enly, from the rear, there came the ki-yi of dogs.

"Hounds!" he murmured in despair. "Unhitched from the sled. They'll catch
me. I can't escape them." He stared wildly to right and left as he ran,
but saw no way of escape.

* * * * *

After Johnny Thompson had left camp in search of the Bolshevik band that
eventful morning, he was no more than out of sight when a slight figure
crept from a snow-buried pup tent to the right of the cabin and went
gliding away up the hill in the moonlight. It was Pant. Rapidly he scaled
the snow-packed hillside. Arriving at last at the foot of the rocky cliff,
he began a minute examination of those cliffs. Once he climbed to a dizzy
height by clinging to the crags. It was a cat-like feat which very few
persons could perform, but he did it with consummate ease. At another time
he dropped flat on his stomach and crept into a broad crevice between the
rocks. He was gone for a long time, but finally appeared grimy with dirt
and empty-handed.

"'Money in the rock,'" he murmured. "'Money in the rock for you.'"

Then, as if discouraged with his quest, he turned and started down the
hill.

He had covered half the distance when something caught his eye. A black
spot, the size of a baseball, had bounced mysteriously past him.

In a twinkling, he was away in mad pursuit. Slipping, sliding, bounding
over the glistening surface, turning a somersault to land on his feet and
race ahead, he very soon came up with the thing where it had lodged
against a protruding flat rock.

His fingers grasped it eagerly. Here was a third message from the unknown
one. Perhaps this would explain all.

CHAPTER VII

THE MYSTERY OF MINE No. 1

When Johnny Thompson saw that the wolf-hounds were on his trail, though he
was without weapons of any kind and practically destitute of clothing, he
decided to put as great a distance as possible between himself and the
Russians, then to turn upon the pack and sell his life dearly, if indeed
it must be sold to a murderous pack of half wolves.

As he sped forward, through his mind there ran all manner of stories told
round northern camp fires. The stories had to do with these same Russian
wolf-hounds. A man had once picketed his dogs near him in a blizzard and,
creeping into his sleeping bag, had slept so soundly throughout the night
that he did not realize the drifting snow was burying him. He had awakened
to struggle a