"FRIEND? ENEMY?"
Johnny Thompson, before he joined the army, had been considered one of
the speediest men of the boxing ring. His brain worked like lightning,
and every muscle in his body responded instantly to its call. Johnny had
not lost any of his speed. It was well that he had not, for, like a
spinning car-wheel, he rolled over twice before the hook buried itself
to the end of its barb in the pungent plank on which he had reclined an
instant before.
Nor did Johnny stop rolling then. He continued until he bumped against
the skin wall of his abode. This was fortunate also, for he had not half
regained his senses when two almost instantaneous explosions shook the
igloo, tore the plank floor into shreds, shooting splinters about, and
even through the double skin wall, and filling Johnny's eyes with powder
smoke and dust.
Johnny sat up with one hand on his automatic. He was fully awake.
"Is that all?" he drawled. "Thanks! It's enough, I should say. Johnny
Thompson exit." A wry grin was on his face. "Johnny Thompson killed by a
falling whale harpoon; shot to death by a whale gun; blown to atoms by a
whale bomb. Exit Johnny. They do it in the movies, I say!"
But that was not quite all. The blazing seal oil lamps had overturned.
Splinters from the floor were catching fire. Johnny busied himself at
beating these out. As soon as this had been accomplished, he stepped
outside.
From an awe-struck ring of native women and children, who had been
attracted by the explosion, the little Jap girl darted.
"Oh, Meester Thompsie!" she exclaimed, wringing her hands, "so terrible,
awful a catastrophe! Are you not killed? So terrible!"
Johnny grinned.
"Nope," he said, putting out a hand to console her. "I'm not killed, nor
even blown to pieces. What I'd like to know is, who dropped that
harpoon."
He looked from face to face of the silent circle. Not one showed a sign
of any knowledge of the affair. They had heard the explosion and had run
from their homes to see what had happened.
Turning toward the cliff, from which the harpoon had been dropped,
Johnny studied it carefully. No trace of living creature was to be
discovered there. Then he looked again at the circle of brown faces,
seeking any recent arrival. There was none.
"Come!" he said to the Jap girl.
Taking her hand, he led her from house to house of the village. Beyond
two to three old women, too badly crippled to walk, the houses were
found to contain no one.
"Well, one thing is sure," Johnny observed, "the Chukche reindeer
herders have not come. It was not they who did it."
"No," answered the Jap girl.
"Say!" exclaimed Johnny, in a tone more severe than he had ever used
with his companion, "why in thunder can't we get out of this hole? What
are we sticking here for?"
"Can't tell." The girl wrung her hands again. "Can't tell. Can't go,
that's all. You go; all right, mebby. Can't go my. That's all. Mebby go
to-morrow; mebby next day. Can't tell."
Johnny was half inclined to believe that she was in league with the
treachery which hung over the place, and had shown itself in the form of
loaded harpoons, but when he realized that she did not urge him to stay,
he found it impossible to suspect her.
"Well, anyway, darn it!"
"What?" she smiled.
"Oh, nothing," he growled, and turned away.
Two hours later Johnny was lying on the flat ledge of the rocky cliff
from which the harpoon had been dropped. He was, however, a hundred feet
or more down toward the bay. He was watching a certain igloo, and at the
same time keeping an eye on the shore ice. Iyok-ok had gone seal
hunting. When he returned over the ice, Johnny meant to have a final
confab with him in regard to starting north.
As to the vigil he kept on the igloo, that was the result of certain
suspicions regarding the occupants of that particular shelter. There was
a dog team which hung about the place. These dogs were larger and
sleeker than the other animals of the village. Their fights with other
dogs were more frequent and severe. That would naturally mark them as
strangers. Johnny had made several journeys of a mile or two up and down
the beach trail, and, as far as he could tell, the man of mystery whose
trail they had followed to this village had not left the place.
"Of course," he had told himself, "he might have been one of the
villagers returning to his home. But that doesn't seem probable."
From all this, Johnny had arrived at the conclusion that the watching of
this house would yield interesting results.
It did. He had not been lying on the cliff half an hour, when the figure
of a man came backing out of the igloo's entrance. Johnny whistled. He
was sure he had seen that pair of shoulders before. And the parka the
man wore; it was not of the very far north. There was a smoothness about
the tan and something about the cut of it that marked it at once as
coming from a Russian shop, such as Wo Cheng kept.
"And squirrel skin!" Johnny breathed.
He was not kept long in doubt as to the identity of the wearer. As the
man turned to look behind him, Johnny saw the sharp chin of the Russian,
the man of the street fight and the many diamonds. He had acquired
something of a beard, but there was no mistaking those frowning brows,
square shoulders and that chin.
"So," Johnny thought, "he is the fellow we have been trailing. The Jap
girl wanted to follow him and so, perhaps, did Iyok-ok. I wonder why?
And say, old dear," he whispered, "I wonder if it could have been you
who dropped that harpoon. It's plain enough from the looks of you that
you'd do it, once you fancied you'd half a reason. I've a good mind--"
His hand reached for his automatic.
"No," he decided, "I won't do it. I don't really know that you deserve
it; besides I hate corpses, and things like that. But I say!"
