MANHOOD
An-ina watched them pass out of the store together, her dark eyes
following them until they vanished beyond the range of the doorway. Her
regard for both was intense. The untamed Indian heart knew no
reservations. She had no thought for anything in the world but these two
men, and that which pertained to their well-being.
The depth of her devotion was unfathomable. Only its quality varied with
each. For the one it was the devotion of the wife. For the other it was
the devotion of the mother.
She made no comparison between them. How could she? Each in his way was
perfect in her eyes. Young Marcel's superb manhood had no greater claim
upon her woman's admiration than had the sturdy set of Steve's broad
shoulders. The boy's sunny smile, and often humorous eyes, were no
greater source of delight to her than the steady, honest purpose which
was in every line of the older man's strong face. Age and temperament
were far enough apart, but, to An-ina, they were children of a great
mother heart.
At the lean-to store-house, built against the stockade wall, designed by
the dead chemist to hold the bulk of Adresol he had hoped some day to
discover and which had never yet been called upon to fulfil its original
purpose, Steve came to a halt. The melting snow lay heavy upon the
sloping thatch of the roof, which was battened secure by heavy logs. It
was banked against the door. It was laden upon the sills of the one long
window. Steve kicked it clear of the door and took down the fastenings
which secured it. He passed within, with Marcel close upon his heels.
"We're going to need it, boy--after all," Steve said, with a note in his
voice and a light in his eyes that rarely found place in either. He
laughed shortly. "Yes. I think so."
"You think so?"
There was a quick glance of responsive eagerness in Marcel's eyes. Well
enough he knew the store had been built for one purpose only. He had
long since dubbed it "The Poison House." Steve's words meant----
It had a long low interior, with a heavily raftered roof, and an earthen
floor. It was a shadowed, empty tunnel that was only half lit, and
gloomily seemed to merit the name Marcel had chosen for it. At the far
end stood a small unused baling machine, and beside it a set of iron
scales. And on the bench, set up under the windows, stood a few oddments
of appliances of a scientific nature. For the rest it was pathetically
empty. It was altogether a tragic expression of the failure of the
living as well as the dead.
Steve laughed again. It was the same short laugh.
"Maybe I'm crazy," he said. "If I'm not, and there's two cents of luck
waiting around on us, why, we'll need this old store-house after all.
Yes, and I guess we'll need those poison masks your father made and
figgered to need sometime. The whole thing leaves me guessing and
wondering at the sort of fool man I am not to see what's been looking me
in the face for the last fourteen years."
The flash of excitement leapt into Marcel's eyes.
"You've--found the stuff?" he demanded, in a curious hushed tone. Then
with a rush: "Where? On the road to Seal Bay? Or the shores of Hudson's
Bay? It's the sort of thing for a coast like that. Guess it's like
seaweed. Where?"
Steve shook his head.
"Guess again," he said, with a smile of added confidence. "No, I haven't
seen it. I haven't found it. It's just a notion in my fool head." His
eyes lapsed again into their wonted seriousness. "It's a notion I've
got, and--it's right. Oh, yes. In my mind's eye I can see the stuff
growing. And--I--know--where. It's just for me to locate the place and
make the journey----"
"For us, Uncle Steve."
Steve turned sharply and gazed up into the boy's handsome, determined
face. He studied the unsmiling blue eyes that returned his look
unflinchingly. And that which he read in them left him with a
realization that a new chapter in the history of their companionship was
about to open.
"We'll get along to your father's office, boy," he said quietly. "It's
been our refuge and schoolroom for fourteen years. Maybe it's still the
best place for us both to learn our lessons."
He led the way out without waiting for reply. And as they passed from
the portals of the Poison House he again set up the fastenings.
Each had his own place in the simple room which Marcel's father had
dedicated to the science which had been his whole life. For him it had
been all sufficient. The storming of the elements outside might have
been the breathlessness of a tropical climate so far as he cared, once
absorbed in the studies that claimed him. And in a measure the
atmosphere of the room had a similar influence upon these two who came
after him.
Steve occupied the chair at the desk. Marcel had taken possession of the
chair which stood before a small table upon which he had been accustomed
to pursue the simple studies Steve had been able to prepare for him. He
had turned the chair about so that he sat with his feet upon the rail of
the stove in which summer and winter the fire was never permitted to go
out. He had come prepared to listen to the man who had always been his
guide and well-loved friend. But he had come also with the intention of
pressing those claims of manhood which were passionately crying out
within him.
