THE GIANT HUNCHBACK
Before she fell asleep that night Faye found herself wondering about many
things. Why had her grandfather brought her so far into the white
wilderness? Why had he not told her of the earlier chapters of his life?
Who was the man of mystery, her grandfather’s friend of other days? What
was the treasure he had babbled of in his sleep? Above all, her mind was
troubled by the strange disappearance of Johnny Longbow. Had the
avalanche swallowed him up? Had he slipped from some ice encrusted ledge?
Had he fallen into the hands of unfriendly whites or Indians?
In the midst of all these puzzlings she fell into troubled sleep to dream
of bleak mountains, rushing floods and wild Arctic storms.
Day was breaking when on awakening she struggled to an upright position
to gaze wildly about her.
Realizing at last where she was, she took a moment for recalling that
which had befallen them on the previous day, then sprang into action.
After a hasty toilet she kindled a fire and put coffee on to boil.
Next she took up Johnny’s light field glass, and walking to a point of
vantage, began sweeping the horizon.
She was searching for some sign of their lost companion. The wide
circling of her glass continued for a full three minutes. Then of a
sudden, as her lips parted and her face became tense, the glass remained
directed at one spot, far off in the river valley.
“Grandfather! Grandfather!” she exclaimed after ten tense seconds, “Wake
up! There are people on that river island. They are marooned! The river
is rising. The floods will reach them and sweep them away unless help
comes. We must go!”
Gordon Duncan was now on his feet. Seizing the glass, he studied the
situation for a moment, then said quietly:
“You are right. We must help them. At once!”
“But how?” said the girl. “We have no boat.”
“God will show us the way.”
Three minutes later, disregarding the water boiling for coffee, carrying
only their bow and quiver of arrows apiece, they went racing down the
mountain side.
The memory of that race will remain long with Faye Duncan. Slipping,
sliding, now racing, now gliding and now creeping, they made their way
downward. Now their path was a plateau, now a cliff, and now the bed of a
boiling, rushing stream. Now they seemed about to send an avalanche
sweeping down. And now, as they attempted to cross a turbulent torrent
they appeared in greater danger than those whom they would rescue.
In the end they won the race, only to find themselves standing at the
river’s brink with a hundred yards of rushing water between them and
those whom they would save, and with no apparent means of rendering any
aid.
“Well,” said the girl, “what next?”
“What indeed?” said Gordon Duncan, a look of despair coming over his
face.
Had Faye chanced to have wakened from her sound sleep of the previous
night at a time shortly after one in the morning; had the moonlight been
bright enough and her glass strong enough to enable her to see clearly
for the distance of a mile, she might have witnessed as strange a drama
as ever was played upon the white stage of the North. As it was, only the
eye of the All-Seeing One witnessed that which passed at the end of the
great snow pile created by the avalanche Johnny Longbow’s foot had
loosened.
By some strange bit of Providence the boy was not buried by the avalanche
that had carried him down. He was struck on the head by a block of hard
packed snow ice, and rendered unconscious. After that he was pitched and
tumbled, knocked, bumped and beaten until his body was a mass of bruises.
He was left at last, still unconscious and half dead, at the foot of the
now silent, inanimate avalanche that had been his undoing.
At this hour two figures, approaching from opposite directions, came near
to the unconscious boy. One was a great gaunt brown beast. The other, a
short, squat, powerful figure, might at a moment’s notice have puzzled a
skilled man of science. Was he man or beast? Was he an Indian of these
wilds, or was he some giant ape escaped from captivity?
He wore clothes. This marked him for a man.
Truth was, the creature was a man. Yet so bent and twisted was his body,
so bowed his crooked legs, so ugly and distorted his visage that one
might have traveled America from end to end without meeting with another
being such as he.
As his small eyes caught sight of the unconscious boy, they gleamed like
twin stars. Johnny’s stout hand still gripped his bow. This strong bow
was a prize in any land. How much more in a wilderness! Not less valuable
was the quiver of arrows that lay nearby. And if he were dead? But then,
too often in wild lands it matters little that one is not dead. If he
were to be found helpless, this is enough to excuse robbery.
The curious deformed creature was bending over the boy when of a sudden
his alert ear caught some slight sound, a scraping perhaps, or a sniffing
breath. Looking up quickly, he found himself staring into the burning
eyes of a great gaunt bear which had, beyond doubt, been disturbed from
his hibernating sleep by the thundering avalanche.
Some form of grizzly, a silver-tip perhaps, this bear promised to be a
formidable foe. At such a time of half stupor and intense hunger he must
be doubly dangerous.
The Indian took one step backward. Then he paused. The next instant, with
hands that were as powerful as man has known, and fingers as cunning, he
wrenched the bow from the unconscious boy’s grasp and sent an arrow
crashing into the gaunt beast’s side.
For a period of five minutes after that he stood motionless, watching the
dying throes of the bear.
Then, with no apparent effort, he lifted the boy to a position of ease
across his deformed shoulders, picked up the bow and arrows, and went
marching away.
