“You’re frightened,” he declared. “Or are you sick, Sandy? Was the water too cold for you?”
“Dick—I saw it! A body floated past! A man!”
“I was crawling on the rock. I could see it plainly. I tried to call out.”
Sandy’s voice choked. He reached out and gripped Dick by the arm. His lips were blue from fright and cold.
Perceiving that something was wrong, Malemute Slade and Corporal Richardson hurried over.
“The boy’s sick!” exclaimed Slade. He turned his head: “MacClaren, fetch a blanket. Hurry!”
A moment later they were chafing his limbs, and had wrapped him up in heavy folds of the thick, woollen blanket.
“You boys ought to know better than this,” Corporal Richardson scolded them. “Thunder River is a glacier-fed stream and its water is like ice. Don’t go swimming in it again. No wonder Sandy got cramps.”
“He didn’t,” Dick protested. “He’s frightened. He said that he saw the body of a man floating past. He thinks it was Henderson.”
“Bosh!” declared the policeman, pointing over at the river. “The current is full of driftwood. A water-logged stump a short distance away might easily be mistaken for the body of a man. What Sandy thought he saw and what he actually saw—are two different things. Besides, Sandy is nervous and unstrung as a result of his experiences over at the mine.”
“There! There!” soothed Factor MacClaren. “You’ll be all right in a moment. Please forget about it. We’re having breakfast now, Sandy. Toma is pouring the coffee this very minute.”
With the possible exception of Dick and Malemute Slade, no one believed that Sandy had seen anything out of the ordinary, notwithstanding the young Scotch lad’s angry protestations. In the hurry and bustle of the morning, the incident was soon forgotten. Sandy himself soon recovered his usual cheerfulness, assisting Dick and Toma in the work of rafting the supplies of the police party to the opposite side of the river.
The trek over to the mine commenced early in the afternoon. On this occasion it was an imposing cavalcade that wound its way up through the rocks to the wide plain that stretched away to the westward. In advance, went the three half-breed packers with the ponies; behind them, Corporal Richardson and Malemute Slade, while Factor MacClaren and the three boys, chatting animatedly, brought up the rear.
