THE LONG NIGHT
The last of the sun was seen October 18th. Corporal McCarthy had been
forced to take charge of the camp until Constable Sloan recovered from
his wounds, and so the long-thwarted capture of Mistak, the white
Eskimo, was due for another long delay under the pitchy blackness of the
Arctic night.
Moonshine Sam recovered, and was kept constantly under guard, though he
repeated again and again his promises to keep the peace if he were put
on parole. The half-breed, who had staggered into camp with the white
outlaw, died from exposure, and was buried, under a cairn of stones a
few miles from camp.
Corporal Thalman’s iron constitution soon rebuilt itself, now that he
was among friends, and had almost all he could eat. And so the little
garrison was stronger by one more man.
Under the smothering darkness that now had descended upon the land, time
passed as if the hours were days, the weeks months, and a month a year.
The men and boys contrived games of all kinds to play indoors, yet they
had to economize on their fuel oil, and whenever they could, they slept
away the hours.
It was with great joy that they greeted the coming of the moon that
first month of uninterrupted darkness. Fortunately fair weather came
along with the bright disc in the Heavens, and everyone sallied forth to
hunt and play in the open air.
The policemen went some distance inland during the period, but due to
the liability of the weather to change for the worst at any hour, they
dared not go on any protracted search for Mistak. They did, however,
bring in three musk-oxen and a polar bear.
Dick, Sandy, and Toma all became proficient, during the moonlight
period, in a game of throw and catch which the Eskimos played. It was
great fun and required no little skill. A long stick, perforated with
small holes was employed, together with a walrus tusk, sharpened to a
point. The stick was thrown into the air and caught in one of the holes
upon the ivory point.
There were also foot races and snowshoe races in which the mounted
police joined, along with the Eskimos and the boys. Weight lifting,
wrestling, and other tests of strength were also favorite pastimes of
the Eskimos and were invaluable in counteracting the depressing effects
of the moonlight and the eternal darkness.
Constable Sloan told them that the moon would remain in the sky from
eight to ten days. A storm fell upon them, however, after seven days and
nights of moonlight, and they were all forced to hibernate in their
igloos to escape the bitter cold and heavy darkness.
During the second period of utter darkness, the thermometers all froze
and burst, except those especially designed for use in the Arctic. Sandy
fell sick with a bad cold that threatened to develop into pneumonia, and
lay abed two weeks before Dick’s continuous nursing brought his chum
through safely.
Bundled in furs hour after hour, in their sleeping bags and out, all
suffered immeasurably from the close and stifling air of the igloos. The
Eskimos rubbed themselves with oil in order to soften their skins and
file their pores, but it was some time before the boys could bring
themselves to apply the messy stuff in place of their old friend soap
and water. But as soon as they did, they felt much better. For their
clothing no longer chaffed them and the bite of the low temperature was
considerably lessened.
Moonshine Sam became a greater trial with the passing of every hour. He
lapsed into strange spells that seemed to be brought on by the
oppressive darkness and the terrible hardships he had weathered while
with Mistak.
“I’ll git him, er he’ll git me,” he would mumble, starting up out of a
stupid trance. Then he would clench and unclench his red hands, and
gnash his yellow teeth in a frightful rage.
He finally grew so violent that the policemen no longer would permit the
boys to take their turns watching him, doing it all among the three of
them.
I’d hate to see him and Mistak come to blows, Corporal Thalman
shuddered, after coming off of a two-hour watch in Moonshine Sam’s
igloo. “One or both of them would pass in his checks before the fight
was over. I guess the white Eskimo is pretty hard on the men that desert
him.”
The second period of moonlight came at an inopportune time. A dense film
of clouds obscured it for four days and the ghostly white snow fields
were almost as dark as when there was no moon. But it finally cleared
off, only to reveal more trouble. The dogs were dying from attacks of
madness. Dick and Sandy counted twenty-two dead in the snow, some their
own, some belonging to the Eskimos.
After several hours of observation they discovered a dog in the throes
of the polar sickness. The animal began to whine, then suddenly snarled,
and frothed at the mouth. After biting himself several times, he ran
madly in and out among the igloos, finally circling far out over the
snow. When the diseased dog finally rushed panting and red-eyed back to
camp, all the other dogs had hidden from him. Dick shot the dog then to
prevent its suffering any longer. That was the last case of the madness
among the dogs during that phase of the moon.
“It’s what the Eskimos call Piblockto,” Constable Sloan explained. “The
Eskimos get it themselves sometimes, especially the women, though it’s
not so fatal among human beings as among dogs. So if you fellows hear
some unearthly screeching you’ll know what it is. Don’t bother anyone
who gets it The natives leave them alone unless they start running away
where they’re apt to freeze to death. The fits only last about half an
hour.”
The boys did not have to wait long before they saw an actual case of
what Constable Sloan had described.
It happened to an Eskimo woman whose month old infant had died of
exposure, which was a rare occurrence. Grief stricken, the poor woman
was wandering around among the igloos in the moonlight, wailing softly
to herself, when the boys chanced to pass her on their way to the
policemen’s igloo.
Their hair raised under their parkas as suddenly the woman let out a
most blood-curdling scream, leaped into the air several times, and
finally commenced to tear her clothes off, piece by piece. Dick and
Sandy ran behind an igloo and watched from hiding. Several Eskimos
appeared from various igloos, and the boys could hear them babbling
about piblockto and the angekok. They gathered that the Eskimos believed
the woman was temporarily possessed by one of the bad spirits that
haunted the northland.
