet doesn’t want to do his part. What would you say is wrong with him, doctor?”

“Haven’t properly diagnosed his case yet,” grinned Brady, “although his symptoms indicate a very serious condition. Offhand, I’d say that he required immediate treatment.”

“He may get it,” Dick hinted darkly.
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Sandy laughed. “Places you in a kind of bad position, doesn’t it, old chap? First thing you know, you’ll lose face with the rest of this outfit. That Nitchie is setting a mighty bad example.”

“Exactly what I think,” appended Brady. “You’re in charge here, aren’t you, Dick?”

“Yes,” Dick nodded. “Worse luck. If it comes to a show-down of course, I’ll have the police behind me. Still, I hate trouble. Sometimes I think I’ll let Mr. Lamont have his own way, and again I feel that to do that will only breed discontent among the others.”

Dick turned and looked up into the physician’s face.

“You’re older than I am, doctor. What would you suggest?”

Dr. Brady’s brow puckered.

“I’m sure I don’t know. I hate to advise you, my boy. You might be inclined to follow it.”

“Out with it,” Dick laughed. “You’re putting me off. What would you do if you were in my place?”

“I don’t like him,” said Dr. Brady, “and I never did. I’ve been watching him ever since we left Mackenzie. His actions are suspicious. His disposition is unbearable. He’s a hard and dirty customer. In spite of which—if I were in your place—I think I’d have it out with him. But if you do, I’m afraid there’ll be trouble.”

“You mean he’ll fight?”
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“Yes, but not openly. He isn’t that type. He’ll wait his chance to get even. It’s hard to say what he’d do.”

For a time they walked on in silence. Then Dick stepped out to one side of the trail, a grim look on his face.

“Well, we’ll soon find out. I’m going back there now.”

Sandy’s eyes opened wide and his gaze followed his chum as he walked back to the end of the line. Brady chuckled. The driver of the team behind turned his head and grinned.

Lamont’s squint eye gleamed balefully as Dick approached. Probably the man knew why Dick had come, sensed the other’s motive.

“A little while ago,” Dick spoke calmly, “I asked you in a nice way if you wouldn’t help out in breaking trail. Why didn’t you go, Martin?”

“Don’ want to go,” grunted the miscreant.

“Why not?”

“What you think,” screeched Lamont, now in a flaming temper, “me be guide an’ do all the work too? I tell him Mr. Police Inspector I go show you the way. That’s all. No work! No break ’em trail! Nothing! Me big fool if I go break ’em trail like you say.”
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“No doubt,” said Dick, endeavoring to control himself. “Just the same, I think you’ll go. All day yesterday you rode on one of the sleighs. You didn’t walk a mile. Is that fair?”

“Sure,” the other answered maliciously. “Me guide here. That’s all I do.”

“And I happen to be boss here with instructions from the man who hired you. Either you’ll do your share of the work or you’ll leave this party. Come now, which is it?”

“Me guide here,” reiterated Lamont. “Sorry you no like it, but I no break trail.”

Dick was in a quandary. He was angry, yet also was he nonplused. He had never encountered a situation like this. He wasn’t quite sure how to proceed. He wished he had Brady at his side to advise him. He was treading on ticklish ground.

“All right, you’ll have to leave the party, Lamont, you understand that.”

Martin grinned across at him, a malevolent, maddening grin. It carried a challenge. Dick’s hand fluttered toward the butt of his revolver, but he caught himself in time.

“Lamont, I’m not fooling. I mean what I say. You’re leaving this party tonight when we make camp. I’ll give you enough rations to take you back to the Mackenzie.”

The guide’s eyes narrowed to two mere slits. There was something venomous, snake-like in his stare.
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“I no go back to the Mackenzie,” he retorted quickly. “I go where I wish. That place I go is Keechewan Mission. How you think you stop me go there?”

“Go there, if you like, but you’ll not go with us.”

“Mebbe not,” said Lamont stubbornly. “We see about that.”

Dick left the man and hurried back to the head of the column. His face was grim and set as he rejoined Sandy and Dr. Brady. An angry flush had mounted to his cheeks. His fists were clenched so hard that the nails dug into the palms of his hands.

“Well,” said Sandy, his voice lowered and anxious, “what did he say? What is he going to do?”

Dick could not trust himself to speak. Rage had overcome him.

“I’ll show him! I’ll show him!” the words kept singing through his brain. “I’ll show him!” rang on the vengeful chant. “He’ll not make a fool of me. Guide—paugh! I’ll show him!”

Then, happening to glance up, he saw that Dr. Brady was looking at him—looking at him with friendly and yet appraising eyes. And in that moment he felt somehow that his measure was being taken by that genial but worldly-wise physician.

