MYSTERIES EXPLAINED
There was little time left to the girls for wondering after the fire
against the boarded-up house had been extinguished, for the entire
throng burst in upon them. This time, apparently as eager to welcome
them as they had been a few minutes before to destroy them, they rushed
up to grasp their hands and mumble:
"Me-con-a-muck! Il-e-con-a-muck!"
Soon they all filed out again, two of them bearing the boy with the
crushed foot.
Only one remained. He was a young Eskimo with a clean-cut intelligent
face. Lucile, by his posture, recognized the one who had championed
their cause from the first.
"Perhaps you wonder much?" he began. "Perhaps you ask how is this?
Sit down. I will say it to you."
The very sound of their own tongue, badly managed though it might be,
was music to the two worn out and nerve-wrecked girls. They sat down
on the sleeping-bag to listen, while the yellow light of the seal-oil
lamp flickered across the dark, expressive face of the Eskimo.
He bent over and drew imaginary circles on the floor, one small and one
large, just as the boy had done with charcoal.
"Here," he smiled, "one island. Here one. This island one house.
Here--"
"Where is this island?" broke in Lucile, too eager to know their
position on the shore of the Arctic to hear him through.
"Yes," he smiled, "this island is here, very small. This one is here,
very large." Again the imaginary circles were drawn.
Lucile smiled and was silent.
"This one large island," the native went on, "this one plenty Eskimo.
Come to visit some Eskimo. Some live here, these Eskimo.
"Pretty soon come big ice-floe. Wanna cross, these people. Can't.
Wanna cross, one boy. Try cross. Broke foot. You see. Come house.
Fell down. Think die, that boy. Wanna come in. Pretty soon, open
door, white women, you. See white women; scared, that boy, too much
scared. Wanna run, that boy. Can't. Pretty soon see white woman
good, kind, that one boy. Plenty fix up foot. Plenty eat, that boy.
Wanna stay.
"Pretty soon come plenty wind; plenty ice. Wanna cross ice all time,
those Eskimo. Now can cross. Cross plenty Eskimo, plenty dog-team.
Come this island, one little island. See?"
"Where is this island?" Lucile broke in again.
"Yes," the speaker smiled frankly, "one big island, one little island.
Wanna cross people. All cross people."
Again Lucile was silent.
"Pretty soon," he resumed, "see light in Alongmeet's (white man's)
house. Wanna know who come island. Look. See two white face in
window; two white women. Then pretty much scared. One witch-doctor,
old man, hair all so," he rubbed up his hair. "Say that witch-doctor,
'No come white women this island; too much ice, no come. Spirits come;
that's all.' Say that one witch-doctor, 'Must kill white woman
spirits; must burn house. Wanna burn house quick.'
"I say, 'No burn; no spirits mebbe. White women mebbe.'
"He say, that witch-doctor, he say, 'No white woman, white spirit,
that's all.' All people say, 'Spirit! Spirit! Burn! Burn!' All
wanna burn.
"Me, I wanna stop burn. No can do. Wanna burn. Bring wood, bring
oil, all that Eskimo. Pretty soon fire. Wanna come in mine. No can
do.
"By and by come that one boy, rush outa cabin; wanna tell no burn
house. No spirit; white woman, that's all. No burn. He say, that
boy, 'No burn. See white woman eat fish. Spirits no eat fish.'
"Then all the people say quick, 'No burn! No burn!' So no burn. See?
That's all."
The Eskimo smiled frankly, as he mopped the perspiration from his brow.
"They wanted to burn us because they thought we were spirits," Lucile
said slowly; then suddenly, "What do they call this island?"
"This? This one island?" The Eskimo pointed to the floor.
"Yes." The girls learned forward eagerly.
"This one white man call 'Little Diomede.'"
The two girls stared at one another for a moment. Then they laughed.
In the laugh there was both surprise and great joy. They were
surprised that in all the drifting of their ice-floe they had been
carried about in a circle, and at last landed only twenty-two miles
across-ocean from their home, on Little Diomede Island, the halfway
station between the mainland of America and Russia.
"We live at Cape Prince of Wales," said Lucile. "How can we go home?"
The Eskimo merely shrugged his shoulders and smiled.
"Whose is this house?" asked Marian.
"Government," the Eskimo replied. "Schoolhouse one time. Not now.
Not many children. I--I teach 'em a little, mine. Teach 'em in native
house, mine."
So there the mystery was solved. They were in a schoolhouse built by
the United States Government, but which was not now being used. The
natives, always very superstitious, having seen their faces through the
window, and not believing it possible that any white persons could come
to the island at such a time, had, at the suggestion of the old
witch-doctor, resolved to burn the house in the hopes of driving the
spirits away. When the lame boy had limped into their midst, and had
told how his wound had been dressed by these white women, and how he
had seen them eat fish, which no spirit can do, according to the
superstition of the Eskimo, they had been quite ready to put out the
fire and welcome the strangers, all the more so since the girls had
been kind to one in distress.
Phi's experience in the village of the island upon which he had been
cast was more happy than he could have dreamed of. It turned out that
the native who had attacked him was the only drunken person on the
island. That it was an island, the Big Diomede, he was immediately
informed by a young native who had learned English on a whaler.
So it turned out that the two parties, Lucile and Marian and Phi and
Rover, had been carried about on the ice-floe for three days at last to
be landed on twin islands.
Phi's first thought was for the safety of his former traveling
companions. When he learned that nothing had been seen of them on the
Big Diomede, without pausing to rest he pushed on across the now
solidly frozen mass of ice which silenced the two miles of ocean which,
in summer, sweeps between the two islands.
It was night when he arrived, the night of the strange witch-doctor's
seance. This had all come to an end. The schoolhouse was dark--the
girls were asleep. From a prowling native he learned that the girls
were there and safe, then he turned in for a long sleep.
Next day, much to the surprise and delight of the girls, he walked in
upon them as they were at breakfast.
When the story of all their strange adventures had been told Phi drew
from his pocket a much soiled blue envelope.
Phi first told how he had finally come into possession of the letter,
then he went on:
"I--I guess I may as well tell you about it. It's really no great
mystery, no great story of the discovery of gold. Just the locating of
a bit of whalebone.
"You see, my uncle came to the North with two thousand dollars. He
stayed three years. Then the money was gone and he had found no gold.
That happens often, I'm told. Then, one day he came upon the carcass
of an immense bowhead whale far north on the Alaskan shore. It had
been washed ashore by a storm. No natives lived near. The bone of
that whale was worth a small fortune. He cut it out and buried it in
the sand dunes near the beach. So eager was he to make good at last
that he actually lived on the gristly flesh of that whale until the
work was done. Then he went south in search of a gasoline schooner to
bring the treasure away. It was worth four or five thousand dollars.
But he had made himself sick. He was brought home from Nome delirious.
From his ravings his son, my cousin, gathered some notion of a treasure
hid away in Alaska. The doctor said he would recover in time. His
family was in need of money. I offered to come up here and find out
what I could. His son was to write me any information he could obtain.
We had written one another letters in Greek while in college. We
decided to do it in this case, addressing one another as Phi Beta Ki.
"Apparently my uncle had said too much in his delirium before he left
Nome. This crooked old miner, our bearded friend, heard it, and later,
somehow, got on my trail.
"You know the rest, except that this letter gives the location of the
whalebone. In the spring I shall go after it."
As he finished, a great, glad feeling of content swept over Marian; she
had been right, had made no mistake; the letter was really Phi's. Now
he had it and all was well.
The following day they succeeded in finding a competent guide to pilot
them the remaining distance across the Straits, and in due time they
arrived safely at the cabin which had been their home.
Lucile found a new teacher in her position, but for that she did not
care, as she had already decided to spend a month with Marian in Nome,
then take the overland trail home.
Marian's sketches were received with great enthusiasm by the Society of
Ethnology. Because of her extra efforts in securing the unusual
pictures of the Reindeer Chukches, they added a thousand dollars to the
agreed price.
Phi's search for the buried treasure was successful, and to him was
given the unselfish joy of seeing his uncle, now completely restored to
health, comfortably set up in a snug little business of his own.