Two Cabins, no less mythical, was more definitely located.  “Five sleeps,” up the McQuestion River from the Stewart, stood two ancient cabins.  So ancient were they that they must have been built before ever the first known gold-hunter had entered the Yukon Basin.  Wandering moose-hunters, whom even Smoke had met and talked with, claimed to have found the two cabins in the old days, but to have sought vainly for the mine which those early adventurers must have worked.

“I wish you was goin’ with me,” Shorty said wistfully, at parting.  “Just because you got the Indian bug ain’t no reason for to go pokin’ into trouble.  They’s no gettin’ away from it, that’s loco country you’re bound for.  The hoodoo’s sure on it, from the first flip to the last call, judgin’ from all you an’ me has hearn tell about it.”

“It’s all right, Shorty,” replied Smoke.  “I’ll make the round trip and be back in Dawson in six weeks.  The Yukon trail is packed, and the first hundred miles or so of the Stewart ought to be packed.  Old-timers from Henderson have told me a number of outfits went up last fall after the freeze-up.  When I strike their trail I ought to hit her up forty or fifty miles a day.  I’m likely to be back inside a month, once I get across.”

“Yep, once you get acrost.  But it’s the gettin’ acrost that worries me.  Well, so long, Smoke.  Keep your eyes open for that hoodoo, that’s all.  An’ don’t be ashamed to turn back if you don’t kill any meat.”

A week later, Smoke found himself among the jumbled ranges south of Indian River.  On the divide from the Klondike he had abandoned the sled and packed his wolf-dogs.  The six big huskies each carried fifty pounds, and on his own back was an equal burden.  Through the soft snow he led the way, packing it down under his snow-shoes, and behind, in single file, toiled the dogs.

He loved the life, the deep arctic winter, the silent wilderness, the unending snow-surface unpressed by the foot of any man.  About him towered icy peaks unnamed and uncharted.  No hunter’s camp-smoke, rising in the still air of the valleys, ever caught his eye.  He, alone, moved through the brooding quiet of the untravelled wastes; nor was he oppressed by the solitude.  He loved it all, the day’s toil, the bickering wolf-dogs, the making of the camp in the long twilight, the leaping stars overhead, and the flaming pageant of the aurora borealis.

Especially he loved his camp at the end of the day, and in it he saw a picture which he ever yearned to paint and which he knew he would never forget—­a beaten place in the snow, where burned his fire; his bed, a couple of rabbit-skin robes spread on fresh-chopped spruce-boughs; his shelter, a stretched strip of canvas that caught and threw back the heat of the fire; the blackened coffee-pot and pail resting on a length of log, the moccasins propped on sticks to dry, the snow-shoes up-ended in the snow; and across the fire the wolf-dogs snuggling to it for the warmth, wistful and eager, furry and frost-rimed, with bushy tails curled protectingly over their feet; and all about, pressed backward but a space, the wall of encircling darkness.