of the centre ice was masked by the snow, one
of the Indians met his end. He went through as quickly and neatly as a
knife through thin cream, and the current swept him from view down under
the stream ice.

That night his mate fled away through the pale moonlight, Rasmunsen
futilely puncturing the silence with his revolver--a thing that he
handled with more celerity than cleverness. Thirty-six hours later the
Indian made a police camp on the Big Salmon.

"Um--um--um funny mans--what you call?--top um head all loose," the
interpreter explained to the puzzled captain. "Eh? Yep, clazy, much
clazy mans. Eggs, eggs, all a time eggs--savvy? Come bime-by."

It was several days before Rasmunsen arrived, the three sleds lashed
together, and all the dogs in a single team. It was awkward, and where
the going was bad he was compelled to back-trip it sled by sled, though
he managed most of the time, through herculean efforts, to bring all
along on the one haul. He did not seem moved when the captain of police
told him his man was hitting the high places for Dawson, and was by that
time, probably, half-way between Selkirk and Stewart. Nor did he appear
interested when informed that the police had broken the trail as far as
Pelly; for he had attained to a fatalistic acceptance of all natural
dispensations, good or ill. But when they told him that Dawson was in
the bitter clutch of famine, he smiled, threw the harness on his dogs,
and pulled out.

But it was at his next halt that the mystery of the smoke was explained.
With the word at Big Salmon that the trail was broken to Pelly, there was
no longer any need for the smoke wreath to linger in his wake; and
Rasmunsen, crouching over lonely fire, saw a motley string of sleds go
by. First came the courier and the half-breed who had hauled him out
from Bennett; then mail-carriers for Circle City, two sleds of them, and
a mixed following of ingoing Klondikers. Dogs and men were fresh and
fat, while Rasmunsen and his brutes were jaded and worn down to the skin
and bone. They of the smoke wreath had travelled one day in three,
resting and reserving their strength for the dash to come when broken
trail was met with; while each day he had plunged and floundered forward,
breaking the spirit of his dogs and robbing them of their mettle.

As for himself, he was unbreakable. They thanked him kindly for his
efforts in their behalf, those fat, fresh men,--thanked him kindly, with