A new and wonderful thought had come to him. He felt that, at any rate,
he owed this person something, and he should have it. Beside Johnny on
the ledge, where some native had left it, out of reach of the dog's, was
a sewed up seal skin full of seal oil. To the native of the north seal
oil is what Limburger cheese is to a Dutchman. He puts it away in skin
sacks to bask in the sun for a year or more and ripen. This particular
sackful was "ripe"; it was over ripe and had been for some time. Johnny
could tell that by the smooth, balloon-like rotundity of the thing. In
fact, he guessed it was about due to burst. Once Johnny had taken a cup
of this liquid for tea. He had it close enough to his face to catch a
whiff of it. He could still recall the smell of it.
Now his right hand smoothed the bloated skin tenderly. He twisted it
about, and balanced it in his hand. Yes, he could do it! The Russian was
not looking up. There was a convenient ledge, some three feet above his
head. There the sack would strike and burst. The boy smiled, in
contemplation of that bursting.
"This for what you may have done," Johnny whispered, and balancing the
sack in his hand, as if it had been a football, he gave it a little
toss. Over the cliff it went to a sheer fall of fifteen feet. There
followed a muffled explosion. It had burst! Johnny saw the Russian
completely deluged with the vile smelling liquid. Then he ducked.
As he lay flat on the ledge, he caught a silvery laugh. Looking quickly
about, he found himself staring into the eyes of the little Jap girl.
She had been watching him.
"You--you--know him?" he stammered.
The girl shrugged her shoulders.
"Your friend?"
She shook her head vigorously.
"Enemy? Kill?" Johnny's hand sought his automatic.
"No! No! No!" she fairly screamed. "Not kill!" Her hand was on his arm
with a frantic grip.
"Why?"
"No can tell. Only, not kill; not kill now. No! No! No! Mebby never!"
"Well, I'll be--" Johnny took his hand from his gun and peered over the
ledge. The man was gone. It was a dirty trick he had played. He half
wished he had not done it. And yet, the Jap girl had laughed. She knew
what the man was. She had been close enough to have stopped him, had she
thought it right. She had not done so. His conscience was clear.
They crept away in the gathering darkness, these two; and Johnny
suddenly felt for this little Jap girl a comradeship that he had not
known before. It was such a feeling as he had experienced in school
days, when he was prowling about with boy pals.
Shortly after darkness had fallen, Johnny was seated cross-legged on a
deer skin, staring gloomily at the ragged hole left by the whale harpoon
bomb. He had not yet seen Iyok-ok. He was trying now to unravel some of
the mysteries which the happenings of the day had served only to tangle
more terribly. He had not meant to kill the Russian, even though the Jap
girl had told him to; Johnny did not kill people, unless it was in
defense of his country or his life. He had been merely trying the Jap
girl out. He was obliged to admit now that he had got nowhere. She had
laughed when he had played that abominable trick on the Russian; had
denied that the stranger was her friend, yet had at once become greatly
excited when Johnny proposed to kill him. What could a fellow make of
all this? Who was this Jap girl anyway, and why had she followed this
Russian so far? Somehow, Johnny could not help but feel that the Russian
was a deep dyed plotter of some sort. He was inclined to believe that he
had had much to do with that harpoon episode as well as the murder
attempted by the reindeer Chukches.
"By Jove!" the American boy suddenly slapped his knee. "The knife, the
two knives exactly alike. One he tried to use in the street fight at
Vladivostok; the other he must have given to the reindeer Chukche to use
on anyone who might follow him."
For a time he sat in deep thought. As he weighed the probabilities for
and against this theory, he found himself doubting. There might be many
knives of this pattern. The knife might have been stolen from him by the
Chukche, or the Russian might have given it to the native as a reward
for service, having no idea to what deadly purposes it would be put.
And, again, if he were that type of plotter, would not the Jap girl know
of it, and desire him killed?
The Japanese girl puzzled Johnny more and more. Her friendship for
Iyok-ok, her eagerness to protect the Russian--what was to be made of
all this? Were the three of them, after all, leagued together in deeds
of darkness? And was he, Johnny, a pawn to be sacrificed at the proper
moment?
And the Russian, why was he traveling so far north? What possible
interests could he have here? Was he, too, planning to cross the Strait
to America? Or was he in search of wealth hidden away in this frozen
land?
"The furs! I'll bet that's it!" Johnny slapped his knee. "This Russian
has come north to demand tribute for his government from the hunting
Chukches. They're rich in furs--mink, ermine, red, white, silver gray
and black fox. A man could carry a fortune in them on one sled. Yes,
sir! That's his business up here."
But then, the diamonds? Again Johnny seemed to have reached the end of a
blind alley in his thinking. Who could be so rash as to carry thousands
of dollars' worth of jewels on such a trip? And yet, he was not certain
the man had them now. He had seen them but once, and that in the
disguise shop.
Further thoughts were cut short by a head thrust in at the flap of the
igloo. It was Iyok-ok.
"Go soon," he smiled. "Mebby two hours."
"North?"
"Eh-eh" (yes), he answered, lapsing into Eskimo.
"All right."
The head disappeared.
"Well, anyway, my seal oil bath did some good," Johnny remarked to
himself. "It jarred the old fox out of his lair and started him on his
way."
He wondered a little about the Jap girl. Would she still travel with
them? These musings were cut short when he carried his bundle to the
deer sled. She was there to greet him with a broad smile. And so once
more they sped away over the tundra in the moonlight.
They had not gone five miles before Johnny had assured himself that once
more the Russian and his dog team had preceded them.