JOHNNY'S FREE-FOR-ALL
Johnny smiled as he sat before his igloo. Two signs of spring pleased
him. Some tiny icicles had formed on the cliff above him, telling of the
first thaw. An aged Chukche, toothless, and blind, had unwrapped his
long-stemmed pipe to smoke in the sunshine.
Johnny had seen the old man before and liked him. He was cheerful and
interesting to talk to.
"See that old man there?" he asked Hanada, whom he still called Iyok-ok
when speaking to him. "Communism isn't so bad for him after all."
Hanada squinted at him curiously without speaking.
"Of course, you know," said Johnny, "what these people have here is the
communal form of government, or the tribal form. Everything belongs to
the tribe. They own it in common. If I kill a white bear, a walrus or a
reindeer, it doesn't all go in my storehouse. I pass it round. It goes
to the tribe. So does every other form of wealth they have. Nothing
belongs to anyone. Everything belongs to everybody. So, when my old
friend gets too old to hunt, fish or mend nets, he basks in the sun and
needn't worry about anything at all. Pretty soft. Perhaps our friend the
Russian is not so far wrong after all if he's a communist."
"Uh-hu," the Jap grunted; then he exclaimed, "That reminds me,
Terogloona, the Chukche who lives three doors from here, asked me to
tell you to stay out of his igloo this afternoon."
"Why?"
The Jap merely shrugged his shoulders.
"I have a way of doing what I am told not to, you should--" Johnny was
about to say, "you should know that," but checked himself in time.
"Better not go," warned Hanada as he turned away.
After an early noon lunch Johnny strolled up the hill top. He wanted to
get a view of the Strait. On particularly clear days, Cape Prince of
Wales on the American side of Behring Strait can be seen from East Cape
in Siberia. This day was clear, and, as Johnny climbed, he saw more and
more of the peak as it lay across the Strait, above the white ice floes.
With trembling fingers he drew a one dollar bill from his pocket and
spread it on his knee.
"There it is," he whispered. "There's the place where you came from,
little old one-spot. And I am going to take you back there. The
Wandering Jew once stood here and saw his sweetheart in a mirage on the
other side. He was afraid to cross. But he only had a sweetheart to call
him. We've got that and a lot more. We've got a country calling us, the
brightest, the best country on the map. And we dare try to go back. Once
that dark line of water disappears we'll be going."
Then questions began to crowd his brain. Would Hanada attempt the Strait
at this time? What was his game anyway? Was he a member of the Japanese
secret service detailed to follow the Russian, or was he traveling of
his own accord? Except by special arrangement Japanese might not come to
America. Was Hanada sneaking back this way? It did not seem like him.
Perhaps he would not cross at all.
Johnny's eyes once more swept the broad expanse of drifting ice. Then
his gaze became riveted on one spot. The band of black water had
narrowed to a ribbon. This meant an onshore wind. Soon they would be
able to cross from the solid shore ice to the drifting floe. Surely
there could be no better time to cross the Strait. With the air clear
and wind light, the crossing might be made in safety.
Even as he looked, Johnny saw a man leap the gap. Curiosity caused him
to watch this man, whom he had taken for a Chukche hunter. Now he
appeared, now disappeared, only to reappear again round an ice pile. But
he behaved strangely for a hunter. Turning neither to right nor left,
except to dodge ice piles, he forged straight ahead, as if guided by a
compass. Soon it became apparent that he was starting on the trip across
the Strait. Chukches did not attempt this journey. They had not
sufficient incentive. Could it be the Russian? Johnny decided he must
hurry down and tell Hanada. But, even as he rose, he saw a second person
leap across the gap in the ice. This one at once started to trail the
first man. There could be no mistaking that youthful springing step. It
was Hanada in pursuit.
With cold perspiration springing out on his forehead, Johnny sat weakly
down. He was being left behind, left behind by his friend, his
classmate, the man who above all men he had thought could be depended
upon. How could he interpret this?
