A NEW PERIL
Long hours in the cranny of the cliff Phi was wrapped in heavy slumber.
Dressed as he was in deerskin and sealskin garments, he did not feel
the cold. The bed was soft, his "house" well sheltered from the wind.
He awoke at last to start and stare. The sun was painting the peaks of
distant ice-piles with a touch of pink and gold. He experienced a
strange sensation. For one brief moment he fancied himself on the
mainland of Alaska. This, he realized, was not entirely impossible;
the ice-floe might have circled about to carry him near to the coast
again.
So possessed was he with the idea that he grew impatient at the slow
broiling of their one remaining bird. Once the meal was over, having
hidden the bird net in the crevice, that he might return to it in case
of necessity, he hurried away. With Rover at his heels, he crossed the
uneven surface of the plateau, keeping well toward the edge of the
rocky cliff that he might discover a path, if there should be one,
leading down to a village or a miner's cabin.
In his mind's eye he pictured himself sitting down to a meal of
"mulligan" and sourdough flapjack in some friend's mining shack, and,
if this dream came true, how quickly he would shape his course toward
the spot he had been directed to by the ciphered note in the blue
envelope!
"I'd walk in on them like old Rip Van Winkle." He smiled and glanced
at his dog.
"You look the part of Rip's dog, old fellow," he laughed; "you surely
do."
Yet, as he thought more soberly, he realized that there was really no
reason for supposing that the ice-floe had returned him to the mainland
of America.
"Might be a point of the mainland of Asia," he reasoned. "The people
who come here hunting may be Chukches."
Had his mind been less occupied with these speculations he might have
taken note of some movement off to the right of him. As it was, he
walked straight on.
Suddenly a small, dark object flew past his head. Before he could turn
to investigate, a second, better aimed, struck him in the side. Caught
off his balance, he went crashing to the ground. The next moment the
dog gave a yelp of pain. He too had been struck by one of these flying
missiles which proved to be rocks.
Stunned, but not seriously injured, Phi rose upon hands and knees and
made all haste to fortify himself behind a massive bowlder. Growling
defiance, the old dog crouched by his side.
It was a moment of suspense. What could this mean? Into the boy's
mind there crowded many questions. Had he been carried to the shore of
some island of the far north where the white man had never set foot?
Was he about to be attacked by a murderous band of superstitious
natives? He had seen no one. How many were there and why did they use
only stones for weapons? The bow and arrow are known to the most
ignorant savage.
To these questions he could form no answer. He could only crouch there
and wait.
He did not have long to consider what his next move should be, for a
rock grazed his ear. A quick glance in the direction from whence it
came showed him the form of a single native. Instantly the man
vanished, but a moment later a second rock flew through the air. It
came from exactly the same spot.
"May be only one," he murmured.
Encouraged by this thought, he proceeded to stalk his enemy by hurrying
around the bowlder and peering out at him from the other end.
The ruse worked. He found the man standing in full view, craning his
neck to look around the side of the rock which the boy had just left.
Presently the native took a few steps forward. Phi thought he walked
with a kind of stagger.
"It's strange he'd have the courage to attack me alone, armed only with
rocks," he murmured.
A yelp from the old dog roused him to action. The native's rock had
found a mark. His back was turned to the boy and with a sudden, swift
rush Phi leaped out and landed full upon his back. The two of them
went crashing to earth.
For a moment the man struggled with almost demoniacal strength, then
suddenly he crumpled in the boy's grasp and sank lifeless to the ground.
Fearing a trick Phi turned the man over and sat upon his chest, pinning
his hands to the ground. But he was unconscious; there was no
mistaking that.
"That's queer," perplexedly. "I didn't do anything to him that I know
of. Wasn't thrown hard or anything."
He bent over to gather up a handful of snow with which to rub the
native's brow, when he caught an old, familiar odor.
Just then the dog came limping up. "Rover, old boy," Phi smiled a
queer sort of smile, "we're not beyond the reaches of the civilized
white man. This fellow's drunk. Hooch. In other words, moonshine; I
smell it on his breath. That's why he was throwing stones at us.
Crazy drunk, that's all. Now he's gone dead on us, like a flivver run
out of gas."
The dog smelled of the man and growled.
"Don't like it, do you? Most honest men and dogs don't. Moonshine's
no good for anybody. And now, just for that, we're in for something of
a task. This fellow'd lie here until he froze stiff as a mastodon tusk
if we'd let him, but we can't afford to let him, even if he did pelt us
with rocks. We've got to get him on his feet somehow and make him
'walk the dog' till he sweats some of that hooch out of him."
As he looked the man over for a knife which might prove dangerous once
he was roused from his stupor. Phi realized that he was not on the
mainland of America. This man's costume was quite unlike that of the
Diomeders. He wore a shirt of eiderduck skins such as was never seen
on the Little Diomede, and his outer garments of short-haired deerskin,
instead of being composed of parka and trousers were all of one piece.
"Wherever we are," he said to the dog, "we'll know what's what in an
hour or two."
* * * * * *
After witnessing the strange actions of the group of natives as they
clustered in about the boarded-up house, with wildly beating hearts
Lucile and Marian took their places back a little in the shadows, where
they could not be seen but could still watch the wild antics of their
strange visitors.
