Three times within the next two hours he withdrew the bottle. And three times he returned it to its place. He thought of tossing it into the snow--and a moment later, angrily dismissed the thought. "_She_ wouldn't ask odds of the hooch and I won't either! I'll keep this bottle right with me. I'll fight this fight like a man--like a Brent! And, by God, when I win, it won't be because I couldn't get the hooch! It will be because I wouldn't drink it when I had it!"
And, the next moment, to the utter astonishment of Joe Pete, he leaped perfectly sober from the sled, and took his place at the tail-rope with a laughing command to the Indian to take a rest on the robes.
An hour later, Brent halted the dogs and aroused Joe Pete. "We ought to have hit shore by this time," he said, "I'm afraid something's wrong."
The snow had thickened, entirely obliterating the trail, and forming an opaque wall through which the eye could penetrate but a short distance beyond the lead dog.
The Indian noted the course, and the direction of the wind. "Mebbe-so win' change," he opined, and even as he spoke the long sweeping lines of snow were broken into bewildering zig-zags. A puff of wind coming at a right angle from the direction of the driving gale was followed by another blustering puff from the opposite direction, and they came thick and fast from every direction, and seemingly from all directions at once. The snow became powder-fine and, in a confusion of battering blasts, the two men pushed uncertainly on.
For three days the Arctic blizzard raged and howled, and drifted the snow deep over the igloos that were grouped about the hulk of the _Belva Lou_. On the morning of the fourth day Claw and the Captain made their way across the snow-buried deck and gazed out toward the distant ridges of the Copper Mountains.
"Might's well git started," opined Claw, "Have 'em load a week's grub onto my sled, an' you an' me, an' the Dog Rib'll hit out."
"Will a week's grub be enough?" growled the Captain, "It's goin' to be a hell of a trip. Mebbe we'd ort to wait a couple o' days an' see what the weather'll do."
"Wait--hell!" cried Claw, "What's the use waitin'? The b'rom'ter's up, an' you know damn well we ain't in fer no more storm fer a week er two. What we want to do is to git over to Bloody Falls before Ace-In-The-Hole takes a notion to break camp. An' what's the use of packin' more grub? We'll have his won't we?"