He tramped doggedly on for the better part of the night. Just as dawn was
breaking he arrived at the door of a long, low, crudely built cabin.
Depositing his burden by the door, he went inside.
* * * * * * * *
Faye Duncan and her grandfather watched the movements of the frightened
natives on the little island for some time before anything like a
solution of the problem offered itself to their minds.
That these people were natives they did not doubt. Whether they were
savage or half civilized they did not for a moment question. They were
human. That was enough. If a way offered, they must be saved.
Racing along beside the men were several dogs. Close to the water’s edge
were well packed sleds. The constant rising of the water was shown by the
fact that twice the sleds had to be drawn back.
“It’s a matter of an hour,” said Gordon Duncan. “Perhaps not that. What’s
to be done?”
Suddenly the girl’s face lighted with a gleam of hope. Quickly drawing
off her sweater that had protected her from many an Arctic gale, she did
a strange thing. Having cut the end of a sleeve squarely off at the lower
end to break the binding stitches, she began rapidly unraveling it and
dropping the yarn in a loose pile upon the ground.
Not understanding at all, her grandfather stood watching in unfeigned
astonishment.
When the entire sleeve became a mere coil of yarn on the earth, she
looked away at the rushing flood.
She seemed to measure the distance with her eye. Apparently satisfied
with the results, she suddenly took up her quiver, selected an arrow,
then began tying one end of the yarn tightly about it.
Then Gordon Duncan understood.
“Good girl!” he murmured. “May God grant you success!”
Setting the arrow to her bow, the girl, aiming high, sent the arrow with
the slender line attached speeding across the flood.
That the keen eyed natives on the opposite shore saw and, to an extent,
understood, was shown by their sudden grouping beside a long pine that
grew at the water’s brink.
“Fell short,” the girl murmured, a note of despair creeping into her
voice.
The distance was greater than she thought. The arrow, having curved to
the flood, dropped with a splash and being caught in the grip of dark
waters, went speeding downstream.
Faye drew the stout yarn line in slowly. It was wet now, heavy. No use to
make another try.
But Gordon Duncan carried in his veins the blood of the mighty Bruce. He
was engaged in the business of unraveling Faye’s other sleeve.
“You’re a fine shot, Lass,” he rumbled, “but for a burst of power take an
arm of old hickory like Gordon Duncan’s own.”
It was a great deal for the modest old man to say. That it was not too
much was proven when, a moment later, his arrow, with the last available
coil of yarn sailing fast and low, lost itself in the branches of the
lone pine on the opposite shore. A shout of admiration and triumph came
from the distant shore.
That the natives knew what was expected of them was soon shown. After a
moment of wild scrambling in which dogs were trampled upon and sleds
overturned, they began the business of tying together a long cord of
their own. And this was of strong rawhide.
“If only the yarn holds,” Faye murmured breathlessly.
“Never fear,” said the old Scot. “’Twas a present to your mother from a
French Canadian granny. Homespun from native wool it is. Nae bit o’
shoddy there!”
That the curious creature who had sent Johnny’s arrows crashing into the
gaunt bear’s side, and so beyond doubt saved the boy’s life, had not
carried him that distance to his own rude cabin without purpose, was
shown the moment he arrived there. What that purpose might be remained
locked within his own misshapen breast.
Having entered his cabin, he took down first a rude soapstone jar of
water, and second a skin bottle half filled with some liquid.
After feeling the boy over carefully, possibly for broken bones, he sat
up with a grunt of apparent satisfaction. He next poured the water over
Johnny’s neck and bare shoulders. And now, with beady eyes searching for
signs of life, he removed the wooden stopper from the leather bottle and
poured a part of its contents down the boy’s throat.
What was this strange liquid? Native medicine, beyond doubt. Carefully
selected leaves, stems, roots and bulbs, boiled over a slow fire perhaps.
Who knows? That it was a potent drug one was soon enough to know. Two
minutes had not passed before the boy groaned, moved, sat up, stared
about him, then asked in a dazed fashion:
“Where am I?”
Without answering his question, if indeed he understood it at all, the
brawny hunchback lifted him from the earth and, with greatest care,
carried him inside to deposit him upon a litter of skins in the corner.
Of a sudden, as Gordon Duncan waited the results of the preparations that
were going forward on the river island, his eyes wandered to the
mountainside, and his gaze became transfixed.
“The cabin!” he exclaimed. “Timmie’s cabin! And smoke is coming from the
chimney! He is still there! Still there!” At once he became greatly
agitated.
“He is a recluse!” he went on rapidly. “A natural recluse, but a good man
and a faithful companion. He once saved my life. And to think—” he drew
his hand across his eyes, “to think that this moment of all those long
years I am able to look upon that cabin again!”
He took a step forward as if to scale the mountain. But Faye tugged at
his arm.
“The natives,” she insisted. “Without our aid they may perish.”
“Ah, yes.” He became calm. “I must wait. Our duty is always to do the
greatest good to largest numbers. It’s God’s law. All things in His good
time.”
Turning, he watched with ever increasing anxiety the preparations that
were going forward on the little island across the waters.