The Race For Number One

: Smoke Bellew

I.



"Huh! Get on to the glad rags!"



Shorty surveyed his partner with simulated disapproval, and Smoke,

vainly attempting to rub the wrinkles out of the pair of trousers he

had just put on, was irritated.



"They sure fit you close for a second-hand buy," Shorty went on.

"What was the tax?"



"One hundred and fifty for the suit," Smoke answered. "The man as

nearly my own size. I thought it was remarkable reasonable. What

are you kicking about?"



"Who? Me? Oh, nothin'. I was just thinkin' it was goin' some for

a meat-eater that hit Dawson in an ice-jam, with no grub, one suit

of underclothes, a pair of mangy moccasins, an' overalls that looked

like they'd ben through the wreck of the Hesperus. Pretty gay

front, pardner. Pretty gay front. Say--?"



"What do you want now?" Smoke demanded testily.



"What's her name?"



"There isn't any her, my friend. I'm to have dinner at Colonel

Bowie's, if you want to know. The trouble with you, Shorty, is

you're envious because I'm going into high society and you're not

invited."



"Ain't you some late?" Shorty queried with concern.





"What do you mean?"



"For dinner. They'll be eatin' supper when you get there."



Smoke was about to explain with elaborate sarcasm when he caught the

twinkle in the others' eyes. He went on dressing, with fingers that

had lost their deftness, tying a Windsor tie in a bow-knot at the

throat of the soft cotton shirt.



"Wish I hadn't sent all my starched shirts to the laundry," Shorty

murmured sympathetically. "I might a-fitted you out."



By this time Smoke was straining at a pair of shoes. The thick

woollen socks were too thick to go into them. He looked appealingly

at Shorty, who shook his head.



"Nope. If I had thin ones I wouldn't lend 'em to you. Back to the

moccasins, pardner. You'd sure freeze your toes in skimpy-fangled

gear like that."



"I paid fifteen dollars for them, second-hand," Smoke lamented.



"I reckon they won't be a man not in moccasins."



"But there are to be women, Shorty. I'm going to sit down and eat

with real live women--Mrs Bowie, and several others, so the Colonel

told me."



"Well, moccasins won't spoil their appetite none," was Shorty's

comment. "Wonder what the Colonel wants with you?"



"I don't know, unless he's heard about my finding Surprise Lake. It

will take a fortune to drain it, and the Guggenheims are out for

investment."



"Reckon that's it. That's right, stick to the moccasins. Gee!

That coat is sure wrinkled, an' it fits you a mite too swift. Just

peck around at your vittles. If you eat hearty you'll bust through.

And if them women-folks gets to droppin' handkerchiefs, just let 'em

lay. Don't do any pickin' up. Whatever you do, don't."







II.



As became a high-salaried expert and the representative of the great

house of Guggenheim, Colonel Bowie lived in one of the most

magnificent cabins in Dawson. Of squared logs, hand-hewn, it was

two stories high, and of such extravagant proportions that it

boasted a big living room that was used for a living room and for

nothing else.



Here were big bear-skins on the rough board floor, and on the walls

horns of moose and caribou. Here roared an open fireplace and a big

wood-burning stove. And here Smoke met the social elect of Dawson--

not the mere pick-handle millionaires, but the ultra-cream of a

mining city whose population had been recruited from all the world--

men like Warburton Jones, the explorer and writer, Captain Consadine

of the Mounted Police, Haskell, Gold Commissioner of the North-West

Territory, and Baron Von Schroeder, an emperor's favourite with an

international duelling reputation.



And here, dazzling in evening gown, he met Joy Gastell, whom

hitherto he had encountered only on trail, befurred and moccasined.

At dinner he found himself beside her.



"I feel like a fish out of water," he confessed. "All you folks are

so real grand you know. Besides I never dreamed such oriental

luxury existed in the Klondike. Look at Von Schroeder there. He's

actually got a dinner jacket, and Consadine's got a starched shirt.

I noticed he wore moccasins just the same. How do you like MY

outfit?"



He moved his shoulders about as if preening himself for Joy's

approval.



"It looks as if you'd grown stout since you came over the Pass," she

laughed.



