A MOVING ISLAND
“They’re coming!”
Johnny Thompson thought he heard the beating of Faye Duncan’s heart as
she whispered these words in his ears.
They lay close together on the snow against a little rise of land. From
this place they could see nothing before them. A faint crackling sound
was all that told them that a moving island of brown, a great herd of
caribou, was moving up the narrow valley and would, within the space of a
quarter of an hour, be abreast of them and within easy bow shot.
Their position was not without its element of danger. Johnny’s heart
missed a beat at the thought. The caribou, when they had last seen them,
were moving with the steady precision of an army. There were thousands of
them.
“But if a mother wolf and her pack appears to the right of them, then
what?” Johnny asked himself. He knew how broad and sharp were the hoofs
of the caribou. It was these very hoofs that made the steady click and
crash as of a thousand batons beating on wooden rails. Visions of that
vast herd stampeding and rushing down upon them like a relentless sea
passed before his mind’s eye.
“Perhaps we shouldn’t have come,” he whispered.
“It was our only chance,” the girl whispered back. “Our chance for the
Eskimos and for ourselves.”
In this she appeared to speak the truth. Johnny lapsed into silence.
Four days had passed since on that bright morning they had left the
abandoned trapper’s cabin.
Borrowing blankets and a little food from the cabin, they had started
out.
The going had been heavy from the start. The forest had disappeared
almost at once. Guided by the dog Tico, they had found themselves
following a northerly course over a flat and trackless tundra.
Day after day they had tramped on. For a time there had been plenty of
game, ptarmigan on little ridges, rabbits in the bottoms.
As they advanced these had disappeared. And now for an entire twenty-four
hours they had eaten nothing.
An hour before they had mounted a narrow rise of land to find themselves
gazing upon a curious sight. A broad brown island, long and narrow and
weaving in and out, had been moving toward them.
“The caribou! We are too late!” The excitement had been too much for
Gordon Duncan. Seized by a sudden heart attack, he had fallen upon the
snow. All he could do as his stout hearted companions assured him that
all was not lost was to lie flat upon his blankets and struggle painfully
for breath.
“We will take our bows and arrows and hide in one of the little runs,”
Johnny had explained.
“When that throng is passing we surely can pick off a number of caribou.
The Eskimo village must not now be far away. We will build a cairn for
the meat and can return for it.”
Johnny wondered now as the sound of thousands of crackling hoofs grew
louder, whether his words would prove true. Was the Eskimo village near?
Would they succeed in shooting enough caribou to be of real service?
Could the meat be kept away from the wolves?
“At least we shall eat again,” he whispered stoutly.
“Yes,” the girl whispered back, as with nervous fingers she gripped her
bow. She had been loath to leave her grandfather back there alone on the
tundra. He had insisted. So here they were. And here, coming closer, ever
closer, was the moving island of brown.
“There! There is one!” she whispered as a pair of massive antlers
appeared above the ridge’s crest.
A splendid young buck, having climbed the ridge, had risen above the
snow. There for a moment he stood, head high, sniffing the air. That
moment was his last, for with the speed and precision that would have
done credit to a daughter of William Tell, the stout hearted Scotch girl
sent an arrow unerring to its mark.
The next instant Johnny and Faye were on their feet making the most of
their opportunity.
That the opportunity was poor enough they were soon to learn. Like a
mighty stream that breaks its bonds to race over land, this mass of brown
flowed away before their very eyes.
A dozen arrows shot, half of them lost forever, and only two caribou to
show for it all. This was their score.
“Well,” said the girl, dropping to the snow, weak with excitement, “as
you said before, we will eat to-night. As for the Eskimos, there must be
some other way.”
“Yes,” said Johnny, “there must be some—some other way.” He seemed
suddenly to have grown very weak and old.
“We-l-l, it’s not so bad.” It was the voice of an old man grown suddenly
strong that sounded in Johnny’s ear. A moment more and Gordon Duncan,
with Tico hitched to an improvised sled, stood beside them.
“As for yonder little brown people, God will provide in his own good
way,” he said as he led them down the ridge.
That night between the sheltering banks of a narrow gorge, they built a
shanty of willow bushes. The beds they slept on after a royal feast of
roasted caribou steak were made of rustling willow leaves.
Next morning, after cutting a draw line from a caribou skin, Johnny piled
all the remaining meat on the sled, and putting his own shoulder to the
harness, bade Tico lead on.
It was hard, grinding toil, but he hung to the task until, after climbing
a slight elevation, Faye let out a cry of joy. Before them in the valley,
pitched in an irregular circle, were a half dozen skin tents.
“The Caribou Eskimos.” The words that came from the old Scot’s lips spoke
volumes of joy. What did it matter now that the way had been long and
hard, that they had faced death by water, storm and cold? What did he
care that they had but two caribou on their sled and that the great
caribou band had passed northward? They had found the people they had
come to serve. God would find a way to perfect their labors.
“But where are the people?” Faye asked.
Where indeed? Not a living creature was stirring about the tents. Not a
film of smoke curled up from the tent poles.
“It’s like a village of the dead,” Johnny said in an awed whisper. In
this he was more nearly right than he knew.
“Gone hunting,” said Gordon Duncan. His words carried no conviction.
“Come on. Let’s hurry,” said the girl, springing forward.
Once more Johnny put his shoulder to the sled. Gordon Duncan and Faye
also seized the strap and together they went racing away down the slight
incline that led to the village.
