OGIMA BUSH
I
STRANGE events took place on the Nannabijou Limits during the morning of
the day Hammond left by tug for Kam City.
Josephine Stone arose early after a restless night of nervous dread of
she knew not what. There had been disturbing incidents that had
contributed to her trepidation. When she had returned to the island
after her fright at encountering the Indian wizard, Ogima Bush, on the
trail, she found Mrs. Johnson, her companion, was absent. Inquiry of her
Indian woman-of-all-work, brought out fragmentary information that Mrs.
Johnson had left shortly after Miss Stone and Hammond had set out on
their trip up Nannabijou Hill.
“Two men come in boat,” said the girl, “and big lady go way with them.”
“But, Mary,” insisted Miss Stone, “didn’t she leave any message—didn’t
she tell you any words to tell me?”
“Maybe tell Mary—don’t know. They talk fast. Walk fast. Go way fast—in
put-put boat. Maybe go some place big lady know, for she laugh and
look—glad. Mary think she say she not come back for long time.”
“Which way did the boat go?”
The Indian girl swung her arm to the west. “Maybe go to city, don’t
know.”
Mrs. Johnson must have been sent for hurriedly. Most likely she had
received an urgent message from her home in Calgary. Something sudden
must have happened, but Josephine Stone could not imagine the considerate
Mrs. Johnson leaving without an explanation. She again frantically
searched every possible place in the cottage for sign of a note that she
might have left behind. There was none.
The messengers in the boat must have brought a telegram from Calgary to
her. Perhaps, in her excitement, she had forgotten to leave a message of
explanation. But just what sort of news Mrs. Johnson could have received
that would make her laugh and “look glad,” as the Indian girl had said,
was more than she could imagine.
“Mary,” Miss Stone demanded, “did you see the men give Mrs. Johnson a
piece of paper to read before she left?”
“Maybe give piece of paper. Mary don’t know.”
It was utterly no use. The girl could tell her nothing, and her brother
Henry, who looked after the boats and cut the wood when he was not
engaged in the glorious Indian pursuit of doing nothing, was even more
stoically stupid.
After a night of fitful rest, when she had tried to compose her mind that
everything would turn out all right, she rose with an ominous
presentiment. Even after she had had breakfast and had gone out for a
short stroll around the island, the glory of the autumn morning did not
tend to dissipate her depression.
As she was nearing the cottage door on her return, the white glare of a
large, bell-shaped military tent struck on the clearing of a hill some
distance south on the lake-shore caught her attention. Soon picturesque
figures appeared about the tent—stalwart-looking chaps in scarlet tunics,
stiff-brimmed stetsons and dark trousers with wide gold braid stripes.
She instantly recognised them as Canadian mounted police and remembered
that Acey Smith had said the day previous that an outpost of the mounties
would possibly be stationed somewhere near Amethyst Island.
The young policemen were busying themselves about a small camp-fire,
evidently preparing an outdoor breakfast, their gay chatter and outbursts
of laughter ringing strangely clear on the limpid morning air. . . .
Then from out of the woods there came a single soft stroke of the gong of
Nannabijou.
The figures round the camp-fire stood one moment in silent mystification;
then, as if they had simultaneously made the discovery, their gaze was
turned on the figure of Josephine Stone. One of the men focussed a
field-glass upon her, and the girl, embarrassed by the attention she was
provoking, moved back into the shelter of the trees.
She could not bear to return to the interior of the cottage. An
overpowering sense of an intangible something out there in the woods had
taken such a hold on her she quaked at times as with the cold. It was as
if unseen eyes watched her every movement from the fastnesses; as though
a designing, hating presence prowled out there, always watching—waiting.
She could not entirely account for the sensation. So far, she had never
been afraid, alone as she and Mrs. Johnson had been so far as white
company was concerned. Partly, of course, it came of her fright at the
unexpected meeting with Ogima Bush on the trail, the unexplained
departure of Mrs. Johnson and the urgent demand of Acey Smith that she
leave the island, because of an unnamed danger, until the appointed time
for meeting J.C.X.
J.C.X.!
The very name now seemed to fill her with dread. Previously she had
pictured a dashing czar of the bush camps, handsome as he was poetic by
nature. At one time she had even suspected that J.C.X. was none other
than Acey Smith himself. Now she knew that could not be the fact; she
knew now that the timber boss of the Nannabijou Limits, iron man though
he was in other respects, bent abjectly to the sinister influence and
will of some powerful factor he lived in constant dread of and dare not
explain. The remorse that had been in his tones when yesterday he had
spoken of “the Man That Might Have Been” had uttered volumes as to the
mental and spiritual shackles he had allowed to be placed upon his better
self. Why had he so contemptuously referred to the tragic ending of the
career of Captain Carlstone? Had the gallant soldier also been vassal to
the grim J.C.X. and killed himself to escape his despair?