"Wrong. Guess again."



"It's somebody else's."



"You win. I bought it for a price from one of the clerks at the A.

C. Company."



"It's a shame clerks are so narrow-shouldered," she sympathized.

"And you haven't told me what you think of MY outfit."



"I can't," he said. "I'm out of breath. I've been living on trail

too long. This sort of thing comes to me with a shock, you know.

I'd quite forgotten that women have arms and shoulders. To-morrow

morning, like my friend Shorty, I'll wake up and know it's all a

dream. Now, the last time I saw you on Squaw Creek--"



"I was just a squaw," she broke in.



"I hadn't intended to say that. I was remembering that it was on

Squaw Creek that I discovered you had feet."



"And I can never forget that you saved them for me," she said.

"I've been wanting to see you ever since to thank you--" (He

shrugged his shoulders deprecatingly). "And that's why you are here

to-night--"



"You asked the Colonel to invite me?"



"No! Mrs Bowie. And I asked her to let me have you at table. And

here's my chance. Everybody's talking. Listen, and don't

interrupt. You know Mono Creek?"



"Yes."



"It has turned out rich--dreadfully rich. They estimate the claims

as worth a million and more apiece. It was only located the other

day."



"I remember the stampede."



"Well, the whole creek was staked to the sky-line, and all the

feeders, too. And yet, right now, on the main creek, Number Three

below Discovery is unrecorded. The creek was so far away from

Dawson that the Commissioner allowed sixty days for recording after

location. Every claim was recorded except Number Three Below. It

was staked by Cyrus Johnson. And that was all. Cyrus Johnson has

disappeared. Whether he died, whether he went down river or up,

nobody knows. Anyway, in six days, the time for recording will be

up. Then the man who stakes it, and reaches Dawson first and

records it, gets it."



"A million dollars," Smoke murmured.



"Gilchrist, who has the next claim below, has got six hundred

dollars in a single pan off bedrock. He's burned one hole down.

And the claim on the other side is even richer. I know."



"But why doesn't everybody know?" Smoke queried skeptically.



"They're beginning to know. They kept it secret for a long time,

and it is only now that it's coming out. Good dog-teams will be at

a premium in another twenty-four hours. Now, you've got to get away

as decently as you can as soon as dinner is over. I've arranged it.

An Indian will come with a message for you. You read it, let on

that you're very much put out, make your excuses, and get away."



"I--er--I fail to follow."



"Ninny!" she exclaimed in a half-whisper. "What you must do is to

get out to-night and hustle dog-teams. I know of two. There's

Hanson's team, seven big Hudson Bay dogs--he's holding them at four

hundred each. That's top price to-night, but it won't be to-morrow.

And Sitka Charley has eight Malemutes he's asking thirty-five

hundred for. To-morrow he'll laugh at an offer of five thousand.

Then you've got your own team of dogs. And you'll have to buy

several more teams. That's your work to-night. Get the best. It's

dogs as well as men that will win this race. It's a hundred and ten

miles, and you'll have to relay as frequently as you can."



"Oh, I see, you want me to go in for it," Smoke drawled.



"If you haven't the money for the dogs, I'll--"



She faltered, but before she could continue, Smoke was speaking.



"I can buy the dogs. But--er--aren't you afraid this is gambling?"



"After your exploits at roulette in the Elkhorn," she retorted, "I'm

not afraid that you're afraid. It's a sporting proposition, if

that's what you mean. A race for a million, and with some of the

stiffest dog-mushers and travellers in the country entered against

you. They haven't entered yet, but by this time to-morrow they

will, and dogs will be worth what the richest man can afford to pay.

Big Olaf is in town. He came up from Circle City last month. He is

one of the most terrible dog-mushers in the country, and if he

enters he will be your most dangerous man. Arizona Bill is another.

He's been a professional freighter and mail-carrier for years. It

he goes in, interest will be centred on him and Big Olaf."



"And you intend me to come along as a sort of dark horse."



"Exactly. And it will have its advantages. You will not be

supposed to stand a show. After all, you know, you are still

classed as a chechaquo. You haven't seen the four seasons go

around. Nobody will take notice of you until you come into the home

stretch in the lead."



