y-nine," the little miner shouted up.

Elliot appeared at the window. "Well, I'll be hanged! What are you doing
here, Old-Timer?"

"Onct I knew a man lived to be a grandpa minding his own business,"
grinned the little man. "Come down and I'll tell you all about it, boy."

In half a minute Gordon was beside him. After the first greetings the
young man nodded toward the dog team.

"How did you persuade Tim Ryan to lend you his huskies?"

"Why don't you take a paper and keep up with the news, son? These
huskies don't belong to Tim."

"Meaning that Mr. Gideon Holt is the owner?"

"You've done guessed it," admitted the miner complacently.

He had a right to be proud of the team. It was a famous one even in the
North. It had run second for two years in the Alaska Sweepstakes to
Macdonald's great Siberian wolf-hounds. The leader Butch was the hero of
a dozen races and a hundred savage fights.

"What in Halifax do you want with the team?" asked Elliot, surprised.
"The whole outfit must have cost a small fortune."

"Some dust," admitted Gideon proudly. He winked mysteriously at Gordon.
"I got a use for this team, if any one was to ask you."

"Haven't taken the Government mail contract, have you?"

"Not so you could notice it. I'll tell you what I want with this team,
as the old sayin' is." Holt lowered his voice and narrowed slyly his
little beadlike eyes. "I'm going to put a crimp in Colby Macdonald.
That's what I aim to do with it."

"How?"

The miner beckoned Elliot closer and whispered in his ear.

CHAPTER XXIII

IN THE DEAD OF NIGHT

While Kusiak slept that night the wind shifted. It came roaring across
the range and drove before it great scudding clouds heavily laden with
sleety snow. The howling storm snuffed out the moonlight as if it had
been a tallow dip and fought and screamed around the peaks, whirling
down the gulches with the fury of a blizzard.

From dark till dawn the roar of the wind filled the night. Before
morning heavy drifts had wiped out the roads and sheeted the town in
virgin white unbroken by trails or furrows.

With the coming of daylight the tempest abated. Kusiak got into its
working clothes and dug itself out from the heavy blanket of white that
had tucked it in. By noon the business of the town was under way again.
That which would have demoralized the activities of a Southern city made
little difference to these Arctic Circle dwellers. Roads were cleared,
paths shove