A FIGHT IN THE NIGHT
"Fifteen men on the dead man's chest,
Yo--ho--ho, and a bottle of rum.
Fifteen men and the dark and damp,
My men 'tis better to shun."
For the fiftieth time Johnny heard those words ground out by the record
that had rolled down the hill to meet him. Fifty times he had searched in
vain for its meaning. For that it was not chance that had sent it rolling
to his feet, but purpose, the mysterious purpose of an unknown some one,
he was certain.
If the man had something to say to him, why did he not say it? Why veil
his meaning in an apparently senseless song? It was getting on his
nerves.
He sprang to his feet and began pacing the floor. For the first time since
the record came into his hands, he had an idea. Somewhere, he had read
part of that song, perhaps all. But where? He could not think.
He came to a stand beside Dave Tower, who was reading.
"Dave," he exclaimed, "part of that song, or all of it, is printed in a
book. What book is it?"
"Your memory's poor," grinned Dave, "'Treasure Island,' of course--only
the first two lines, though. It's the song the old one-legged pirate used
to sing."
"Sure," smiled Johnny.
Turning, he left the room.
In a moment he had his parka down over his head and was out in the open
air. He wanted to think.
The yellow light of the moon was cut here and there by dark purple shadows
of the night. Not a breath stirred. He walked slowly up the hill, watching
the golden streamers of the northern lights streaking across the sky. It
was a perfect night. And yet, it was to be marred all too soon.
"Fifteen men and the dark and damp,
My men 'tis better to shun."
Johnny repeated the last two lines of the song. So these were the words
the mysterious singer had improvised to sing with those which were well
known by every live American boy. What could he mean? Why had he sung
them?
Suddenly it all seemed clear to him; the man was being watched and dared
not do a thing openly. He wished to send them a warning. This was his only
way. And the warning was doubtless to tell them to stay away from the
death trap where Frank Langlois had perished.
"Well," Johnny exclaimed, as if addressing the person who had sent the
message, "if that's all there is to it, we've already complied with your
wish."
He turned and looked back down the hill. A few hundred yards away a hole
yawned in the hard crusted snow. Twenty yards from this was a cone of
black earth twice the height of a man. This was their pile of pay dirt.
For five days now, they had been working on the second mine of the seven.
The pay dirt they had struck was not as rich as they hoped to find, but it
would repay the labor of sluicing. It was growing richer each hour. They
hoped in time to uncover the mother-lode. This would pay for panning and
yield a rich reward.
It was placer mining. Beside the mine entrance stood a steam thawer, a
coal-heated boiler such as is used for driving a sawmill or grist-mill
engine. From this a wire-wound hose extended into the interior of the
mine. The mine was fifteen feet underground, but even here the earth was
frozen solid. Attached to the hose was a sharp pointed iron pipe. This
pipe was perforated in hundreds of places. When it was driven into the
earth and the steam turned on, it thawed the flinty soil and rendered it
pliable to the pick and shovel.
"Yes," Johnny heaved a sigh of satisfaction, "yes, sometime, perhaps in
two or three months, we will send by reliable reindeer carriers our first
gift of gold to the orphans of Russia."
He made his way up the hill to the point where he had found the
phonographic record, for he was curious to know the lay of the land above
that point. He wanted to know where this strange person had been hiding
when he set the disk rolling.
"It's strange, mighty strange," he whispered, as he looked up at the
cliffs which towered skyward some three hundred yards above the spot where
he stood.
Then suddenly he stopped short. Had he seen a dark shadow flit from one
little ridge to another? The surface of the hill was very uneven. He could
not tell.
At first he was inclined to turn back. But he had started for the rocky
cliff and he was not given to turning back. He went on.
As he moved forward, his thoughts were again of that strange fellow who
had made the record on the disk.
"Couldn't be a native" he murmured. "No native has a voice like that. If
it's a strange white man, why doesn't he join us? Perhaps--" He stopped
short in his tracks. "Perhaps it's one of our own number. Perhaps it's
Pant. He's queer enough to do or be anything."
His mind hung on that last word--anything. Yes, he might not be a man at
all. Might be a girl. Why always that hood drawn tight? Why the goggles?
And, being a girl, she might be more than an adventuress. Possibly she was
a radical, a Russian spy, who had joined his crew to thwart his purposes.
Who could tell?
"Humph!" he shook himself free from these reflections. "Lot of chance of
all that being true. There's witchery in this moonlight. And yet, stranger
things have happened. Whatever you say, Pant's a devil. Who else could see
in the dark?"