"It's on the home stretch the dark horse is to show up its classy

form, eh?"



She nodded, and continued earnestly. "Remember, I shall never

forgive myself for the trick I played on the Squaw Creek Stampede

until you win this Mono claim. And if any man can win this race

against the old-timers, it's you."



It was the way she said it. He felt warm all over, and in his heart

and head. He gave her a quick, searching look, involuntary and

serious, and for the moment that her eyes met his steadily, ere they

fell, it seemed to him that he read something of vaster import than

the claim Cyrus Johnson had failed to record.



"I'll do it," he said. "I'll win it."



The glad light in her eyes seemed to promise a greater need than all

the gold in the Mono claim. He was aware of a movement of her hand

in her lap next to his. Under the screen of the tablecloth he

thrust his own hand across and met a firm grip of woman's fingers

that sent another wave of warmth through him.



"What will Shorty say?" was the thought that flashed whimsically

through his mind as he withdrew his hand. He glanced almost

jealously at the faces of Von Schroeder and Jones, and wondered if

they had not divined the remarkableness and deliciousness of this

woman who sat beside him.



He was aroused by her voice, and realized that she had been speaking

some moments.



"So you see, Arizona Bill is a white Indian," she was saying. "And

Big Olaf is--a bear wrestler, a king of the snows, a mighty savage.

He can out-travel and out-endure an Indian, and he's never known any

other life but that of the wild and the frost."



"Who's that?" Captain Consadine broke in from across the table.



"Big Olaf," she answered. "I was just telling Mr Bellew what a

traveller he is."



"You're right," the Captain's voice boomed. "Big Olaf is the

greatest traveller in the Yukon. I'd back him against Old Nick

himself for snow-bucking and ice-travel. He brought in the

government dispatches in 1895, and he did it after two couriers were

frozen on Chilcoot and the third drowned in the open water of Thirty

Mile."







III.



Smoke had travelled in a leisurely fashion up to Mono Creek, fearing

to tire his dogs before the big race. Also, he had familiarized

himself with every mile of the trail and located his relay camps.

So many men had entered the race, that the hundred and ten miles of

its course was almost a continuous village. Relay camps were

everywhere along the trail. Von Schroeder, who had gone in purely

for the sport, had no less than eleven dog teams--a fresh one for

every ten miles. Arizona Bill had been forced to content himself

with eight teams. Big Olaf had seven, which was the complement of

Smoke. In addition, over two-score of other men were in the

running. Not every day, even in the golden north, was a million

dollars the prize for a dog race. The country had been swept of

dogs. No animal of speed and endurance escaped the fine-tooth comb

that had raked the creeks and camps, and the prices of dogs had

doubled and quadrupled in the course of the frantic speculation.



Number Three Below Discovery was ten miles up Mono Creek from its

mouth. The remaining hundred miles was to be run on the frozen

breast of the Yukon. On Number Three itself were fifty tents and

over three hundred dogs. The old stakes, blazed and scrawled sixty

days before by Cyrus Johnson, still stood, and every man had gone

over the boundaries of the claim again and again, for the race with

dogs was to be preceded by a foot and obstacle race. Each man had

to re-locate the claim for himself, and this meant that he must

place two centre-stakes and four corner-stakes and cross the creek

twice, before he could start for Dawson with his dogs.



Furthermore, there were to be no 'sooners.' Not until the stroke of

midnight of Friday night was the claim open for re-location, and not

until the stroke of midnight could a man plant a stake. This was

the ruling of the Gold Commissioner at Dawson, and Captain Consadine

had sent up a squad of mounted police to enforce it. Discussion had

arisen about the difference between sun-time and police-time, but

Consadine had sent forth his fiat that police time went, and,

further, that it was the watch of Lieutenant Pollock that went.



The Mono trail ran along the level creek-bed, and, less than two

feet in width, was like a groove, walled on either side by the snow-

fall of months. The problem of how forty-odd sleds and three

hundred dogs were to start in so narrow a course was in everybody's

mind.



