Chapter 10 THE MYSTERY SOLVED.

"Ah, ha! I fancy that this is a clew to Mr. Ghost!" exclaimed Tom.

He was bending over a sort of megaphone of birch bark, which had been rolled up into a cone-shaped formation. He held it aloft triumphantly.

"So this is what your spook made those noises with, Jack, old fellow, and scared you half to death."

"He did no such thing," protested Jack, getting very red in the face. "I did think, though, that there must be something of this kind behind it."

The two boys had left the hut almost as soon as it was daylight to prosecute their search for some trace of the cause of the alarm they had experienced during the night. Tom already had a theory in his head as to what it was that had made the sounds, and, deducing from the fact that the thief alone would desire to try to scare them, the first things he looked for were traces of some prowler in the vicinity of the hut.

He had discovered footprints among some trees on the edge of the clearing, the prints of a big, soft moccasin-shod man. Then came the finding of the peculiar woods-made megaphone with which, beyond doubt, the man who had tried to scare the boys off his trail had uttered the alarming sounds.

Of this they could be reasonably certain, but it was beyond their power to make out how the man had come to turn back and put his plan to frighten them off his tracks into execution. Tom was inclined to think that he must have turned back soon after he left the hut and discovered who were the occupants. Then he had secreted himself not far off till nightfall and improvised his "ghost party."

"At any rate, he gave us a fine scare," declared Tom, as they walked back to breakfast before taking the trail again, "for I'll admit that I felt just as creepy as you looked."

"And that was some creepy," admitted Jack.

And so the matter was, for the time, dismissed from their minds, and over their breakfast they fell to discussing further plans when they should start on again.

The meal had been finished, the dishes hastily wiped and put neatly away, and a penciled note left by Tom on the table thanking the unknown owner of the hut for his hospitality, when both boys were startled at the sound of a dog whip being cracked viciously somewhere in the vicinity. Then came a voice:

"Allez! Allez vitement! Ha! Pierre! Ha! Victoire!"

Both boys ran to the door. Coming toward them at a good pace was a sled drawn by four Mameluke dogs. Seated upon it was a strange figure. It was that of a venerable-looking man with a long white beard, out of which his sun-browned face looked oddly, as if peering from a bush. He wore a bright-red "parkee," deerskin moccasins and a heavy fur cap. In his mouth was a short clay pipe, at which he was puffing ferociously.

"Father Christmas!" cried Jack. "Santa Claus in real life!"

In fact, the old man on the sled did bear a marked resemblance to that popular Yuletide saint.

As he saw the boys, he uttered an exclamation of astonishment. He cracked his whip again, and the Mamelukes, yapping and snarling, drew the creaking sled up to the door. The old man checked the dogs with a word, and then turned to the boys.

"Ah! mes gar?ons," he cried; "where you come from, eh? You look plantee young to be out on the trail alone."

While the old man busied himself in unpacking the goods he had brought back from the trading post some fifty miles away, Tom told him of how they had passed the night in the hut. Then the old man told them that he was the owner of the hut, by name Joe Picquet, an old voyageur of the wilderness.

When Tom told the old fellow of the raiding of his fur treasury, Joe Picquet burst into an excitable fury. He shook his fists and swore to punish the man who had done it with all manner of torments, if he could catch him. A hasty investigation of the barrel showed, however, that the thief had only deemed two skins worth taking. One of these was a silver fox pelt, for which old Joe had counted on getting a thousand dollars, and perhaps more.

"Ah, he is a mauvais chien!" he burst out, when Tom told him how they, too, had suffered at the hands of the marauder. "Joe Picquet make it ver' hot for him if he get hands on him. Sacre! One silver fox pelt worth all dese put togeder!"

"Possibly you may have passed him on the trail?" said Tom.

"No, I pass only one man. Li'l old man all same lak me," said Joe positively.

"Did he have a sled with four dogs?"

"Oui, certainment. But he was harmless-looking fellow. He no would rob like the man that was here. Non, it would be impossible to teenk of eet."

