THE SPRING OF LIFE
It was a moment when memories were stirring. An-ina searched the
distance with eyes untroubled and full of a glad content. Had she not
every reason for content? Oh, yes. She knew.
It was the same scene she had gazed upon for many seasons, for many
years, and the limit of her vision had become practically the limits of
her world. There stretched the white snow-clad valley with the still
frozen river winding its way throughout its length to the north and
south. There were the far-off hills beyond, white, grey; and purpling as
the distance gained. Dark forest patches chequered the prospect. It was
the same all ways, north, south, and west.
For all the few changings of aspect with the passing of the seasons
there was no weariness in the woman's heart. She was bound up to the
exclusion of all else with the human associations which were hers. No
prison could hold bondage for her, so long as those associations were
not denied her.
Out of the tail of her eyes she glanced at the great figure that was
standing near her in the gateway of the fort. It was a figure, the sight
of which filled her with a great sense of pride, and joy, and gratitude.
In her simple way she understood something of the debt owed her for her
years of untiring, watchful care of the small body which had grown to
such splendid manhood. But the thought of its discharge never occurred
to her uncalculating mind. That which she beheld more than repaid.
Marcel was great for Indian eyes to gaze upon. Tall as was the woman,
comely in her maturing years, she was left dwarfed beside the youthful
manhood she had watched grow from its earliest days. The young man had
the erect, supple, muscular body of a trained athlete and the face of
the mother who had long since been laid to rest in the woods of the
Sleeper Indians. He had moreover the strength of the father's unspoiled
character, and all the purposeful method which the patient upbringing of
"Uncle Steve" had been capable of inspiring. He was a simple human
product, unspoiled by contamination with the evil which lurks under the
veneer of civilization, yet he possessed all the trained mind that both
Steve and he had been able to achieve from the wealth of learning which
his father's laboratory had been found to contain.
Beyond this, the bubbling springs of youth were in full flood, and the
tide ran strong in his rich veins. A passionate enthusiasm was the
outlet for this tide. A buoyant, fearless energy, a youthful pride in
strenuous achievement. It was with these he faced the bitterness of the
cruel Northland which he had grown to look upon like the Indians, who
knew no better, as the whole setting of human life and all that was to
be desired.
He was a hunter and a man of the trail before all things. His every
thought was wrapt up in the immensity of the striving. He had absorbed
the teachings of Steve, and added to them his own natural instincts. And
in all this he had raised himself to that ideal of manhood which nature
had implanted in An-ina's Indian heart. If she had thought of him as she
would have thought of him years ago in the teepees of her race, she
would have been content that he was a great "brave" and a "mighty
hunter." As it was her feelings were restricted to an immense pride that
she had been permitted the inestimable privilege of raising a real white
child to well-nigh perfect manhood.
Marcel knocked out the pipe he was smoking. It was with something like
reluctance he withdrew his gaze from the far distance.
"I've only two days more, An-ina," he said. "The outfit's ready to the
last ounce of tea and the filling of the last cartridge. The Sleepers
are wide awake, and squatting around waiting for the word to 'mush.' We
just daren't lose the snow for the run to our headquarters. I wish Uncle
Steve would get around. I just can't quit till he comes."
"No."
The squaw's reply was one of complete agreement. She understood. The
long summer trail was claiming the man. The hunter in him was clamouring
for the silent forests, where King Moose reigned supreme, the racing
mountain streams alive with trout and an untold wealth of salmon, the
open stretches of plain where the caribou browsed upon the weedy, tufted
Northern grass, the marsh land and lakes, where the beavers spend the
open season preparing their winter quarters. Then the traps, and the
wealth of fox pelts they would yield, while the eternal dazzle of the
much-prized black fox was always before his eyes. But stronger than all
was his thought for Steve. No passion, so far, was greater in his life
than his regard for this man who had been father, mother, and mentor to
him in the years of his helplessness.
An-ina pointed down the course of the winding river where it came out of
the southern hills.
"He come that way," she said. Then she smiled. "The same he come always.
The same he come long time gone, when Marcel hide by waters and make big
shout. Him much scared. Marcel think? Oh, yes."
The man laughed in a happy boyish way.
"I'd like to, but I just can't," he said. Then he added: "You always
think of that, An-ina. No," he went on with a shake of the head. "I
remember riding Uncle Steve's back. Seems it was for days and days. I
sort of remember sitting around and watching him while he looked down at
a pair of feet like raw meat, with the flies all trying to settle on
them. The sort of way flies have. Then there were his eyes. I've still
got the picture of 'em in my mind. They were red--red with blood, it
seemed. They were sort of straining, too. And they shone--shone like the
blazing coals of a camp-fire."