"Huh!" said Shorty. "It's goin' to be the gosh-dangdest mix-up that

ever was. I can't see no way out, Smoke, except main strength an'

sweat an' to plow through. If the whole creek was glare-ice they

ain't room for a dozen teams abreast. I got a hunch right now

they's goin' to be a heap of scrappin' before they get strung out.

An' if any of it comes our way you got to let me do the punchin'."



Smoke squared his shoulders and laughed non-committally.



"No you don't!" his partner cried in alarm. "No matter what

happens, you don't dast hit. You can't handle dogs a hundred miles

with a busted knuckle, an' that's what'll happen if you land on

somebody's jaw."



Smoke nodded his head.



"You're right, Shorty. I couldn't risk the chance."



"An' just remember," Shorty went on, "that I got to do all the

shovin' for them first ten miles an' you got to take it easy as you

can. I'll sure jerk you through to the Yukon. After that it's up

to you an' the dogs. Say--what d'ye think Schroeder's scheme is?

He's got his first team a quarter of a mile down the creek an' he'll

know it by a green lantern. But we got him skinned. Me for the red

flare every time."







IV.



The day had been clear and cold, but a blanket of cloud formed

across the face of the sky and the night came on warm and dark, with

the hint of snow impending. The thermometer registered fifteen

below zero, and in the Klondike-winter fifteen below is esteemed

very warm.



At a few minutes before midnight, leaving Shorty with the dogs five

hundred yards down the creek, Smoke joined the racers on Number

Three. There were forty-five of them waiting the start for the

thousand-thousand dollars Cyrus Johnson had left lying in the frozen

gravel. Each man carried six stakes and a heavy wooden mallet, and

was clad in a smock-like parka of heavy cotton drill.



Lieutenant Pollock, in a big bearskin coat, looked at his watch by

the light of a fire. It lacked a minute of midnight.



"Make ready," he said, as he raised a revolver in his right hand and

watched the second hand tick around.



Forty-five hoods were thrown back from the parkas. Forty-five pairs

of hands unmittened, and forty-five pairs of moccasins pressed

tensely into the packed snow. Also, forty-five stakes were thrust

into the snow, and the same number of mallets lifted in the air.



The shots rang out, and the mallets fell. Cyrus Johnson's right to

the million had expired. To prevent confusion, Lieutenant Pollock

had insisted that the lower centre-stake be driven first, next the

south-eastern; and so on around the four sides, including the upper

centre-stake on the way.



Smoke drove in his stake and was away with the leading dozen. Fires

had been lighted at the corners, and by each fire stood a policeman,

list in hand, checking off the names of the runners. A man was

supposed to call out his name and show his face. There was to be no

staking by proxy while the real racer was off and away down the

creek.



At the first corner, beside Smoke's stake, Von Schroeder placed his.

The mallets struck at the same instant. As they hammered, more

arrived from behind and with such impetuosity as to get in one

another's way and cause jostling and shoving. Squirming through the

press and calling his name to the policeman, Smoke saw the Baron,

struck in collision by one of the rushers, hurled clean off his feet

into the snow. But Smoke did not wait. Others were still ahead of

him. By the light of the vanishing fire he was certain that he saw

the back, hugely looming, of Big Olaf, and at the south-western

corner Big Olaf and he drove their stakes side by side.



It was no light work, this preliminary obstacle race. The

boundaries of the claim totalled nearly a mile, and most of it was

over the uneven surface of a snow-covered, niggerhead flat. All

about Smoke men tripped and fell, and several times he pitched

forward himself, jarringly, on hands and knees. Once, Big Olaf fell

so immediately in front of him as to bring him down on top.



The upper centre-stake was driven by the edge of the bank, and down

the bank the racers plunged, across the frozen creek-bed, and up the

other side. Here, as Smoke clambered, a hand gripped his ankle and

jerked him back. In the flickering light of a distant fire, it was

impossible to see who had played the trick. But Arizona Bill, who

had been treated similarly, rose to his feet and drove his fist with

a crunch into the offender's face. Smoke saw and heard as he was

scrambling to his feet, but before he could make another lunge for

the bank a fist dropped him half-stunned into the snow. He

staggered up, located the man, half-swung a hook for his jaw, then

remembered Shorty's warning and refrained. The next moment, struck

below the knees by a hurtling body, he went down again.