She now heartily wished she had never come to Amethyst Island—that she
had not pressed on Acey Smith to bring about a meeting with J.C.X. If
J.C.X. were a presentable human being of sane and upright character, why
was it not possible for Acey Smith to induce him to come to meet her,
instead of asking her, an unprotected stranger, to journey she knew not
where to gain the information referred to in his letter? True, she
trusted Acey Smith so far as her personal safety was concerned; her
woman’s intuition told her that, away from the weird outside influence
that seemed to dominate him body and soul, he possessed the born
instincts of a gentleman—but, under its sway, it was problematical what
he might not be capable of doing.
That was one of the reasons she had refused to leave the island for an
undesignated destination without notifying any one—the other was Louis
Hammond. Louis Hammond would surely come to-day—when she so sorely
needed him. Instinctively her eyes searched the lakeshore trail in
search of a youthful, buoyant figure.
II
Josephine Stone was startled from her reverie by the parting of the
shrubbery down by the island shore. Five tall, powerful-looking Indians
sprang into view.
In the lead was a ghastly figure—the Indian Medicine Man who had so
startled her in the trail yesterday.
A face more sinister than his would be difficult to conceive. Dark,
almost to the blackness of an African, his features bespoke evil cunning
and a sense of power that was made the more disconcerting by the livid
red gashes on the cheek-bones and by the brilliant jet-black eyes around
which the whites showed garishly. Straight, lank black hair fell to his
shoulders, where row upon row of glistening white wolves’ teeth were
arrayed. He wore no head adornment save a single eagle’s feather stuck
in a band of purple at the back of his head.
“Henry!” Josephine Stone called to her Indian man-of-all-work. The
latter and his sister came out of the house and took places by her side,
but she could see they were quaking with fear.
The quintette from the woods came to an abrupt halt before them. For the
moment Josephine Stone felt reassured on noting they carried no arms.
The weird figure in the foreground bowed low, while his four companions
stood motionless as carved statues.
“Wonderful white lady,” he addressed her in low, guttural tones whose
enunciation was perfect. “Ogima Bush, the Medicine Man, brings this
message: It is the will of Ogima’s master that the white lady go from
here.”
In her trepidation and bewilderment, Josephine Stone could scarcely find
words to reply. “I do not understand,” she faltered. “Am I—ordered off
this island?”
The Medicine Man bowed again. “It is the will of Ogima’s master,” he
repeated. “The white lady is to go from here with Ogima. No harm will
come to her.”
His eyes flamed upon Henry and his sister standing by her side, as he
addressed them sharply; commands in the Objibiway tongue that were like
flying knife-blades.
Like galvanised automatons, Miss Stone’s servants moved away and marched
down to the waterfront.
Their treacherous behaviour brought out the spirit of the girl. For the
moment, in her disgust, she forgot her own perilous predicament.
“Cowards!” she cried after them, “to be frightened by a cheap fakir.
“As for you,” and she turned her flashing eyes upon the Medicine Man, “go
back and tell your master the white lady says he can go—to the devil!”
White with anger she swayed, a beautiful figure of defiance—a fragile
white woman, alone, mocking a powerful savage. The Medicine Man’s head
went up, his black eyes gleaming admiration—and something else, something
that burned into her very soul in its ravishing masterfulness. His lips
parted and from them came a sibilant gasp.
Next instant he stepped forward; a swift, panther-like movement. She
sprang out of his grasp and swift as light sped back through the cottage
door. From a handbag just inside she snatched out a small automatic.
She whirled the pistol into his face. “Now, you get out of here,” she
cried, “or I’ll—shoot to kill!”
Ogima Bush paused. But instead of leaping back, he drew himself to his
full height and calmly folded his arms, the faintest traces of a smile
about his mouth as he looked down into the muzzle of the deadly little
gun. “If wonderful white lady shoot,” he said calmly, “she see a man
die.”
In that moment, for all his wicked hideousness, the Indian was
magnificent. He was facing death, gambling on a one remote chance that
she could not thus deliberately slay him.
Josephine Stone hesitated, her finger trembling at the trigger. She
never exactly knew how it happened so quickly, but in the winking of an
eye the red man’s left hand flew out and closed over her wrist and
fingers. The automatic spat harmlessly past his cheek out into the open
and was flung from her hand to the floor. She felt herself whisked from
her feet as lightly as if she had been a child. She scratched and tore
at his face and throat impotently as he leaped through the doorway and
raced across the island to the beach.
Josephine Stone screamed and screamed again. He made no attempt to stop
her; his low, mocking laugh was her only answer. But over his shoulder
she saw that her cries had had the desired result. Five mounted
policemen standing in astonishment by their tent on the hill up the
lakeshore sprang forward and tore down toward the island.
Ogima Bush with his burden stepped into the stern of a big rowboat, and
at his command two of his husky bucks bent over the oars and made the
craft fairly shoot across the intervening gap to the mainland. The
others of the party had apparently crossed previously.
The bow of the boat was barely beached when Ogima Bush leaped out into
the shallow water with the girl. As if by magic the Indian oarsmen
disappeared into the curtain of the woods. The Medicine Man followed,
tearing through the trees and dense growth as swiftly and skillfully as a
flying moose, at the same time protecting her so that not even a branch
scratched against her face or caught in her garments.