The room was changed only that the belongings of these men, accumulated
in fourteen years, predominated over those things which the dead man had
left behind him. The room was intimate with the personalities of its new
tenants, while it still retained full evidence of the man who had
modelled its original character.
For some moments Steve searched amongst the drawers of the desk. Finally
he produced a number of note books and well-worn diaries. These he set
on the writing pad before him. Then he smilingly regarded the man who
was as a son to him.
"Guess I've got the things I need, boy," he said. "They're support for
the notion I'm going to tell you about. That's so you won't think I'm
crazy," he added, laying a hand on the books.
Marcel nodded keenly.
"Sure. And the notion?"
Steve understood the other's impatience.
"Ordinarily I'd hand you what's got into my mind right away," he said,
still regarding the books. "But that way I couldn't convince anything.
There's got to be arguments, and your father's got to hand us the
argument."
He thrust his fur cap back from his forehead.
"Light a pipe, boy," he went on kindly. "I've got to make a big talk.
And, for a while, anyway, you've got to listen."
Marcel laughed. He obeyed without demur. But Steve was in no way blinded
to the fact that for all his excited interest there was lying, at the
back of every thing, a tug-of-war coming between them, a tug-of-war
which he was by no means sure he was equal to.
"I'm just glad about the big talk," Marcel said. "You see, Uncle Steve,
there isn't much of the kid left in me. This country doesn't leave us
kids long. I'm still ready to act when you say so, and mostly without
question. But a whole heap of questions have been buzzing around in my
head lately, and they need to get out sometime. May as well be now. Talk
all you need, an' I'll blow the pipe."
Steve nodded. He knew the rope for the tug was laid.
"I'll begin at the right start," he said. "That way I'll have to hand
you things you already know. But I don't want to leave you guessing
anywhere along the line, because you're going to tell me all you think
when I've done. First we'll look right back. For fourteen years we've
chased over this territory where your father chased before us. We've
followed his notions to the letter set out in these old books. We've
gone further. We've tried tracking the Sleepers in the open season,
which he reckoned was a bad play. The result? Nix. We've done all he's
done and more, and we've no better result than he had. We've read and
re-read his stuff. We've dreamed, and wondered, and guessed till we know
the whole of Unaga like the pages of one of his books. We've failed to
find the growing ground of this darn Adresol, and, like your father,
we've had to content ourselves with a trade in the dried stuff these
dopey rascals choose to hand us. In twice the years he had at his
disposal we haven't advanced a step along the path he's handed to us."
He turned the pages of some of the notebooks while the smoke of Marcel's
pipe distributed a pleasant haze about the room.
"Now your father was a heap more than a clever scientific man," he went
on a moment later, "and I get that through his notes, which I well-nigh
know by heart. He was a reasoner in those things that had nothing to do
with his science. Guess he was dead practical, too, well-nigh a genius
that way. As for his courage and patience--well, I guess you've only got
to look around you at this old fort. You won't need my hot air to tell
you of it. So I'm left guessing at the wonder of it. _He just missed the
whole point of his own observations, and knowledge, and research._"
A smile crept into Steve's eyes as he made the final announcement. It
grew into his characteristic short laugh.
"Oh, I'm not going to tell you how wise I am. I'm not going to tell you
your great old father was a fool man, and I'm the wise guy that's
figgered out all he missed. I'm the fool man who's been handed a fool's
luck. I was sitting around over the camp-fire on the trail from Seal Bay
with nothing better to do than to listen to the crazy dream of an
ignorant, superstitious neche. It was in that fool yarn I found the
answer to all the questions we've asked in fourteen years. As I tell
you, it was just a crazy notion till I started in to fit it to the
arguments your father handed to us. Then I saw in a flash, and got the
start of my life. There's times that I'm still wondering if I'm not
plumb crazed."
He indicated a notebook which he had opened. Its pages were scored with
his own pencilled notes.
"I don't need to worry you with all the stuff written here," he went
on. "You know it like I do. But I'm going to read a piece so you'll get
the full drift of my argument when I hand it you. First, though, we'll
reconstruct some. The neches go out for this stuff in the open season.
They start when the ice breaks, and don't get back to home till things
freeze up again. That's important. They bring the Adresol in _dried_.
Like stuff dead for months. They don't bring it green, and dry it
themselves. They bring it _dried_. Now then, your father says that one
root would yield a thousand per cent. more Adresol than the green
foliage. And the green foliage five hundred per cent. more than the
dried. Why then do the neches bring in the dried stuff in the open
growing season? Do they prefer it that way?" He shook his head
thoughtfully. "Guess it's not that. There's a reason though. These folk
have been using this stuff for ages. Yet they never bring it green. They
never bring the root. Why not? Do they know about the yield of the
foliage, of the root? Maybe. But I don't think so. I'd like to say
_they've never seen the stuff in its growing state_. Only dead!"
Steve picked up the notebook in front of him.
"I want to read this to you, boy. You've read it. We've both read it,
but it's got a different meaning--now. Listen."
"Adresol has many features, interesting and deadly, foreign to all other
known drug-producing flora. Aconite, digitalis, and the commoner
varieties of toxins lie dormant in the producing plant. That is, there
are no exhalations of a noxious nature. In Adresol the drug is
active--violently active. Adresol extracted and duly treated (see note
X, Book C) for uses in medicine is not only harmless to the human body
in critical stages of disease, but even beneficial to the whole system
in a manner not yet fully explored. But in its active, crude state in
the growing plant, it is of a very violent and deadly character. It
would almost seem that an All-wise Creator has, for this reason, set it
to flourish in climates almost unendurable to human and animal life, and
in remotenesses almost inaccessible. No animal or human life could exist
within the range of the poison its deadly bloom exhales. The plant
belongs to the order Liliaceae and would seem from its general form to be
closely allied with the Lilium Candidum. This, however, only applies to
its form, and by no means to its habit. Its magnificent bloom is dead
white and of intense purity. A field of this strange plant in full
bloom, viewed from above, would probably give an appearance like the
spread of a white damask table-cloth of giant proportions. The blooms
almost entirely obscure the weed-like foliage. The danger lies in the
pungent, sickly, but delicious perfume it exhales, which is so intense,
that, coming up against the wind, it could be detected miles away.
Before and after its blooming season it is only less deadly that it can
be safely approached. To cut or break the sappy stems and foliage would
be only to court prompt disaster without the use of adequate poison
masks. The newly cut plant exhales the same deadly perfume as the bloom,
one deep breath of which would frequently be fatal to human life. The
cuts in the foliage heal up quickly, however, and after a day's delay
its transport could be safely undertaken. The reference here is to
transport in the open air. The green harvest once stored in a confined
space again becomes actively dangerous. All stores containing it should
be carefully locked up, and isolated, and should only be entered by
those with poison masks carefully adjusted. The only moment at which
Adresol, in its native conditions, is perfectly innocuous is in its dead
season, when the bulbous root lies dormant. The proportion of the drug
contained in the dried foliage, however, is infinitely small.'"
Steve looked up from his reading.
"That," he said, "is all we need to convince us of the Sleepers' lack of
understanding of the nature of the plant. I'd say right here they've
never seen the plant in growth. If they had they'd be scared to get next
it by a thousand miles. Whatever we don't know of Adresol, we do surely
know Indians. But I guess there's a heap more importance in that writing
than that. How do these folk get the dead stuff in the growing
season--the blooming season? How can they face that deadly scent?
They've no scientific poison masks. Yet year after year an outfit makes
the summer trail and they get back when things freeze up with enough
Adresol for their own doping, and a big bunch for trade to us. Your
father doesn't answer that. He leaves us guessing, and thinking of
winter when the whole darn country is covered feet thick in snow and
ice."
The interest in Marcel's eyes was profound, and he drew a deep breath as
Steve paused. He had no question, however. He sat leaning forward in his
chair expectantly, waiting, his pipe dead out and forgotten.
Steve's face suddenly lit with a smile.
"Now I'm going to give you a crazy man's answer to all those things. I'd
hate for your father to hear me. I'm going to say the growing, blooming
season of this queer stuff is _dead, hard winter_. At least up here. I'm
going to say the foliage lies dead the whole of the open season, and the
root is dormant. I'm going to say these Sleepers don't know a thing but
the stuff they find, and never have known in all their history. I
believe that some where away back their ancestors found the dead weed,
and maybe used it to smoke like other weeds some of the Northern Indians
use. Maybe it doped them in the pipe. Maybe some bright squaw tried
boiling it into a drink. It's a guess. You can't say how they came to
use it as dope. Anyway the thing just developed, and has gone on without
them getting wise to any of the things your father knew."
"Oh, yes, it all sounds crazy," Steve hurried on as Marcel stirred.
"It's too crazy I guess for a scientific head like your father's. But he
hadn't listened to Oolak's fool dream, and he never saw the thing I've
seen--twice."
"You've seen?"
Marcel could deny himself no longer. Intense excitement urged him. Steve
shook his head.
"I haven't found it--yet," he said. "No. The thing I've seen you've
seen, too. You were just a bit of a kiddie and won't remember. I'll try
and fix up the picture of what I saw then in the far-away distance, and
what I see now in my crazy mind's eye."
He paused. Then, with a swift movement that had something of excitement
in it, he flung out an arm pointing while his voice took on a new note,
and his words came rapidly.
"Somewhere out there," he cried. "A land of glacial ice, endless snow
and ice. Hills everywhere, broken, bald, immense. A range of mountains.
In the midst of 'em a giant hill bigger and higher than anything I've
ever dreamed. A hill of blasting, endless fire. It never dies out. It
burns right along, belching the fiery heart out of the bowels of the
earth. And everywhere about, for maybe miles, a blistering tropical heat
that defies the deadliest cold the Arctic hands out. Do you get it? Sure
you do. You're getting my crazy notion, that isn't so crazy. Well, what
then? Winter. A temperature that turns a snowstorm into a pleasant
summer rain, and the buzzard into a summer gale. Vegetation starts into
growth. I can't guess how the absence of sun fixes it. Maybe it
grows--_white_. But it grows--grows all the time, like those things of
the folk who grow out of season. Then spring, and the sun again. Rising
temperature. The heat from this hell ripens the stuff quick, and the sun
makes it green again. This Adresol. A great field of dead white. Then,
as swiftly, it dies. Dies before the Indians come. Burnt up by the
rising temperature of the advancing season _and the blistering volcanic
heat_."
Marcel started up from his chair with an excited cry.
"You're right, Uncle," he cried, completely carried away. "But where?
Where's this place? This old hill? I've seen it? Where?"
"It's north, boy. Away north. God knows how far."
Steve's voice had lost something of its note of inspiration before the
hard facts which Marcel's question had brought home to him. He paused
for a moment with his eyes hidden. Then, with a curious movement which
suggested the determined squaring of his shoulders, he broke out again.
"Yes. It's miles--maybe hundreds of miles away north. It's somewhere in
the heart of Unaga. Some place explorers never hit. It's the great Spire
of Unaga. The unquenchable Fires of Unaga. It's a living volcano that
sets all other volcanoes looking like two cents. I've seen it twice--in
the far-off distance. You've seen it once. The boys have seen it, too.
It looked like a pillar propping up the roof of the heavens. A pillar of
fire. It set me nigh crazy with wonder. And it scared the boys to death.
They guessed it was the breeding ground of all evil spirits. But it's
there, and it grows our stuff. And I'm going right out after it."
"Yes!"
Marcel dropped back into his chair. His exclamation was a vent to the
emotions which the force of Steve's words had stirred.
"Yes. Sure," he added a moment later. "We'll go right out after it."
"We?"
Steve looked up with a start.
The boy's excitement had passed. He regarded his foster-father with a
pair of challenging, smiling eyes that were full of humour. But the
challenge was definite. He re-lit his pipe.
"Why, yes, Uncle," he said promptly. "We'll go. That's how you said. I'm
all in on this. I'm crazy to see all that wonderland can show me. It
doesn't scare me a thing. You see, it's a winter trail. I guess I know
the summer trail so I won't forget it. The winter trail's new and I'm
crazy for it. You'll need us all on this thing. I----"
Steve shook his head. Marcel broke off at the sign, and the smile passed
out of his searching eyes as he sought to read what lay behind that
silent negative.
"You mean--?" he went on, a moment later, a flush mounting to his cheeks
and suggesting a sudden stirring of passionate protest.
"I don't mean a thing but that you can come right along if you think
that way."
The smile that accompanied Steve's words was gently disarming. There was
no equivocation. It was impossible for the boy to misread what he said.
The capitulation had not waited for the passionate challenge Marcel had
been prepared to make.
"You--mean that, Uncle?"
"Surely. If you're yearning to take a hand, boy, I don't figger to get
in your way." Steve closed up the books on his desk and dropped them
back in the drawer from which he had taken them. Then he thrust back
his chair and prepared to join the other in a smoke. "I've got just two
feelings on this thing, Marcel," he went on, as he filled his pipe. "I'm
glad you feel that way, but I'm kind of sorry to think you're going
along with me. You see, I kind of think of you as my son. I've done all
I know in fourteen years to teach you my notion of what a man needs to
be. I've done the best I know that way. And I'd have hated to find you
short of the grit I reckon this enterprise is going to need." He
laughed. "If you'd have turned out a sort of 'Squaw-man' I guess I'd
have hated you like a nigger. But there wasn't a chance of it, with a
father and mother like you had. No." He lit his pipe, and settled
himself in his chair. "The way you've learned to beat the summer trail,
your woodcraft. You're a 'great hunter and brave,' as An-ina says, and
you've got every Indian I've ever known left cold behind you. You've
grown to all I've hoped, and I'm glad. And now--now this great last
enterprise is coming along, why, it just leaves me proud thinking that
you couldn't listen to the yarn of it, even, without reckoning to be on
the outfit yourself. I'm glad--just glad."
Marcel's eyes shone. Steve's approval, unqualified, was something he had
not hoped for. He had been prepared to battle for his rights as a man,
and now--now the wonder of it. He was admitted to the task confronting
them without question; with only cordial agreement. He remembered with
regret his outburst to An-ina, when he had been waiting for Steve's
return from Seal Bay.
"You see," he burst out with impulsive frankness, "I was scared you'd
hold me to the fort, Uncle, the same as it's been every winter. I was
just getting mad thinking I was only fit for the open summer trail,
chasing up pelts with a bunch of these doper neches. Oh, yes. It set me
mad. And I told An-ina. I'm not a kid, Uncle. Guess I'm all the man
I'll ever be, and I just want to get busy on a man's work. I can't stand
for seeing you doing these things for me. You don't get younger. And
I--I'm bursting with health and muscle, and my spirit's just crying out
against being nursed like a kid. I came here to kick, Uncle, I
did--sure. To kick hard--if you'd refused me. But I needn't have thought
that way--with you. And I'm sore now that I did. By Gee! It's just
great! That hill, those fires! We'll start to fix the whole thing. And
we'll get right out in the fall."
"Sure." Steve nodded. His eyes were very tender, and their smile was the
smile he always held for the boy who had now become a man. "It'll be
fall--early fall. We can't start out too early, but it mustn't be till
the dopers are asleep. You see, we've got to leave An-ina
behind--without a soul to protect her."
"Yes." Marcel's happy eyes shadowed. But they brightened at once.
"Couldn't we leave Julyman? There'd still be the three of us."
"I s'pose we could."
Steve seemed to consider for a moment, his serious eyes turned on the
stove. Marcel watched him anxiously. Presently the elder man looked up.
To the other it seemed that all doubt had passed out of his mind.
"I'd best tell you what's in my mind," he said. "I got it from Leclerc
at Seal Bay. I got it, by inference, from my talks with Lorson Harris.
The Seal Bay Co. are out after us all they know. They're out after our
stuff. Our secret. They've opened up Fort Duggan, and sent a crook
called David Nicol there to run it. And he's out to jump our claim. It
comes to this. This outfit is on the prowl. Their job is to locate us.
Well? An-ina alone! Even Julyman with her! What then if this bunch hits
up against the fort while we're away? Oh, I'm not thinking of our
'claim.' It's An-ina. The soul who's handed over her life to us. The
woman who's nursed you ever since you were born. And who'd give up her
life any hour of the day or night if she guessed it would help you. Can
we leave her to Julyman? You best tell me how you think--just how you
think."
The expressive face of Marcel reflected the emotion which Steve's words
had set stirring in his boyish heart. The delight at his contemplated
share in the great adventure had been shining in his eyes. Now they were
shadowed with anxiety at the talk of Lorson Harris and his scouts. A
moment's disappointment followed. But this was swept away by a rush of
feeling at the thought of his second mother left alone and unprotected,
except by an Indian.
In a moment all that was loyal and generous in him swamped the
selfishness of his own youthful desire. His passionate rebellion at
being shut out from all he considered as man's work was completely
forgotten. He remembered only the gentle dusky creature who needed his
man's support.
"You needn't say a thing, Uncle Steve," the youngster cried. "I was
crazy to go. I'm that way still. But--well, I just can't stand for
An-ina being left. She's more than my second mother. She's the only
mother I remember."
Steve nodded.
"I guessed you'd feel that way boy, and--I'm glad."