It was a foretaste of what would happen when the men reached their

sleds. Men were pouring over the other bank and piling into the

jam. They swarmed up the bank in bunches, and in bunches were

dragged back by their impatient fellows. More blows were struck,

curses rose from the panting chests of those who still had wind to

spare, and Smoke, curiously visioning the face of Joy Gastell, hoped

that the mallets would not be brought into play. Overthrown, trod

upon, groping in the snow for his lost stakes, he at last crawled

out of the crush and attacked the bank farther along. Others were

doing this, and it was his luck to have many men in advance of him

in the race for the northwestern corner.



Down to the fourth corner, he tripped midway and in the long

sprawling fall lost his remaining stake. For five minutes he groped

in the darkness before he found it, and all the time the panting

runners were passing him. From the last corner to the creek he

began overtaking men for whom the mile-run had been too much. In

the creek itself Bedlam had broken loose. A dozen sleds were piled

up and overturned, and nearly a hundred dogs were locked in combat.

Among them men struggled, tearing the tangled animals apart, or

beating them apart with clubs. In the fleeting glimpse he caught of

it, Smoke wondered if he had ever seen a Dore grotesquery to

compare.



Leaping down the bank beyond the glutted passage, he gained the

hard-footing of the sled-trail and made better time. Here, in

packed harbours beside the narrow trail, sleds and men waited for

runners that were still behind. From the rear came the whine and

rush of dogs, and Smoke had barely time to leap aside into the deep

snow. A sled tore past, and he made out the man, kneeling and

shouting madly. Scarcely was it by when it stopped with a crash of

battle. The excited dogs of a harboured sled, resenting the passing

animals, had got out of hand and sprung upon them.



Smoke plunged around and by. He could see the green lantern of Von

Schroeder, and, just below it, the red flare that marked his own

team. Two men were guarding Schroeder's dogs, with short clubs

interposed between them and the trail.



"Come on, you Smoke! Come on, you Smoke!" he could hear Shorty

calling anxiously.



"Coming!" he gasped.



By the red flare he could see the snow torn up and trampled, and

from the way his partner breathed he knew a battle had been fought.

He staggered to the sled, and, in a moment he was falling on it,

Shorty's whip snapped as he yelled: "Mush! you devils! Mush!"



The dogs sprang into the breast-bands, and the sled jerked abruptly

ahead. They were big animals--Hanson's prize team of Hudson Bays--

and Smoke had selected them for the first stage, which included the

ten miles of Mono, the heavy-going of the cut-off across the flat at

the mouth, and the first ten miles of the Yukon stretch.



"How many are ahead?" he asked.



"You shut up an' save your wind," Shorty answered. "Hi! you brutes!

Hit her up! Hit her up!"



He was running behind the sled, towing on a short rope. Smoke could

not see him; nor could he see the sled on which he lay at full

length. The fires had been left in the rear, and they were tearing

through a wall of blackness as fast as the dogs could spring into

it. This blackness was almost sticky, so nearly did it take on the

seeming of substance.



Smoke felt the sled heel up on one runner as it rounded an invisible

curve, and from ahead came the snarls of beasts and the oaths of

men. This was known afterward as the Barnes-Slocum Jam. It was the

teams of these two men which first collided, and into it, at full

career, piled Smoke's seven big fighters. Scarcely more than semi-

domesticated wolves, the excitement of that night on Mono Creek had

sent every dog fighting-mad. The Klondike dogs, driven without

reins, cannot be stopped except by voice, so that there was no

stopping this glut of struggle that heaped itself between the narrow

rims of the creek. From behind, sled after sled hurled into the

turmoil. Men who had their teams nearly extricated were overwhelmed

by fresh avalanches of dogs--each animal well-fed, well-rested, and

ripe for battle.



"It's knock down an' drag out an' plow through!" Shorty yelled in

his partner's ear. "An' watch out for your knuckles! You drag out

an' let me do the punchin'!"