Far behind she could occasionally catch sounds of the floundering efforts
of the pursuing policemen. Twice she tried to cry out to attract their
attention, but all her strength seemed to have left her and it was all
she could do to ward off a swoon. He seemed to carry her with as great
ease as he might a babe, and she had to admit to herself with a certain
deference and respect.
The crashings of the policemen through the bush behind them grew fainter
and fainter and finally were lost in the distance.
Presently Ogima Bush stepped out upon a winding man-wide trail. He stood
listening a moment, then gave vent to three calls like a crow. An
answering “caw, caw, caw” came from the right just ahead. The Medicine
Man plunged forward.
Another turn brought them to what was to Josephine Stone more familiar
territory. They were on the trail that led across Solomon Creek to the
foot of the cliffs of Nannabijou. She saw that they had come by a more
difficult but much shorter route than the one by which she and Louis
Hammond had come up the day previous. At the approach to the creek
bridge four Indians stepped out each holding a handle of a crude sedan
built of poles and cedar boughs. Muttering low commands in the Objibiway
tongue, the Medicine Man placed Josephine Stone on the cross-seat
fashioned between the two main poles. The girl recognised the folly of
offering further resistance to her captors; her only resource now, she
knew, was to await a strategic moment for escape. At a grunt from Ogima
Bush the carriers plunged forward and across the bridge with their
burden, the Medicine Man striding behind them.
The young woman experienced a distinct sense of relief at being free from
the encircling arms of the grisly Indian. She now had opportunity of
scrutinising the four carriers. They were not any of them the same
Indians as those who had accompanied the Medicine Man to her cottage.
Each of these men wore a single eagle’s feather in his hair, similar to
the one affected by the Medicine Man. The girl remembered that the
single feather was the insignia of chiefship and that no red man save a
witch doctor or headman of the tribe dared venture into the zone of the
Cup of Nannabijou, whose black cliffs frowned menacingly upon her from
above.
III
Josephine Stone’s feelings were a mixture of wonder and apprehension as
the strange-looking party crossed Solomon Creek, toiled up the trail and
finally debouched into the passageway in the cliffs that led to the
tunnel she and Hammond had visited.
In the interim she had time for cool reflection. Rescue was for the
present beyond question, away up in these wild hills, and she knew any
attempt on her part at escape would be equally hopeless. It would be
quite as futile to attempt to gain information as to the object of her
abduction from her sombre captors. It suddenly struck her that her visit
with Hammond to the water-sealed entrance to the Cup of Nannabijou might
have had something to do with her present plight. She knew the Indians
looked upon the vicinity of the Cup as forbidden ground. The priests of
the mystic region might be determined to have an explanation of the
trespass, or worse still, be intent on punishing the offenders. Acey
Smith’s reference of the day before to an enemy whom he seemed to fear
might molest her during his absence recurred to her. No doubt the
superintendent had been well-intentioned when he had insisted that she
leave the island with him. He might have had his own good reasons for
being mysterious about it, and now she had ugly proof of a real danger he
probably had in mind.
Her reflections were cut short by the sudden entrance of the party into
the gloom of the tunnel, down which they carried her carefully to the
point where it opened out on the rocky brink of the roaring mountain
torrent. The bearers paused and let the sedan down on the four short
posts that served for legs. Not one of them spoke or committed a motion.
She glanced backward. Had it not been for the blinking eyes of the men
behind her, they could have represented figures of bronze. Ogima Bush
had disappeared.
Her eyes were momentarily blinded by a wicked green flash of light that
illuminated the passageway, and with it came a deep gonglike alarum from
above.
There was a vibrating, thundering sound, and with its advent the waters
in the stream channel began to drop; dwindled swiftly to a mere trickle
and finally disappeared entirely except for the moisture retained on the
smooth-worn rock of its bed.
Amazement was still upon Josephine Stone when she heard Ogima Bush utter
a guttural command at her side. He had reappeared as silently as he had
dropped out of sight and now walked with a firm hand to the side of the
sedan as the bearers carried it down the stone steps to the bed of the
stream.
They moved only about fifty or sixty yards, around a very abrupt curve,
when they came to a stop opposite another short flight of steps leading
to a tunnel through the cliffs similar to the one by which they had
entered the stream-bed below.
Once in the tunnel, Ogima Bush again disappeared. Josephine Stone heard
the gonglike alarum, the roar of released torrents, and the waters went
sweeping down the channel they had just emerged from.
Just how the stream was diverted from and returned to the portion of its
course that formed a section of the passageway up into the Cup she was
curious to understand. She fancied that a dam or shut-off was
manipulated by some one in charge above on signals sent by means of the
gong.
In the weird novelty of it all the girl almost forgot her own precarious
situation; that she was the captive of a lawless Indian magician, whose
cunning, wicked face was an index of the unscrupulous, ruthless soul that
lay behind the black eyes whose whites showed with such savage
garishness. Furthermore, for the moment, the fact that she knew nothing
of whom she was to be taken before or the fate that might await her had
ceased to weigh heavily upon her mind. The adventurous side of it and
curiosity to know what was the object of it all engrossed her more.
With a suddenness that made her eyes wince they moved out from the
semi-gloom of the tunnel to the bright sunlight of the open.
They were on the inside of the Cup of Nannabijou.