“He provoked me,” said Dick by way of apology. “Lost my temper. He refuses to break trail, to work—to do anything at all except just loaf around and point out the way to Keechewan Mission.”
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“And what did you say to that?”

“I told him that I didn’t propose to put up with it. I said that he’d have to go. Tonight, when we make camp, I’ll give him rations, send him on his way. He’s through.”

“I don’t blame you. I think you’re doing the right thing,” declared Dr. Brady. “We’ll be better off without him.”

“I wish I could believe that,” Sandy suddenly interjected. “You say we’re better off without him—but are we? When he leaves us, who’ll show us the way? Lamont is the only member of this party who has been to Keechewan. There’s no trail. We can wander miles off our course, get ourselves into all sorts of difficulties and dangers—freeze and starve and heaven knows what. The Barrens is a horrible place in winter, a death-trap if you don’t know it. My Uncle Walter has been there and he told me about it. It makes me shiver to think about it. Well named the Barren Lands. An eternity of snow and utter desolation. You simply travel on and on and on—and get nowhere. Twenty years from now some wandering Eskimo will kick your bleached skeleton out of his path.”

“Can’t help it,” said Dick stubbornly. “That man goes.”
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“You’re in charge here, of course. I know it’s hard to put up with his insolence and his bad example, still——”

“Yes,” said Dr. Brady, who had become very much interested in Sandy’s point of view, “tell us the rest of it. I’m very anxious to hear.”

“There’s nothing more to tell,” confessed the young Scotchman. “I’m merely asking Dick to think this thing over very carefully before he comes to a decision. Even if we don’t get lost without a guide, we’re certain to be delayed. You know what that means?”

“Delays mean human lives. Is that it? Is that what you’re thinking?”

“Yes. Inspector Cameron wants us to get through to Keechewan as quickly as possible. It’s important. It’s imperative. What if we do have to humor Lamont? Better to let him ride every foot of the way and lord it over us than let all those poor devils die without a chance.”

“Sandy,” declared Dick—and his voice caught—“you’ve won me over. If I dismissed Lamont now I’d—I’d have blood on my hands.”

Dr. Brady did not speak for a moment His face was grave and thoughtful.

“What do you think about it?” Dick asked.

“A peculiar situation,” finally admitted Brady. “Lamont ought to be punished, of course. He’s a miserable bounder, to say the least. But——”
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“Sandy’s logic and good sense has convinced you too.”

“Exactly.”

“We’ll have to keep that guide no matter what happens,”

“We’ll have to keep him,” said the doctor.

“Even if I’m compelled to apologize to him,” grimaced Dick, “and cook his meals and wait on him hand and foot, we’ll have to keep him.”

“There’s no other way. You can punish him when you get to Keechewan, of course. I’d suggest turning him over to the policeman up there, your Corporal Rand.”

Silence settled down again, broken only by the cracking of whips and the sharp cries of the dog drivers. The afternoon slowly wore on. An overcast sky brought the darkness early. Yet they pushed on for nearly an hour through the gloom before Dick gave orders to halt and make camp.

“We’ve made a record today,” exulted Sandy, as he came forward to assist Dick in unharnessing the malemutes from the mail-sledge. “We must have come nearly forty miles. With a good snow-crust, we’ll do even better than that.”

Dick was about to answer, when he became aware of a form emerging from the dark. A familiar voice accosted him:

“Is that you, Dick?”
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“You bet! Why hello, Toma. Where’s your team?”

“I get ’em off harness already. Feed ’em fish. Bye-’n’-bye they crawl in snowdrift an’ go to sleep.”

“Tired enough to do that myself,” declared Sandy. Toma came closer. He took Dick’s arm.

“You know that fellow, Lamont,” he began eagerly.

“Yes, yes,” said Dick. “What’s he done now?”

“He tell ’em me to give you this,” answered Toma, placing something in Dick’s hand.

A small, flat object of some flexible material, which felt like leather. Dick fumbled in his pockets for a match and struck it. The sudden tiny glare revealed nothing more than a piece of birch bark, blank on one side, a pencilled scrawl on the other. Presently, with the help of another match, he made out two words wholly unintelligible: “god by.”

“God by,” asked Dick perplexedly. “What does that mean?”

“It means,” answered the quick-witted Sandy in a voice that was unusually calm, “that Lamont has left us. Can’t you see? Gone!”

“But this thing—these words, I mean—what——”

“He couldn’t spell. It’s ‘good-bye.’ He’s gone, I tell you.”

Bewildered, weary, disheartened, Dick stared miserably out into the enveloping darkness.