What happened in the next half hour Smoke never distinctly

remembered. At the end he emerged exhausted, sobbing for breath,

his jaw sore from a first-blow, his shoulder aching from the bruise

of a club, the blood running warmly down one leg from the rip of a

dog's fangs, and both sleeves of his parka torn to shreds. As in a

dream, while the battle still raged behind, he helped Shorty

reharness the dogs. One, dying, they cut from the traces, and in

the darkness they felt their way to the repair of the disrupted

harnesses.



"Now you lie down an' get your wind back," Shorty commanded.



And through the darkness the dogs sped, with unabated strength, down

Mono Creek, across the long cut-off, and to the Yukon. Here, at the

junction with the main river-trail, somebody had lighted a fire, and

here Shorty said good bye. By the light of the fire, as the sled

leaped behind the flying dogs, Smoke caught another of the

unforgettable pictures of the North Land. It was of Shorty, swaying

and sinking down limply in the snow, yelling his parting

encouragement, one eye blackened and closed, knuckles bruised and

broken, and one arm, ripped and fang-torn, gushing forth a steady

stream of blood.







V.



"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 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!"



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.







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-

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

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

greatest dog-driver in the country. To pass him seemed impossible.

Again and again, many times, Smoke forced his leader to the other's

sled-trail, and each time Big Olaf let out another link and drew

away. Smoke contented himself with taking the pace, and hung on

grimly. The race was not lost until one or the other won, and in

fifteen miles many things could happen.



Three miles from Dawson something did happen. To Smoke's surprise,

Big Olaf rose up and with oaths and leather proceeded to fetch out

the last ounce of effort in his animals. It was a spurt that should

have been reserved for the last hundred yards instead of being begun

three miles from the finish. Sheer dog-killing that it was, Smoke

followed. His own team was superb. No dogs on the Yukon had had

harder work or were in better condition. Besides, Smoke had toiled

with them, and eaten and bedded with them, and he knew each dog as

an individual, and how best to win in to the animal's intelligence

and extract its last least shred of willingness.



They topped a small jam and struck the smooth-going below. Big Olaf

was barely fifty feet ahead. A sled shot out from the side and drew

in toward him, and Smoke understood Big Olaf's terrific spurt. He

had tried to gain a lead for the change. This fresh team that

waited to jerk him down the home stretch had been a private surprise

of his. Even the men who had backed him to win had had no knowledge

of it.



Smoke strove desperately to pass during the exchange of sleds.

Lifting his dogs to the effort, he ate up the intervening fifty

feet. With urging and pouring of leather, he went to the side and

on until his lead-dog was jumping abreast of Big Olaf's wheeler. On

the other side, abreast, was the relay sled. At the speed they were

going, Big Olaf did not dare the flying leap. If he missed and fell

off, Smoke would be in the lead and the race would be lost.



Big Olaf tried to spurt ahead, and he lifted his dogs magnificently,

but Smoke's leader still continued to jump beside Big Olaf's

wheeler. For half a mile the three sleds tore and bounced along

side by side. The smooth stretch was nearing its end when Big Olaf

took the chance. As the flying sleds swerved toward each other, he

leaped, and the instant he struck he was on his knees, with whip and

voice spurting the fresh team. The smooth pinched out into the

narrow trail, and he jumped his dogs ahead and into it with a lead

of barely a yard.



A man was not beaten until he was beaten, was Smoke's conclusion,

and drive no matter how, Big Olaf failed to shake him off. No team

Smoke had driven that night could have stood such a killing pace and

kept up with fresh dogs--no team save this one. Nevertheless, the

pace WAS killing it, and as they began to round the bluff at

Klondike City, he could feel the pitch of strength going out of his

animals. Almost imperceptibly they lagged, and foot by foot Big

Olaf drew away until he led by a score of yards.



A great cheer went up from the population of Klondike City assembled

on the ice. Here the Klondike entered the Yukon, and half a mile

away, across the Klondike, on the north bank, stood Dawson. An

outburst of madder cheering arose, and Smoke caught a glimpse of a

sled shooting out to him. He recognized the splendid animals that

drew it. They were Joy Gastell's. And Joy Gastell drove them. The

hood of her squirrel-skin parka was tossed back, revealing the

cameo-like oval of her face outlined against her heavily-massed

hair. Mittens had been discarded, and with bare hands she clung to

whip and sled.