For a time Johnny sat in gloomy silence, trying to form an answer to the
problem; trying also to map out a program of his own.
Suddenly he sprang to his feet. He had remembered that there was some
sort of party down in the village, which he had been invited not to
attend, and he had meant to go. Perhaps it was not too late if he
hurried. He raced down the hill and straight to the igloo he had been
warned against entering. A strapping young buck was standing guard at
the flaps.
"No go," he said as Johnny approached.
"Go," answered Johnny.
"No go," said the native, his voice rising.
"Go," retorted Johnny quietly.
He moved to pass the native. The latter put his hand out, and the next
instant felt himself whirled about and shot spinning down the short
steep slope which led from the igloo entrance. Johnny's good right arm
had done that.
As the American lad pushed back the flaps of the igloo and entered he
stared for one brief second. Then he let out a howl and lunged forward.
Before him, in the center of the igloo stood the old man who had been so
peacefully smoking his pipe two hours before. He was now standing on a
box which raised him some three feet from the floor. About his neck was
a skin rope. The rope, a strong one, was fastened securely to the cross
poles of the igloo. A younger man had been about to kick the box away.
This same younger man suddenly felt the jar of something hard. It struck
his chin. After that he felt nothing.
The fight was on. There were a dozen natives in the room. A brawny buck
with a livid scar on his right cheek lunged at Johnny. He speedily
joined his friend in oblivion. A third man leaped upon Johnny's back.
Johnny went over like a bucking pony. Finally landing feet first upon
the other's abdomen, he left him to groan for breath. A little fellow
sprang at him. Johnny opened his hand and slapped him nearly through the
skin wall. They came; they went; until at last, very much surprised and
quite satisfied, they allowed Johnny to cut the skin rope and help his
old blind friend down.
A boy poked his head in at the flap. He had been a whaler and could
speak English. He surveyed the room in silence for a moment, taking in
each prostrate native.
"Now you have spoiled it," he told Johnny with a smile.
"I should say myself that I'd messed things up a bit," Johnny admitted,
"but tell me what it's all about. What did the poor old cuss do?"
"Do?" the boy looked puzzled. "That one do?"
"Sure. What did they want to hang him for? He was too old and feeble to
do anything very terrible; besides he's blind."
"Oh," said the boy smiling again. "He done not anything. Too old, that
why. No work. All time eat. Better dead. That way think all my people.
All time that way."
Johnny looked at him in astonishment, then he said slowly:
"I guess I get you. In this commune, this tribe of yours, everyone does
the best he can for the gang. When he is too old to work, fish or hunt,
the best thing he can do is die, so you hang him. Am I right?"
"Sure a thing," replied the boy. "That's just it."
Johnny shot back:
"No enjoying a ripe old age in this commune business?"
"No. Oh, no."
"Then I'm off this commune stuff forever," exclaimed Johnny. "The old
order of things like we got back in the States is good enough for me.
And, I guess it's not so old after all. It's about the newest thing
there is. This commune business belongs back in the stone age when
primitive tribes were all the organizations there were."
He had addressed this speech to no one in particular. He now turned to
the boy, a black frown on his brow.
"See here," he said sharply, "this man, no die, See? Live. See? All time
live, see? No kill. You tell those guys that. Tell them I mebby come
back one winter, one summer. Come back. Old man dead. I kill three of
them. See?"
Johnny took out his automatic and played with it longingly.
"Tell them if they don't act as if they mean to do what I say, I'll
shoot them now, three of them."
The boy interpreted this speech. Some of the men turned pale beneath
their brown skins; some shifted uneasily. They all answered quickly.
"They say, all right," the boy explained solemnly. "Say that one, if had
known you so very much like old man, no want-a hang that one."
"All right." Johnny smiled as he bowed himself out.