An-ina nodded, and into her dark eyes came a look of the dread of the
days he had recalled.
"That so," she said, in a tone of suppressed emotion. "It was bad--so
bad. Him carry Marcel. Oh, yes. Carry all time, like the squaw carry
pappoose. So you live,--and An-ina glad."
"Yes." The man bestirred himself abruptly. He stood up from his lounging
against the gatepost, and his great height and breadth of muscular
shoulders seemed suddenly to have grown. "So I live. And you are glad.
That's it. So I live. It's always that way--with you and Uncle Steve.
It's for me. All the time for me. Not a thing for yourselves--ever."
The woman's eyes were suddenly filled with startled questioning and
solicitude.
"Oh, yes? That so," she said simply. "Why not? You all Uncle Steve got.
You all An-ina got. So."
"And aren't you both all--I've got?" The man's smile disarmed the sudden
passionate force which had taken possession of his voice and manner.
"Can't I act that way, too? Can't I sort of carry you and Uncle Steve on
my back? Can't I come along and say, 'Here, you've done all this for me
when I couldn't act for myself, now it's my turn? You sit around and
look on, and act foolish, like I've done all the time, while I get
busy.' Can't I say this, same as you've acted all these years? No. You
two great creatures won't let me. And sometimes it makes me mad. And
sometimes it makes me want to stretch out these fool arms of mine and
hug you for the kindest, bravest, and best in the world."
An-ina laughed in her silent Indian fashion, and the delight in her eyes
was a reflection of the joy in her soul.
"You say all those. It make no matter," she said.
"But it does make matter." The man's handsome face flushed, and his keen
blue eyes shone with a half angry, half impatient light. With a curious
gesture of suppressed feeling he passed a hand over his clean-shaven
mouth, as though to smooth the whiskers that had never been permitted to
disfigure it. "It makes me feel a darn selfish, useless hulk of a man.
And I'm not," he cried. "I'm neither those things. Say An-ina," he went
on, more calmly, and with a light of humour in his eyes, "Don't you dare
to laff at me. Don't you dare deny the things I'm saying. I won't stand
for it. For all you're my old nurse I'll just pick you up like nothing
and throw you to the dogs back in the yard there. And maybe that'll let
you see I can do the things I figure to. I'm a grown man, and Uncle
Steve says 'no' every time I ask to take on the work of locating where
the weed grows, which he hasn't found in fourteen years, and which my
father was yearning to find before he died. 'No,' he says. 'This is for
me. It's my work. It's the thing I set out to do--for you.' When I ask
to do the trade at Seal Bay, it's the same. He guesses the 'sharps'
would beat me. Me! who could break a dozen of their heads in as many
minutes. So I'm left to the trail--the summer trail--to gather pelts,
and learn a craft I know by heart. I keep the Sleeper boys busy, and in
good heart. I'm the big hunter they like to follow. I'm the son of a
great white chief they say, and, for me, they're sort of fool dolls I
pull the strings of, while Uncle Steve does the big man's work. Can you
beat it? It's all wrong. You and Uncle Steve are twice my age. You've
crowded a life's work--for me. You both reckon to go on--always for me.
While I sit around guessing I'm a man because I know a jack-rabbit from
a bull-moose. It's got to alter. It's going to alter--after the summer.
I want the big scrap, An-ina. The real scrap life can hand a feller that
can write 'man' to his name. I'm out for it all. I want it all. And if
Uncle Steve's right, and I'm wrong, and I go under, I'm ready to take
the med'cine however it comes."
The smile of the woman was full of the mother. It was full of the
Indian, too.
"Oh, yes," she said quickly. "What you call him, 'chance.' The 'big
chance.' So it is. It good. So very, very good for the big man. Marcel
the big man. I know. Oh, yes. I know. The chance it come. Maybe easy.
Maybe not. It come. So it is always. It come, you take it. You not must
look, or you find trouble. You take it. Always take it when it come.
That how An-ina think."
Marcel laughed. His impatience had vanished before the sun of his happy
temperament.
"You've dodged the dogs, An-ina," he cried. "You're too cute for me.
You've agreed with me, and haven't handed an inch of ground. But I tell
you right here, you dear old second mother of mine, I'm going to play
the man as I see the game. And I'm going to play it good."
* * * * *
The expression on the man's dusky face was deadly earnest. His lean
brown hands were spread out over the fire for warmth. His fur-clad body
was hunched upon his quarters, as near to the glowing embers as safety
permitted. And as he talked a look of awe and apprehension dilated his
usually unexpressive eyes.
"The fire run this way--that way," he cried, in a voice of monotonous
cadence, but with a note of urgency behind it. "The man stand by dogs.
He look--look all the time. Fire all same everywhere. It burn up all.
Nothing left. Only two men. Boss Steve and Julyman. Oh, yes. They stan'.
They look, too. They no fear. So they not burn all up. The man by the
dogs much scare. He left him club, an' beat all dogs. So they all crazed
with him club. They run. Oh, yes. An' the man turn. He run, too. Then
Oolak see him face. Oh, yes. Him face of Oolak. Him eyes big with fear.
Him cry out. So him run lak hell so the fire not get him."
The silent Oolak had committed himself to speech. He had talked long out
of the superstitious dread that beset his Indian heart. He had dreamed a
dream that filled him with fear of the future, towards which he looked
for its fulfilment.
The grey dawn was searching the obscurity of the fringe of woody shelter
in which the camp was made--the last camp on the return journey from
Seal Bay to the fort. The smell of cooked meat rose from the pan which
Julyman held over the fire. Steve sat on a fallen log, smoking, and
listening tolerantly to the man's recital, while the sharp yapping of
the dogs near by suggested the usual altercation over their daily meal
of frozen fish. The cold was intense, but the cracking, splitting
booming which came up out of the heart of the woods told of the
reluctant yielding of the tenacious grip of winter.
Something of Oolak's awe found reflection in the eyes of Julyman. He,
too, was an easy prey to the other's primitive superstition. Steve alone
seemed untroubled. He understood these men. They were comrades on the
trail. There was no distinction. There was no master and servant here.
They fought the battle together, the Indians only looking to him for
leadership. Thus he restrained the lurking smile of irony as he listened
to the awesome recital of a dream that filled the dreamer with serious
apprehension.
"And this fire? Where did it come from?" he demanded, with a seriousness
he by no means felt.
Oolak met his gaze with a look of appeal.
"The earth all fire," he said. "The hills, the valleys, the trees. All
same. Him fire everywhere. Oh, yes. It run so as water. It fill 'em up
all things--everywhere. An' it burn all up. Not boss Steve an' Julyman.
Oh, no."
Steve meditated awhile. Oolak needed an interpretation of his dream, or,
anyway, must listen to the voice of comfort. He understood this as he
gazed upon the partially crippled body of the man who was still a giant
on the trail.
The passing of years had touched Steve lightly enough. Time might almost
have stood still altogether. A few grey hairs about the temples. A
thinning of his dark hair perhaps. Then the lines of his face had
perhaps deepened. But in the fourteen years that had elapsed since his
return to Unaga the raw muscle and the powerful frame of his youthful
body had only gained in mass and left him the more capable of
withstanding the demands which his life on the merciless plateau made
upon his endurance.
Julyman, too, was much the Julyman of bygone years. The only change in
him was that opportunity had robbed him of many of those lapses he had
been wont to indulge in. But he was still no nearer the glory of a halo.
Oolak alone displayed the wear and tear of the life that was theirs. His
body was slightly askew from the disaster of the return from the first
visit to Unaga, and one leg was shorter than the other. But the effect
of these things was only in appearance. His vigour of body remained
unimpaired. His silence was even more profound. And his mastery of the
trail dogs left him a source of endless admiration to his companions.
Steve dipped some tea into a pannikin.
"Oolak had a nightmare, I guess," he said, feeling that a gentle
ridicule could do no harm.
Julyman grinned his relief that the white man saw nothing serious in
that which all Indians regard as the voice of the spirits haunting their
world.
"Oolak eat plenty, much," he observed slyly.
Steve helped himself to meat from the pan and dipped some beans from the
camp kettle beside the fire.
"Dreams are damn-fool things, anyway," he said. Then he laughed, "Guess
we've dreamed dreams these fourteen years. And we're still sitting
around waiting for things to happen."
Despite his concern Oolak tore at the meat with his sharp teeth, and ate
with noisy satisfaction.
"Him all fire. Burn up all things. Oh, yes. Bimeby we find him," he said
doggedly.
Steve was in the act of drinking. He paused, his pannikin remaining
poised.
"You guess----"
"Him fire," said Oolak, wiping the grease from his lips on the sleeve
of his furs. "Him big fires. Oolak know. Him not eat plenty. Him see
this thing. The spirits show him so he know all time."