The Eskimos did not attempt to do anything for the poor woman until she
had torn away so much of her warm clothing that she stood in danger of
freezing to death. Then three men came out and dragged her, shrieking
into an igloo. Presently her screams died away and all was quiet.
Dick and Sandy hurried on their way, their flesh still creeping from the
scene they had witnessed. But before the moon had once more dropped down
under the horizon, they saw several of these attacks of piblockto and
became somewhat accustomed to them.
It was in January, during the dark of the moon, that some mysterious
enemy began his depredations. First, two dogs were stumbled upon in the
dark, their heads crushed in by an axe, and part of their haunches cut
away. Next, an Eskimo youth, out to bring in some snow for melting,
crawled back to his igloo, hours later, wounded by a spear. Several
other Eskimos were pursued by some animal the nature of which they could
not detect in the pitchy blackness. Sandy swore that once, when he was
about to venture out of the igloo to see how the weather was, that he
had touched a cold face with one hand, and that a darker blot in the
darkness had melted out of sight, without making any sound in the snow.
Finally, no one but the policemen dared to venture often into the dark,
and they only with a weapon handy.
“I’ve got my own ideas as to what this ghost is,” Dick told Sandy. “The
policemen think the same as I do, too. It’s as simple as anything.”
“What is it, then?” Sandy wanted to know, as he cut a new wick for a
seal oil lamp.
“Why, Mistak, of course.”
“Then, how is it that he can see in the dark?”
“He can’t, any more than we can,” Dick replied. “He just prowls around,
and when he runs into someone he takes the chance to put a scare into
all of us.”
“Sounds reasonable,” admitted Sandy. “But, gee, I don’t like the idea of
him hanging around. Suppose he should take a notion to attack us. We’d
be just about helpless in these igloos.”
Dick realized Sandy was right and he spoke to Corporal McCarthy about it
as soon as he came in off a watch at Moonshine Sam’s igloo.
“I don’t think Mistak has the nerve to attack us,” Corporal McCarthy
replied. “The fellow is sly as a fox, but he’s afraid of the police,
don’t you believe he isn’t?”
The following interminable night seemed to prove Corporal McCarthy right
in his opinion that Mistak lacked the daring to perpetrate an open
attack. Yet that did not prevent the outlaw from continuing his strike
and run tactics. No one could feel safe with these skulking enemies
waiting in the pitchy blackness of the Arctic night to kill, maim or
steal.
Then, thirty-six hours before they anticipated the return of the moon,
Sandy disappeared. He had gone to Moonshine Sam’s igloo with meat for
Constable Sloan then on watch, and had neither returned to his igloo nor
reported to his destination. A blundering search of the vicinity in the
darkness proved futile, and he could not be located in any of the Eskimo
igloos.
Alive to the danger which would threaten Sandy if he were lost in the
vast land of darkness, Dick appealed to Corporal McCarthy.
“I know how you feel, and I wish we could do something, but it’s useless
to hunt blindly for him,” the Corporal replied regretfully. “We must
hope he turns up by himself or that some of the Eskimos happen to run
onto him.”
“Do you suppose Mistak or some of the other outlaws might have attacked
him?” Dick asked falteringly.
“I’d be lying if I said that wasn’t possible. I don’t like to think the
worst any more than you do. Anyhow, we know Sandy McClaren is pretty
well able to take care of himself. There’s no danger of him laying down
and dying while he’s an ounce of strength left to find his way back to
us.”
Dick was forced to accept this as his only comfort for the present. But
as the hours passed and Sandy did not show up, the suspense became
unbearable. A host of questions thronged and tormented his worried mind.
Could Sandy, if lost, hold out until the moon came up to light the way
for him and a searching party? Had Mistak captured him and imprisoned
him? Or had the outlaws brutally murdered him?
But one thing Dick was thankful for—the weather remained fair, with no
wind, and a temperature as high as fifteen degrees below zero, warm for
the Arctic winter.
As the time drew near for the reappearance of the moon, Dick did not
sleep at all, but paced up and down on the packed snow in front of his
igloo. He was there when the first pale, cold, faint light stole over
the snow, and with a cry of gladness, he turned to the bleak horizon,
where the edge of a yellow disc had just appeared as the moon rose.
Corporal McCarthy was quickly at Dick’s side. “We can start a search
right away now,” said the officer sympathetically. “I’ll have two
parties of Eskimos start on in different directions, one led by Sipsa,
and one by Constable Sloan. Corporal Thalman can take charge of
Moonshine Sam while we’re gone.”
The searching parties were hastily organized, and started off. Corporal
McCarthy, Dick and Toma formed a third party. They started out at the
beaten path between Dick’s igloo and Moonshine Sam’s. It was from there
they were quite certain Sandy had vanished. But the vicinity of the path
and the village of igloos was so criss-crossed with tracks that they
could make no headway. So, striking out blindly, they headed southward,
while the other divisions of the searchers took the remaining three
directions.
Outside the vicinity of the encampment where the snow was unbroken, they
began walking back and forth, examining every foot of snow for signs of
Sandy’s feet.
But the snow was covered by a crust several inches thick, and an
ordinary weight made no impression. Despairingly, they kept on, until at
last Dick spied something glittering in the rays of the moon. Quickly he
ran to the object and picked it up. Renewed hope was expressed in his
loud summons of Toma and Corporal McCarthy.
What Dick held in his hand when his two companions arrived, was a
hunting knife, in the bone handle of which had been carved two tell-tale
initials—“S.M.”!