The sled was lightly loaded with a sleeping- and a grub-outfit.  A small coil of steel cable protruded inconspicuously from underneath a grub-sack, while a crowbar lay half hidden along the bottom of the sled next to the lashings.

Shorty fondled the cable with a swift-passing mitten, and gave a last affectionate touch to the crowbar.  “Huh!” he whispered.  “I’d sure do some tall thinking myself if I seen them objects on a sled on a dark night.”

They drove the dogs down the hill with cautious silence, and when, emerged on the flat, they turned the team north along Main Street toward the sawmill and directly away from the business part of town, they observed even greater caution.  They had seen no one, yet when this change of direction was initiated, out of the dim starlit darkness behind arose a whistle.  Past the sawmill and the hospital, at lively speed, they went for a quarter of a mile.  Then they turned about and headed back over the ground they had just covered.  At the end of the first hundred yards they barely missed colliding with five men racing along at a quick dog-trot.  All were slightly stooped to the weight of stampeding-packs.  One of them stopped Smoke’s lead-dog, and the rest clustered around.

“Seen a sled goin’ the other way?” was asked.

“Nope,” Smoke answered.  “Is that you, Bill?”

“Well, I’ll be danged!” Bill Saltman ejaculated in honest surprise.  “If it ain’t Smoke!”

“What are you doing out this time of night?” Smoke inquired.  “Strolling?”

Before Bill Saltman could make reply, two running men joined the group.  These were followed by several more, while the crunch of feet on the snow heralded the imminent arrival of many others.

“Who are your friends?” Smoke asked.  “Where’s the stampede?”

Saltman, lighting his pipe, which was impossible for him to enjoy with lungs panting from the run, did not reply.  The ruse of the match was too obviously for the purpose of seeing the sled to be misunderstood, and Smoke noted every pair of eyes focus on the coil of cable and the crowbar.  Then the match went out.

“Just heard a rumor, that’s all, just a rumor,” Saltman mumbled with ponderous secretiveness.

“You might let Shorty and me in on it,” Smoke urged.

Somebody snickered sarcastically in the background.

“Where are you bound?” Saltman demanded.

“And who are you?” Smoke countered.  “Committee of safety?”

“Just interested, just interested,” Saltman said.

“You bet your sweet life we’re interested,” another voice spoke up out of the darkness.

“Say,” Shorty put in, “I wonder who’s feelin’ the foolishest?”

Everybody laughed nervously.

“Come on, Shorty; we’ll be getting along,” Smoke said, mushing the dogs.

The crowd formed in behind and followed.

“Say, ain’t you-all made a mistake?” Shorty gibed.  “When we met you you was goin’, an’ now you’re comin’ without bein’ anywheres.  Have you lost your tag?”