No sadder sight had this trio known than that which met their eyes as
they peered within the first low, circular tent. Sprawled upon deer
skins, sitting bent over as in a stupor, or lying prone like dead men,
nine Eskimos greeted their entrance with not so much as a mumbled word or
a stare.
“Dead,” was Johnny’s mental comment as he felt the girl’s impulsive grip
on his arm.
“No,” he said aloud, “they’re not dead; only in a stupor from lack of
food.”
“Hello!” he shouted.
“Hello!” came back in a hollow tone as if from a tomb. One of the
squatting figures attempted to rise. His knees doubled up under him and
he rolled upon the deerskins.
“Food!” Johnny said. “We have caribou meat.”
It seemed certain that but one of the Eskimos understood, the man who had
made a futile attempt to rise.
“There is no caribou meat here,” he mumbled hoarsely.
“We have caribou meat for you, a sled load.”
Rolling himself into a half sitting position, the English speaking Eskimo
said a few words in his own tongue.
The effect was electrical. It was as if a strong current had been sent
through the motionless bodies that lay about on the deerskins. With one
accord they began creeping, crawling, tumbling toward the entrance to the
tent.
For this Johnny was prepared. Quickly unlashing the sled, he produced a
quantity of roasted meat. This he cut into little squares and handed to
the Eskimos.
They ate like famished wolves. Yet, in this extremity they did not forget
their fellow villagers. When each had eaten a little they waved their
hands toward the other tents.
Fortunately the remaining tents were not so crowded as this one. Sad to
relate, two of the occupants were beyond human aid.
When night fell upon the white sweep of the tundra and the three rescue
workers, worn out by the day’s excitement and labor, sought the little
tent and the pile of deerskins that had been surrendered to their use,
the dead had been carried to their last resting place and the living had
been made as comfortable as possible. Then it was that they took stock of
supplies and cast about for signs of the future.
“Looks rather hopeless,” Johnny said as he sank down upon the deerskins.
“Food we have can’t do more than revive them. What next?”
As if in answer to his question, the English speaking Eskimo came
creeping into the tent.
“Have you cartridges?”
“No cartridges,” said Gordon Duncan.
The man’s face fell. “White man,” he mumbled, “no got cartridges. No
cartridge.”
“Listen!” said Gordon Duncan, with eyes alight. “Before the white man
came, how did your people live?”
“Caribou meat. Plenty caribou.”
“How did they kill them?”
“Bow and arrow.”
“Where are your bows and arrows now?”
The man shrugged, then went through the motion of breaking something over
his knees. “No good, bows and arrows. Rifles better, think mine. Think
that every Eskimo.”
“What could you do now if you had cartridges for your rifle?” Duncan
asked.
“Get caribou.” The Eskimo’s eyes were alight with hope.
“But they have gone far north.”
“Some caribou. Not all caribou. Come more soon.”
“What?” Gordon Duncan was on his feet.
“Yes. Come more. Not tell lie, mine. Come more. Mebby to-morrow. Mebby
next day. Can’t tell. Come, that’s all.”
“Then, see here!” Gordon Duncan unbound his bundle of bows. “They’ll all
shoot true and strong,” he said. “Just give me the right man to draw
them. There are old men among you?”
“Three,” said the Eskimo. “Kit-me-suk, Teragloona, Omnakok.”
“Send for the wisest of them all.”
The man was brought in. There followed two hours of talking, relating,
explaining, planning. Through the young interpreter the aged Eskimo
related adventures of long ago, tales of mighty caribou hunts he had
known before the white man came with his firearms.
Gordon Duncan in his turn outlined a hunt for the caribou that were yet
to come, which, if his dream came true, was to be the mightiest hunt of
all time.
In the end, with their splendid imaginations on fire, the old man and the
young interpreter returned to their people to inspire them in turn with
high hope and with dreams of wild adventure.
A long time that night Johnny lay awake among his deerskins. There were
thoughts enough to keep him awake. A whole tribe of little brown people
now were dependent upon the skill and prowess of Gordon Duncan in
organizing a hunt. Most of the actual execution must fall upon Johnny’s
young shoulders, for Gordon Duncan was old. Little wonder, then, that he
did not sleep.
“We are trusting all to this one grand endeavor,” he told himself.
“Little of our caribou meat is left. If the next drove does not pass this
way, if we fail in the hunt, then we too must starve.” He thought of Faye
Duncan and her aged grandsire and wished they had not chosen to come.
“We must succeed,” he told himself. “We must! MUST!”
The plan they were to follow, the ancient plan used by the Eskimos, was
not a complicated one. Yet it required skill and prowess. As the drove
came in from the rolling hills to the south they were to be directed by
native drivers on a course that would take them across a narrow, shallow
stretch of water that lay between two lakes.
As they neared this narrow stretch of water the caribou would find
themselves cut off by native drivers and imaginary natives built of stone
piles and deerskins. They would then take to a deeper, broader stretch of
water which would force them to swim. At the far bank, in ambush the
hunters would wait with drawn bows.
“If we succeed,” Johnny thought. “If we do.” He had visions of a long
journey over hard packed snow with meat aplenty on Tico’s sled, and after
that a long, long rest in a cabin somewhere on at the back of beyond.
“And after that?” He thought of Timmie, the old man’s one time pal, and
his green gold. The season would not be over until that mystery was
solved or abandoned forever.
“If we succeed?” he thought again. He remembered the fear that Gordon
Duncan and Faye had shown on meeting white men. Would they return to that
cottage that Faye called home? Who could tell?