THE DANCING SHADOW
The tent Johnny slept in was a small one. He slept in it alone. There
could be no mistaking the intent of the Eskimo with the long knife.
“He will kill Johnny,” the girl told herself, gripping at her heart.
Her first impulse was to cry out. The cry was stifled by the thought that
the whole village would be awakened.
“They might all turn upon us. Then what chance have we?”
All this flashed through the girl’s mind. The next instant she shot
silently out of the tent. Her bare feet left tracks in the snow but made
no sound.
Just as the Eskimo was creeping into Johnny’s tent, he felt himself
seized from behind and dragged violently backward. The next instant a
heavy body came crashing down upon him. The knife flew from his hand. His
breath was knocked from him. He uttered one low grunt and that was all.
Thirty seconds later, powerful hands gripped his shoulders while in a
hoarse whisper a voice spoke.
“What was he doing?” It was the old Scot.
“Try—trying—” The girl struggled hard to retain her composure. “He had a
long knife. He was trying to kill Johnny.”
For a moment the old Scot sat in silent meditation.
“They are ungrateful beasts!” The girl’s low whisper was tense with
indignation.
“No, no, girl, you must not think that! They are but children, frightened
children. Afraid, that’s what they are. Afraid of the trees in the
forest, of spirits that do not exist at all, afraid, afraid. You must not
blame them.”
Lifting the young Eskimo to his feet, he pointed away toward the little
village of native tents, then gave him a gentle shove.
“Johnny!” he called in a low tone.
There came no answer.
A new terror gripped the girl’s heart. What if, after all, she had been
too late?
“Slept through it all!” the old Scot grumbled. “Have to shake him a bit.”
He disappeared within the tent. A moment later, to her intense relief,
Faye heard the two conversing in low tones.
“We’ll pack up,” said the grandfather as he emerged from the tent.
“Something has gone amiss. Can’t tell what. There’s no use to stay. Let’s
get away as soon as we can.”
An hour later, with a glorious yellow moon hanging low in the sky to
light their way, and with Tico to lead them on, the little party pushed
off into the night.
All through the remainder of the night and the greater part of the day
they moved forward. A strange spectacle, a dog, an old man, a young man
and a girl moving over an endless expanse of white, doing a forced march
to escape from those whom they had come to save. They were following an
entirely new course, one which Johnny believed would bring them to their
journey’s end, Timmie’s cabin and green gold.
“Forgive them, child. Forgive them,” the old Scot said as he read the
look of unhappiness on his granddaughter’s face. “Learn to pray the
prayer of one much more worthy than we, ‘Father, forgive them; they know
not what they do.’ Some day a missionary will come to them. He will teach
them. Then they will understand.”
Strange to say, as they traveled away from the tundra toward the forest
at the foot of the mountain, a brown spot like a drifting shadow or
prowling wolf followed them. When at last they came to the edge of the
forest and began making camp, this shadowy figure did not enter the
forest, but sought out the shelter of a cut bank of earth, to drop down
upon a flat rock and remain quite motionless for many hours.
Later he wakened and prowled as a wolf would have prowled. He did not
come too near the party of three, for all through the long hours, as the
girl slept curled up in her blankets, the old man and the young man took
turns at making fire and guarding camp.
Toward dawn as Johnny sat half asleep by the fire, the girl, waking from
refreshing slumber, sat up blinking at the fire to talk softly of a vine
clad cottage where squirrels came to eat from one’s hand, where daffodils
cast their fragrance to the air in the springtime, and old fashioned
roses bloomed in summer.
“I hope I may see you there some day,” said Johnny huskily. But as he
recalled the way they had come, it seemed very, very far away.