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.
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