to the peril of their position, a stiff breeze sprang up from the west, which caught them broadside and forced the floating ice to their side of the river. Waves broke over the gunwale of the loggy craft and the thickening ice-field seriously hampered its movement. It was high noon when the canoe rounded a rocky point which gave the toilers a glimpse of the low wooden buildings of Dawson—and a view, also, of a scow manned by two men, which laboured with the ice, scarcely a quarter of a mile away. The exclamations of satisfaction that sprang to the lips of the pursuers gave place to growls of disappointment as they noted the floating ice which had been driven by the wind into an almost solid pack, cutting them off from their quarry. True, the whole mass was drifting toward Dawson, but owing to the wind, which drove the pack against the bank, its progress was slow—so slow that McKeever estimated that Squigg and his confederate would be able to effect a landing fully a half-hour before the canoe could possibly reach the town.
“They see us!” cried Connie. “Maybe, now, they won’t dare stop to file the claim.”
“They’ll stop, all right,” growled McKeever.
