Argosy All-Story Weekly, June 27, 1925 — page 94: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

He took a small pack, with enough food far two days, a blanket of woven rabbit skin, and his hand ax. Whitey Wilkins watched him as he waxed his skis with a bit of melted candle to keep them from sticking to the soft snow; watched as he slid down tothe river and struck off with long, sliding steps across the snow-covered ice. Then he looked at the toboggan leaning against the wall. “Toboggan an’ no dogs,” thought Whitey. ‘Gee, I'd hate to be in a tight corner where dogs meant anything. If Ba- teese can find dogs in this country he’s a wonder,” Bateese came back the following day. He came overland, for he had circled back into the hills on his quest. He slid down to the river at Elbow Bend and made for camp in short order. “ No luck, eh?” Whitey greeted him. “ Sacré!” Bateese was in bad humor. " Nevaire have I seen it so before. I fin’ cabin here, cabin dere. But men? No! Not one Injun do I see. An’ dogs! Whitey, I tole you there are not of dogs one p’tit chien, one leetle dog, in dis country.” “You don’t surprise me none,” Whitey laughed. “ Good thing we ain’t dependin’ on them. But it’s funny you didn’t see signs o’ any folks. Wonder what’s up?” “Me, I don’ know.”” Bateese shook his head doubtfully. “ But come, there’s black ice on the river. The warm win’ has melt the snow. Now it turn col’ an’ bimeby snow some more. An’ before the snow she come again we go get some muskrat.” “ Suits me.” Whitey picked up the traps and followed his big partner. The snow on the river had gone to a large extent. In places black ice showed. But along the shore drifts still lay. They made good time to Elbow Bend, and once there Bateese slipped out of his skis. It was tricky walking. In places the cold snap following the thaw had made a crust that would bear. In other places a man would be floundering hip deep in the old drifts of early winter which had survived the soft spell. Bateese made his way along the shore, picking up marks which, in the open season he had noted, marks that would guide him ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. to the feeding beds below the ice, where muskrat might be trapped even in the depth of winter. Out from the banked snow along the shore projected a spur of rounded white- ness—the old log where they had caught their first rat. “Holal” Bateese knocked it with the head of his hand ax. ‘“ The good luck log, mon ami!” he cried. The log shook. A shower of icy flakes fell from it. The gray bark showed through here and there. Bateese jumped up on it and looked out across the river. And then —his foot slipped. He lost his balance, strove to right himself. But the icy log was slippery. His boots could get no grip on its rounded smoothness. Both feet shot upward. His last convul- sive effort turned his big body half over in the air. He fell, hip to log. The hand ax, swinging round, caught him above the tem- ple, stunning him. Whitey Wilkins, a good hundred feet away, heard something crack. The smile with which he had greeted his partner’s an- tics vanished. He came running up. When he got there Big Bateese was lying limp across the log, his face white, his lips tight across teeth that ground convulsively together in agony. His thigh bone had snapped. The splintered ends were jabbing the tender flash. “Good luck tree.” The thought flashed across Whitey Wilkins’s mind, even as he stooped over his partner, to be erased by another thought even more disquieting. “No dogs!” Eighty miles of rough going between their camp and the nearest help. And no dogs. When, after two hours’ back-breaking work he had fetched the toboggan, eased Ba- teese’s limp body upon it, and dragged it back to camp, he appreciated still further what the lack of dogs meant. He had dragged that toboggan a mile, and he was exhausted. There was a mis- sionary with a rudimental knowledge of surgery at the trading post, Fort Peril, eighty miles away. But so far as Bateese was concerned, he might as well be in Greenland. Whitey got the big man into his bunk, MAICLOO© () Co SS Co