"I'm not so sure of that," rejoined Tom dubiously. "Oh, by the way, was he smoking cigarettes?"

Old Joe knit his bushy eyebrows in deep thought.

"Oui, he was smoke. Certainment. Li'l yellow cigarettes he was smoke! Bah!"

"Then it was the same man for certain," said Tom positively. "Look here."

He indicated the stumps of yellow cigarettes scattered all about.

"Ah! You are right, mon gar?on. Boosh! What a bad mans he must be! So you are follow him, eh? You teenk you catch him?"

"We certainly hope to, or at any rate to get close enough to him to put the authorities on the trail," said Tom.

"But you are only two li'l boys."

"Not so very little," rejoined Tom, while he could not restrain a smile, for Joe Picquet himself was shorter than either of the Dacre boys.

The little old man kept his eyes on his dogs in a speculative mood for a few seconds. The boys did not disturb him. At last he broke out with an exclamation.

"Boosh! How you lak it I go long wid you hunt dees bad man?"

"Why, it would be the very thing! But are your dogs fit for a long journey?"

Old Joe laughed scornfully.

"Mon gar?on, attendez. Dey are the finest team of malukes in whole Yukon country. Old Joe is poor, but he wouldn't tak one, two, t'ree hundred dollar for one of dem. I feed dem, den we start back again. The man I passed go slowly. Maybe he teenk he scare you away. Ha! ha! He badly fooled. Boosh! I go feed dem now."

He made a peculiar sound with his lips, and instantly the dogs began jumping about in great excitement.

"Attendez, mes gallons," said the old man, holding up a forefinger impressively; "do not touch dem now. Dey are good dogs, but all malukes plenty mean. You got beat, beat them all time or dey teenk dey boss and bite you plentee hard, I bet you."

The boys had heard before of the savage, intractable natures of mameluke dogs and how they can be kept submissive to their owners only by harsh treatment. A mameluke is practically a wild beast broken to harness. They are swift and sure over the frozen lands, but there their association with man ends. They do not wish to be petted, and are likely to retaliate with their teeth on anyone who attempts friendly relations with them.

Muttering angrily to himself, old Joe pottered off to a barrel in the rear of his hut where he kept a plentiful provision of fish for the dogs. Presently he reappeared, and began throwing it among them, cracking his big black-snake whip in a regular fusillade as the dogs fought and snarled furiously over their food.

"Ah, Pierre! mauvais chien! Allez! Hey, Victoire! Wha' for you bite ole Pete, hey! Boosh! Take your time!"

But the old man's cries as he darted here and there among them had no effect on the dogs, who finished their meal with frenzied snappings and one or two fights which had to be broken up by main force.

"Now, I go get few teengs an' we start," said old Joe, when the animals had lain down in the snow to digest their not over-plentiful meal.

"Boosh! We geev that feller warm reception when we find him, I bet you."

When old Joe reappeared from the hut, he carried with him a long, wicked-looking old squirrel gun. Its barrel was almost six feet long and it was of a dark, well-worn brown color.

"What are you going to do with that?" asked Tom, as the old man tenderly fumbled with the lock.

"Maybe have use heem. Boosh! No can tell," he replied oracularly.

"Jiminy!" whispered Jack to Tom, as with their new ally they set out once more along the trail, "old Santa Claus can look positively ferocious when he wants to, can't he?"

"Yes, but I've got a notion that he carries that funny old shooting iron more for effect than anything else. Still, I'm glad we have him along; he may prove a valuable ally," surmised Tom.

"Well, with Santa Claus on our side we ought to have better luck along the trouble trail," agreed Jack.

The dogs sprang forward, and Tom and Jack sped after them on rapidly moving snow-shoes.

Crack! crack! went the dog whip.

"Boosh!" cried the old man, with whom the exclamation appeared to serve all purposes.

The dogs sprang forward, and Tom and Jack, relieved of their burdens which now lay on the sled, sped after them on rapidly moving snowshoes. Their chase of the unknown thief now began to look like business.