XXIII

A NEW CRISIS

With the completion of the railroad to the glacier crossing there came to it a certain amount of travel, consisting mainly of prospectors bound to and from the interior.  The Cortez winter trail was open, and over it passed most of the traffic from the northward mining-camps, but now and then a frost-rimed stranger emerged from the canon above O’Neil’s terminus with tales of the gold country, or a venturesome sledge party snow-shoed its way inland from the end of the track.  Murray made a point of hauling these trailers on his construction-trains and of feeding them in his camps as freely as he did his own men.  In time the wavering line of sled-tracks became fairly well broken, and scarcely a week passed without bringing several “mushers.”

One day, as O’Neil was picking his way through the outskirts of the camp, he encountered one of his night foremen, and was surprised to see that the fellow was leading a trail-dog by a chain.  Now these malamutes are as much a part of the northland as the winter snows, and they are a common sight in every community; but the man’s patent embarrassment challenged Murray’s attention:  he acted as if he had been detected in a theft or a breach of duty.

“Hello, Walsh.  Been buying some live stock?” O’Neil inquired.

“Yes, sir.  I picked up this dog cheap.”

“Harness too, eh?” Murray noted that Walsh’s arms were full of gear—­enough, indeed, for a full team.  Knowing that the foreman owned no dogs, he asked, half banteringly: 

“You’re not getting ready for a trip, I hope?”

“No, sir.  Not exactly, sir.  The dog was cheap, so I—­I just bought him.”

As a matter of fact, dogs were not cheap, and Walsh should have been in bed at this hour.  Murray walked on wondering what the fellow could be up to.

Later he came upon a laborer dickering with a Kyak Indian over the price of a fur robe, and in front of a bunk-house he found other members of the night crew talking earnestly with two lately arrived strangers.  They fell silent as he approached, and responded to his greeting with a peculiar nervous eagerness, staring after him curiously as he passed on.

He expected Dr. Gray out from Omar, but as he neared the track he met Mellen.  The bridge superintendent engaged him briefly upon some detail, then said: 

“I don’t know what’s the matter with the men this morning.  They’re loafing.”

“Loafing?  Nonsense!  You expect too much.”

Mellen shook his head.  “The minute my back is turned they begin to gossip.  I’ve had to call them down.”

“Perhaps they want a holiday.”

“They’re not that kind.  There’s something in the air.”

While they were speaking the morning train pulled in, and O’Neil was surprised to see at least a dozen townspeople descending from it.  They were loafers, saloon-frequenters, for the most part, and oddly enough, they had with them dogs and sleds and all the equipment for travel.  He was prevented from making inquiry, however, by a shout from Dr. Gray, who cried: