A NARROW ESCAPE
As Johnny stood awaiting the arrival of the stranger, many wild
misgivings raced through his mind. What if this man was but the
forerunner of the whole Chukche tribe? Then indeed, for himself and the
Japanese girl things were at an end.
The newcomer was armed with a rifle. Johnny would stand little show with
him in a duel, good as his automatic was.
But the man came on with a jaunty swing that somehow was reassuring. Who
could he be? As he came close, he dropped his rifle on his sled and
approached with empty hands.
"I am Iyok-ok," he said in good English, at the same time thrusting out
his hand. "I was an American soldier, an Eskimo. Now I am going back to
my home at Cape Prince of Wales."
"You got your discharge easily," smiled Johnny.
"Not so easy, but I got it."
"Well, anyway, stranger," said Johnny gripping the other's hand, "I can
give you welcome, comrade. We are traveling the same way."
The Eskimo looked at Johnny's regulation army shoes as he said the word
comrade, but made no comment.
"Know anything about travel in such a country?" asked Johnny.
"Most things you need to know."
"Then you sure are welcome," Johnny declared. Then, as he looked at the
Eskimo closely there came to him a feeling that they had met before but
where and when he could not recall. He did not mention the fact, but
merely motioned the stranger to a seat on the sled while he dug into his
pack for a morsel of good cheer.
Many days later, Johnny lay sprawled upon a double thickness of long
haired deer skins. He was reading a book. Two seal oil lamps sputtered
in the igloo, but these were for heat, not for light. Johnny got his
light in the form of a raggedly round patch of sunlight which fell
straight down from the top where the poles of the igloo met.
Johnny was very comfortable physically, but not entirely at ease
mentally. He had been puzzled by something that had happened five
minutes before. Moreover, he was half angry at his enforced idleness
here.
Yet he was very comfortable. The igloo was a permanent one. Erected at
the base of a cliff, covered over with walrus skin, lined with deer
skin, and floored with planks hewn from driftwood logs, it was perfect
for a dwelling of its kind. It stood in a hunting village on the
Siberian shore of Behring Sea. The Jap girl, Johnny and Iyok-ok had
traveled thus far in safety.
Yes, they had come a long distance, many hundreds of miles. As Johnny
thought of it now, he put his book aside (a dry, old novel, left here by
some American seaman) and dreamed those days all through again.
Wonderful days had followed the addition of Iyok-ok to their party. From
that hour they had wanted nothing of food or shelter. Reared as he
apparently had been in such wilds as these, the native skillfully had
sought out the best of game, the driest, most sheltered of camping
spots, in fact, had done everything that tended to make life easy in
such a land.
Johnny's reveries were cut short and he started suddenly to his feet. A
pebble had dropped squarely upon the deer skin spread out before him. It
had come through the hole in the peak of the igloo. He glanced quickly
up, but saw nothing.
Then he grinned. "Just a case of nerves, I guess. Some kids playing on
the cliff. Anyway, I'll investigate," he said to himself.
Throwing back the deerskin flap, he stepped outside. Did he see a boot
disappear around the point of the cliff above the igloo? He could not
tell. At any rate, there was no use wasting more time on the question.
To see farther around the cliff, one must climb up its rough face, and
by that time any mischief maker might have disappeared.
Yet Johnny stood there worried and puzzled. Twice in the last hour
pebbles had rattled down upon the igloo, and now one had dropped inside.
An old grievance stirred him: Why were not he and his strange
companions on their way? With only four hundred miles to travel to East
Cape, with a splendid trail, with reindeer well fed and rested, it
seemed folly to linger in this native village. The reindeer Chukches,
whose sled deer they had borrowed, might be upon them at any moment, and
that, Johnny felt sure, would result in an unpleasant mixup. Yet he had
been utterly unable to get the little Oriental girl and Iyok-ok to go
on. Why? He could only guess. There were a great many other things he
could only guess at. The little Oriental girl's reason for going so far
into the wilderness was as much a secret as ever. He could only guess
that it had to do with the following of that mysterious driver of a dog
team. With unerring precision this man had pushed straight on northward
toward East Cape and Behring Strait. And they had followed, not, so far
as Johnny was concerned, because they were interested in him, but
because he had traveled their way.
At times they had come upon his camp. Located at the edge of some bank
or beside some willow clump, where there was shelter from the wind,
these camps told little or nothing of the man who had made them.
Everything which might tell tales had been carried on or burned. Once
only Johnny had found a scrap of paper. Nothing had been written on it.
From it Johnny had learned one thing only: it had originally come from
some Russian town, for it had the texture of Russian bond. But this was
little news.
Who was this stranger who traveled so far? Johnny had a feeling that he
was at the moment hiding in this native village, and that this was the
reason his two companions did not wish to proceed. There had grown up
between these two, the Eskimo boy and the Japanese girl, a strange
friendship. At times Johnny had suspicions that this friendship had
existed before they had met on the tundra. However that might have been,
they seemed now to be working in unison. Only the day before he had
happened to overhear them conversing in low tones, and the language, he
would have sworn, was neither Eskimo, English, nor Pidgen. Yet he did
not question the boy's statement that he was an American Eskimo. Indeed
there were times when the flash of his honest smile made Johnny believe
that they had met somewhere in America. On his trip to Nome and
Fairbanks before the war, Johnny had met many Eskimos, and had boxed and
wrestled with some of the best of them.
"Oh, well," he sighed, and stretched himself, "'tain't that I've got a
string on 'em, nor them on me. I'll have to wait or go on alone, that's
all."
He entered the igloo, and tried again to become interested in his book,
but his mind kept returning to the strange friendship which had grown up
between the three of them, Iyok-ok, the Jap girl and himself. The Jap
girl had proved a good sport indeed. She might have ridden all the time,
but she walked as far in a day as they did. She cooked their meals
cheerfully, and laughed over every mishap.
So they had traveled northward. Three happy children in a great white
wilderness, they pitched their igloos at night, a small one for the
girl, a larger one for the two men, and, burying themselves beneath the
deer skins, had slept the dreamless sleep of children, wearied from
play.
The Jap girl had appeared to be quite content to be going into an
unknown wilderness. Only once she had seemed concerned. That was when a
long detour had taken them from the track of the unknown traveler, but
her cheerfulness had returned once they had come upon his track again.
This had set Johnny speculating once more. Who was this stranger? Was he
related to the girl in some way? Was he her friend or her foe? Was he
really in this village at this time? If so, why did she not seek him
out? If a friend, why did she not join him; and, if an enemy, why not
have him killed? Surely, here they were quite beyond the law.
Oh, yes, Johnny might get a dog team and go on up the coast alone, but
Johnny liked his two traveling companions too well for that, and
besides, Johnny dearly loved mysteries, and here was a whole nest of
them. No, Johnny would wait.
The seal oil lamps imparted a drowsy warmth to the igloo. The deer skins
were soft and comfortable. Johnny grew sleepy. Throwing the ragged old
book in the corner, he stretched out full length on the skins, which lay
in the irregular circle of light, and was soon fast asleep.
Just how long he slept he could not tell. When he awoke it was with a
feeling of great peril tugging at his heart. His first conscious thought
was that the aperture above him had, in some way, been darkened.
Instantly his eyes sought that opening. What he saw there caused his
heart to pause and his eyes to bulge.
Directly above him, seemingly poised for a drop, was a vicious looking
hook. With a keen point and a barb fully three inches across, with a
shaft of half-inch steel which was driven into a pole three inches in
diameter and of indefinite length, it could drive right through Johnny's
stomach, and pin him to the planks beneath. And, as his startled eyes
stared fixedly at it, the thing shot downward.