"What does it mean?" whispered Marian.
"I can't even guess," Lucile whispered back. "Something terrible
though, I am sure."
By this time the entire group were circling the house, and their wild
shrill cadent song rose high and loud:
"Ki--yi--yi--um--Ah! Ah! Ah! I--I--I!"
The single dancer tore his hair again and again, and repeated his mad
gesticulations.
Only one figure stood back impassive--not singing and not taking any
part in the weird demonstration.
Suddenly, at a sign from the wild-haired leader, all the singing
ceased. He uttered a few words apparently of command, then waved his
scrawny arms toward the house.
A wild shout rent the air. All the natives, save the impassive one,
sprang to their feet and started toward their village. But now the
impassive one leaped up and tried to check them, to drive them back.
As well attempt to stop a torrent with the open hand. They pushed him
aside and hurried on.
The next moment the girls heard a pounding at the door, but dared not
open it.
"What does it mean? What _can_ it mean?" They kept asking one another.
Presently the mad group came racing back. Some bore on their shoulders
poles and boards hastily torn from their caches. Two others were
staggering under a load which appeared to be a sealskin filled with
some liquid.
"Seal-oil!" said Lucile. "What--" and then the full meaning of it came
to her like a flash. "Marian!" she said in an almost inaudible
whisper, "they mean to burn the cabin. That's what the wood and oil
are for--to start the fire!"
The words were hardly out of her mouth when Marian gripped her arm.
"Look!" she cried.
A dense black smoke was rolling past the window.
Roused by her cry, the crippled Eskimo boy sprang upon his one well
foot and came hopping toward them.
One look at the smoke, at the madly dancing old man, and he hopped for
the door. Throwing the pole to the floor, he hopped outside and away.
"He's gone! Deserted us!"
"What does it matter now?" Lucile covered her face with her hands.
"But look!" cried Marian.
The boy had hopped out into the howling, dancing circle. The howling
had ceased. He had tumbled to a sitting position on the snow, but was
speaking and motioning with his hands. Once he pointed at his bandaged
foot. Twice he put his hands to his mouth, as if to mimic eating.
Then he sprang nimbly upon his one foot and would have leaped toward
the now raging fire, but the one who had been first impassive, then had
attempted to restrain the mad throng, restrained him, for the others,
leaping at the fire, threw it hither and yon, stamping out with their
feet the blaze that had already begun eating its way into the building.
It was all over in a minute. Then the two girls sank down upon the
floor, dizzy and sick, wondering what it was all about.
* * * * * *
Phi found that to rouse the native from his drunken stupor was no easy
task. After rubbing the man's forehead with snow, he stood him on his
feet and attempted to compel him to walk. Finding this impossible, he
worked his arms back and forth, producing artificial respiration.
At last his efforts were rewarded; the man opened his eyes and stared
dully up at him. For some time he lay there motionless. Then, with a
wild light of terror in his eye, he struggled to his feet and attempted
to flee. His wabbly legs would not support him. He tumbled to the
earth, only to try it again. Rover ran barking after him.
"Let him alone," smiled Phi. "As long as he is not in danger of
harming himself, let him work. He's doing as much as we could do for
him. He'll work it out of his system."
In spite of his muddled state the fellow appeared to possess a sense of
direction, for the boy soon found that he had come upon a narrow path
leading along the cliff at a safe distance from its edge.
As he stumbled forward, the native's falls became less frequent.
"Sobering up," was Phi's mental comment. "We'll soon strike a place
where the path leads down the side of the cliff. I wonder if he can
make that alone or will he break his neck?"
Suddenly the man disappeared from view.
"That," said Phi to the dog, "means there's a path leading directly
down, probably to some village. If it is a village there are natives
there--perhaps hundreds of them. They have seen white men at one time
or another. They may have been badly treated by them and may be
hostile to them. If one were to judge by the action of this fellow he
must conclude that they are.
"But that cannot influence our action in any way. If we stay up here
and live on birds they'll find us sooner or later. Might as well go
down; the quicker the better, too, for this drunken fellow will
doubtless give a weird and terrible account of us."
At that he raced along the cliff-top path and the next moment found
himself slipping and sliding down a zig-zagging trail which led down
the hillside.
He was halfway down before he caught the first glimpse of the village.
Beneath him lay some brown cubes which he knew to be boxlike upper
stories to the houses of the natives.
"That settles one thing," he murmured. "They're islanders. The
natives of Russia build their homes of poles, deerskin and walrus-skin,
tepee fashion; the American natives use logs and sod. Only islanders
build them of rocks."
For a moment his courage failed him. He was a boy on an island
somewhere in the Arctic, his only companion an old and harmless dog,
his only weapon a hunting knife; and he was about to enter a village
filled with natives.
"Perhaps," he said slowly, looking down into the trusting eyes of the
dog, "we had better wait. They may all be on a grand spree. And if
they are it won't be safe. Whatever they may be when they're sober,
they'll be dangerous enough when drunk."
But the peaceful quiet of the village, as it lay there some hundreds of
feet below, reassured him.
"Come on, old boy," he said at last, "we'll chance it."