He was standing almost directly beneath the rocky cliff. Suddenly with the
quickness of thought, a small brown figure sprang at him. Then another and
another.
Right at his face sprang the first one. Not one nor two of these could be
too quick for Johnny. Like a shot his right arm curved out. With a
screaming shudder the man leaped in air and went crashing down the hill.
The second, seized by his fragile squirrel-skin parka, tore himself away.
The third landed upon Johnny's back. Like an infuriated bucking bronco,
Johnny went over on his back, crushing the wind out of the fellow on the
hard packed snow. But the second man, dressed now in a garment of crimson
hue, which he had worn under his parka, was upon Johnny's chest. His arm
was entwined in Johnny's left in a jujutsu hold. His hand flashed to the
white boy's chin. With such a hold even a small man could do much. The man
pinioned beneath, having regained his breath, added his strength to the
other in holding his adversary flat to the snow. Johnny dug his left elbow
into this one's face, while his right arm turned beneath the arm of the
man on his chest and reached a position of half-nelson behind the man's
head. He was now in a position to break this assailant's neck. Bones
snapped as he applied the terrific muscles of his right arm and the brown
man's muscles relaxed. Johnny's head and arms were free. With the speed of
a wild-cat, he sprang to his feet, faced about, then, with a bounding
leap, cleared the remaining assailant and went tobogganing down the hill.
He had seen five others of the brown villains approaching. He had had
enough for this night--more than enough.
The snow was hard packed; the descent for many yards was steep, and Johnny
gained a momentum in his downward plunge that threatened disaster. Now he
careened over a low ridge to shoot downward over a succession of rolling
terraces. Now he slid along the trough of a bank of snow. One thought was
comforting; he was escaping from those strange brown men. Shots had rung
out. Bullets whizzed past him, one fairly burning his cheek. It was with a
distinct sense of relief that he at last bumped over a sheer drop of six
feet to a gentler incline where he was quite out of their sight.
By digging in his heels, he brought himself to a stop. Hardly had he done
this than he sprang up and raced back up the hill to the last rocky ridge
over which he had glided. From the top of this he might be able to see the
men without himself being seen.
As he thrust his toe into a crack and braced his elbows, he peered up the
snowy slope to the cliffs above. All was bathed in a glorious moonlight,
but not a creature stirred. He watched for fully five minutes with no
result. When about to drop to the snow again, he thought he detected a
movement to the left of where he had been looking. Fixing his eyes on that
point, he watched. Yes, there it was; something was passing out from
behind a rock. A gasp escaped his lips.
What appeared to be a gigantic golden coated cat had moved stealthily out
upon the snow, and was gliding toward the upper cliffs.
"Whew!" Johnny wiped the cold perspiration from his brow. Still he
stared.
The creature moved in a leisurely manner up the hill until it disappeared
around the cliffs.
Johnny looked to the right and down the hill. The light of the clubroom
was still burning. He beat a hasty retreat.
It was a surprised and startled group that looked him over as he appeared
at the door, ragged, bruised and bloody. Eagerly they crowded about to
hear his story.
When he had washed the blood from his face and drawn on clean shirt and
trousers, he took a place by the open fire and told them--told them as
only Johnny could.
"Well, what do you make of it?" He threw back his head and laughed a
frank, boyish laugh, as he finished. "Some wild and woolly adventure, eh?
Who were those little men? And what does it all mean?"
"Means the natives are getting superstitious about our effect on the
spirits of their dead whales and are planning to treat us rough,"
suggested Dave.
"Natives!" exploded Jarvis, "Them ain't any natural 'eathen. Them's
'eathen frum further down the sea. I 'ates to think what a 'ard lot they
is. Dave and me's seen a 'eap further north than this. 'E's got spies
everywhere, this 'eathen 'as."
"Struck me a little that way too," smiled Johnny. "That fellow I tore the
clothes off was wearing silk undergarments. Show me the Chukche who wears
any at all, let alone silk."
"Sure!" exclaimed Jarvis.
"But if they're around here, why don't we see them?" objected one of the
miners.
"The big cat's 'ere. Johnny saw 'im," scoffed Jarvis. "You 'aven't seen
'im, 'ave you? All that's about ain't seen. Not by a 'ouse full."
"What about the big cat?" exclaimed Johnny. "I thought I was seeing
things."
"E's a Roosian tiger," stated Jarvis. "I've seen the likes of 'im fur
north of here."
"To-morrow," said Johnny, "we'll take a day off for hunting. Big, yellow
cats and little yellow men are not good neighbors unless they've agreed in
advance to behave. Move we turn in. All in favor, go to bed."
A moment later the clubroom was deserted.