Corporal McCarthy was quickly at Dick’s side. “We can start a search right away now,” said the officer sympathetically. “I’ll have two parties of Eskimos start on in different directions, one led by Sipsa, and one by Constable Sloan. Corporal Thalman can take charge of Moonshine Sam while we’re gone.”
The searching parties were hastily organized, and started off. Corporal McCarthy, Dick and Toma formed a third party. They started out at the beaten path between Dick’s igloo and Moonshine Sam’s. It was from there they were quite certain Sandy had vanished. But the vicinity of the path and the village of igloos was so criss-crossed with tracks that they could make no headway. So, striking out blindly, they headed southward, while the other divisions of the searchers took the remaining three directions.
Outside the vicinity of the encampment where the snow was unbroken, they began walking back and forth, examining every foot of snow for signs of Sandy’s feet.
But the snow was covered by a crust several inches thick, and an ordinary weight made no impression. Despairingly, they kept on, until at last Dick spied something glittering in the rays of the moon. Quickly he ran to the object and picked it up. Renewed hope was expressed in his loud summons of Toma and Corporal McCarthy.
What Dick held in his hand when his two companions arrived, was a hunting knife, in the bone handle of which had been carved two tell-tale initials—“S.M.”!
Eagerly, the policeman and Toma examined the knife that Dick had found, which had, without a doubt, once reposed in Sandy McClaren’s sheath. Yet, after the first flush of excitement had worn off, they all realized that the clue was a very inadequate one. In itself it could not lead to Sandy. Only it served as an added incentive for them to search more diligently for some more definite trace of the lost boy.
As they circled slowly, getting farther and farther from camp, the snow continued to present a hard crust which had registered no record of the feet that had passed over it under the impenetrable shroud of the polar darkness.
But their patience was rewarded when Toma found a bit of bearskin with the long hair adhering to it. Upon examining the fur closely, they saw that it had been slashed from a larger piece of fur with a knife.