It was the first near-hanging he had ever attended and he hoped it would
be the last. But as he came out into the clear afternoon air he drank
in three full breaths, then said, slowly:
"Communism! Bah!"
Hardly had he said this than he began to realize that he had a move
coming and a speedy one. He was in the real, the original, the only
genuine No Man's Land in the world. He was under the protection of no
flag. The only law in force here was the law of the tribe. He had
violated that law, defied it. He actually, for the moment, had set
himself up as a dictator.
"Gee!" he muttered. "Wish I had time to be their king!"
But he didn't have time, for in the first place, all the pangs of past
homesick days were returning to urge him across the Strait. In the
second place the mystery of the Russian and Hanada's relation to him was
calling for that action. And, in the third place, much as he might enjoy
being king of the Chukches, he was quite sure he would never be offered
that job. There would be reactions from this day's business. The council
of headmen would be called. Johnny would be discussed. He had committed
an act of diplomatic indiscretion. He might be asked to leave these
shores; and then again an executioner might be appointed for him, and a
walrus lance thrust through his back.
Yes, he would move. But first he must see the Jap girl and ask about her
plans. It would not do to desert her. Hurrying down the snow path, he
came upon her at the entrance to her igloo.
Together they entered, and, sitting cross-legged on the deer skins by
the seal oil lamp, they discussed their futures.
The girl made a rather pitiful figure as she sat there in the glow of
the yellow light. Much of her splendid "pep" seemed to have oozed away.
As Johnny questioned her, she answered quite frankly. No, she would not
attempt to cross the Strait on the ice. It would be quite dangerous,
and, beside, she had promised to stay. She did not say the promise had
been made to Hanada but Johnny guessed that. Evidently they had thought
the Russian might return. She told her American friend that she was
afraid that her mission in the far north had met with failure. She
would not tell what that mission was, but admitted this much: she had
once been very rich, or her family had. Her father had been a merchant
living in one of the inland cities of Russia. The war had come and then
the revolution. The revolutionists had taken all that her father owned.
He had died from worry and exposure, and she had been left alone. Her
occupation at present was, well, just what he saw. She shrugged her
shoulders and said no more.
Johnny with his natural generosity tried to press his roll of American
money upon her. She refused to accept it, but gave him a rare smile. She
had money enough for her immediate need and a diamond or two. Perhaps
when the Strait opened up she would come by gasoline schooner to
America.
Her mention of diamonds made Johnny jump. He instantly thought of the
diamonds in his pocket. Could it be that her father had converted his
wealth into diamonds and then had been robbed by the Radical
revolutionist? He was on the point of showing the diamonds to her when
discretion won the upper hand. He thought once more of the cruel
revenges meted out by these Radicals. Should he give the diamonds to one
to whom they did not belong, the penalty would be swift and sure.
Johnny did, however, press into her hand a card with his name and a
certain address in Chicago written upon it and he did urge her to come
there should she visit America.
He had hardly left the igloo when a startling question came to his mind.
Why had the Russian gone away without further attempt to recover the
treasure now in Johnny's possession? He had indeed twice searched the
American's igloo in his absence and once had made an unsuccessful attack
upon his person. He had gained nothing. The diamonds were still safe in
Johnny's pocket. What could cause the man to abandon them? Here, indeed,
must be one of the big men of the cult, perhaps the master of them all.
With this thought came another, which left Johnny cold. The cult had
spies and avengers everywhere. They were numerous in the United States.
They could afford to wait. Johnny could be trusted to cross the Strait
soon. There would be time enough then. His every move would be watched,
and when the time was ripe there would be a battle for the treasure.
That night, by the light of the glorious Arctic moon Johnny found his
way across the solid shore ice and climbed upon the drifting floes,
which were even now shifting and slowly piling. He was on his way to
America. Perhaps he was the first American to walk from the old world to
his native land. Certainly, he had never attempted thirty-five miles of
travel which was fraught with so many perils.