"Jump!" she cried, as her leader snarled at Smoke's.



Smoke struck the sled behind her. It rocked violently from the

impact of his body, but she was full up on her knees and swinging

the whip.



"Hi! You! Mush on! Chook! Chook!" she was crying, and the dogs

whined and yelped in eagerness of desire and effort to overtake Big

Olaf.



And then, as the lead-dog caught the tail of Big Olaf's sled, and

yard by yard drew up abreast, the great crowd on the Dawson bank

went mad. It WAS a great crowd, for the men had dropped their tools

on all the creeks and come down to see the outcome of the race, and

a dead heat at the end of a hundred and ten miles justified any

madness.



"When you're in the lead I'm going to drop off!" Joy cried out over

her shoulder.



Smoke tried to protest.



"And watch out for the dip curve half way up the bank," she warned.



Dog by dog, separated by half a dozen feet, the two teams were

running abreast. Big Olaf, with whip and voice, held his own for a

minute. Then, slowly, an inch at a time, Joy's leader began to

forge past.



"Get ready!" she cried to Smoke. "I'm going to leave you in a

minute. Get the whip."



And as he shifted his hand to clutch the whip, they heard Big Olaf

roar a warning, but too late. His lead-dog, incensed at being

passed, swerved in to the attack. His fangs struck Joy's leader on

the flank. The rival teams flew at one another's throats. The

sleds overran the fighting brutes and capsized. Smoke struggled to

his feet and tried to lift Joy up. But she thrust him from her,

crying: "Go!"



On foot, already fifty feet in advance, was Big Olaf, still intent

on finishing the race. Smoke obeyed, and when the two men reached

the foot of the Dawson bank, he was at the others heels. But up the

bank Big Olaf lifted his body hugely, regaining a dozen feet.



Five blocks down the main street was the Gold Recorder's office.

The street was packed as for the witnessing of a parade. Not so

easily this time did Smoke gain to his giant rival, and when he did

he was unable to pass. Side by side they ran along the narrow aisle

between the solid walls of fur-clad, cheering men. Now one, now the

other, with great convulsive jerks, gained an inch or so only to

lose it immediately after.



If the pace had been a killing one for their dogs, the one they now

set themselves was no less so. But they were racing for a million

dollars and great honour in Yukon Country. The only outside

impression that came to Smoke on that last mad stretch was one of

astonishment that there should be so many people in the Klondike.

He had never seen them all at once before.



He felt himself involuntarily lag, and Big Olaf sprang a full stride

in the lead. To Smoke it seemed that his heart would burst, while

he had lost all consciousness of his legs. He knew they were flying

under him, but he did not know how he continued to make them fly,

nor how he put even greater pressure of will upon them and compelled

them again to carry him to his giant competitor's side.



The open door of the Recorder's office appeared ahead of them. Both

men made a final, futile spurt. Neither could draw away from the

other, and side by side they hit the doorway, collided violently,

and fell headlong on the office floor.



They sat up, but were too exhausted to rise. Big Olaf, the sweat

pouring from him, breathing with tremendous, painful gasps, pawed

the air and vainly tried to speak. Then he reached out his hand

with unmistakable meaning; Smoke extended his, and they shook.



"It's a dead heat," Smoke could hear the Recorder saying, but it was

as if in a dream, and the voice was very thin and very far away.

"And all I can say is that you both win. You'll have to divide the

claim between you. You're partners."



Their two arms pumped up and down as they ratified the decision.

Big Olaf nodded his head with great emphasis, and spluttered. At

last he got it out.



"You damn chechaquo," was what he said, but in the saying of it was

admiration. "I don't know how you done it, but you did."



Outside the great crowd was noisily massed, while the office was

packing and jamming. Smoke and Big Olaf essayed to rise, and each

helped the other to his feet. Smoke found his legs weak under him,

and staggered drunkenly. Big Olaf tottered toward him.



"I'm sorry my dogs jumped yours."



"It couldn't be helped," Smoke panted back. "I heard you yell."



"Say," Big Olaf went on with shining eyes. "That girl--one damn

fine girl, eh?"



"One damn fine girl," Smoke agreed.