Steve gulped his tea down, and set the pannikin on the ground.
"That's crazy," he declared. "It's not spirits who show Oolak. It's as
Julyman says. He eats plenty. So he dreams fool things that don't mean a
thing. Oolak doesn't need to believe the spirits are busy around him
when he sleeps."
He laughed in the face of the unsmiling Oolak. But his laugh was cut
short by the Indian's stolid response.
"Boss white man know all things plenty," he said, with the patient calm
of a mind made up. "He big man. Oh, yes. Him bigger as all Indian man.
Sure. But he not know the voice of the spirits that speak much with
Indian man. Oolak know him. So. An' the father of Oolak. Oh, yes. So we
find this fire sometime. We find him. This fire of the world. The
spirits tell Oolak, so him not afraid nothing."
Julyman set a pannikin down with a clatter. He raised a brown hand
pointing. He was pointing at Oolak, and his eyes were wide with
inspiration.
"He dream of Unaga--him fire of Unaga! So!"
Steve started. In a moment, at the challenge of Julyman, his mind had
bridged a gulf of fourteen years. He was gazing upon a scene he had
almost forgotten. A strange, magnificent scene in the heart of a white
world where snow and ice held nature's wonderful creation buried deep in
its crystal dungeons. The distant, towering spire rising sheer above a
surrounding of lofty mountains. The pillar of ruddy smoke and mist
piercing deep into the heart of a cloud belt lit with the vivid
reflection of blazing volcanic fires. The splendour of it had been
awesome, terrific. He remembered it now.
All thought of ridicule had died within him. For the inspiration of
Julyman had stirred his own inspiration beyond all reason. In a moment
his mind was a surge of teeming thought, with Unaga--the fires of
Unaga--the centre of a vivid, reckless imagination.
For fourteen years a wealth of dogged effort had been expended in an
accumulation of failure, as he had admitted to Lorson Harris only a few
weeks back in Seal Bay. The whole purpose of his life on Unaga had been
denied him. Where he had sought and striven for Marcel, he had only
partially made good. The promised fortune was amassing only slowly,
painfully, while the child had grown to manhood with a rapidity that far
outstripped it. The source of the elusive Adresol had remained hidden.
Nature, and the Sleeper Indians, had refused him their secret.
For fourteen years the winter trail had been faced under the direst
perils. And in all that time never once had the memory of the Spire of
Unaga come to inspire him. He had pursued his endless search along the
lines which the learning of the dead chemist had laid down. He had
sought to trap the secret of the Sleeper men by every means in his
power. But always and everywhere he had run upon the blank wall of
failure.
Now--now, at a time when he had learned in Seal Bay disquieting news
suggesting jeopardy for his whole enterprise, a flash of imagination had
stirred in him an inspiration, which, against all reason, had changed
the whole outlook of the future.
Unaga! Could it be? Was that the secret hiding-place of Nature? Could he
make it? How far? Where? Somewhere within the boundaries of the Arctic
ice? Maybe. He could not tell. The Spire was for all to see. Somewhere
beyond. Somewhere lost in the grey world of the North. A lure to--what?
A hundred miles. Two. Three. Four. No, he could not estimate. He did
not know. All he knew was that it was there, a fiery pillar, the simple
sight of which set the heart of the Indian quaking. Was it there that
the secret of the Adresol plant lay hidden? Was it there that the sturdy
Sleepers dared the summer trail for their priceless treasure? What
monstrous conditions had produced it? What amazing anachronism had
Nature created in the far-off Arctic world?
And the terror of that journey in the dead of winter. It was a journey
into the unknown, unguessed heart of a world's desolation. Was it
possible? Was it within human powers of endurance? If the land of fire
were the nursery whence the Sleepers drew their supplies of Adresol they
made the journey. But it was in summer. Winter? Was it possible?
Yes. It was possible. It must be made possible. If it were not, if the
effort were too great he could always pay the price. Marcel had grown to
manhood. Fourteen years of failure had elapsed since the taking of his
great decision. Here was a prospect. Here was a chance. Had he not in
the past fourteen years taken every chance? Well, it was no time to
shrink before the fiery heart of Unaga.
The men devoured their food. Steve had no desire to talk of his new-born
inspiration. Bald words would never convince these primitive creatures.
They looked to him for leadership. It was for him to dictate. It was for
them to follow. To discuss the project he contemplated would weaken his
authority.
So he smoked on in silence, with a tumult of thought passing behind the
steady eyes gazing so deeply into the heart of the fire.