THE HUNCHBACK LEADS ON
Someone else saw the light of Faye’s fire against the sky. Sitting
crosslegged on their deerskins, the two Indians squinted at it for a time
in stolid silence. After that a few guttural exclamations passed between
them. Then, having drawn their moccasins on, they hurried away down the
river, leaving Gordon Duncan asleep by the fire.
What words had they spoken? Had they judged the girl too long gone from
camp? Did they fear for her safety? Or did they suspect a hostile
encampment?
Whatever it may have been, they traveled rapidly. Passing through a clump
of pine trees they chose two hard knots, then hurried on. By the time
they came within sight of the island Faye’s clothes were dry. She had
donned them again, and might be seen moving about replenishing the fire.
Accustomed as they were to accurate observation of living things at a
distance, the Indians had no trouble in recognizing her.
At once they lighted their torches. The girl saw, and her heart leaped
with joy. Her plight had been discovered. Here was hope.
Noting that the ice fragments that drifted by were growing larger, she
endeavored to calculate the possibility of riding one to safety.
“Won’t do,” she told Tico. “Not yet.”
* * * * * * * *
Though Johnny Longbow had seen the light of his good friend’s fire, and
she in turn had heard the noise of his battle with the bears, morning was
destined to find them once more far apart. To Johnny’s great surprise the
hunchback, after replenishing their larder, did not lead the way back to
the cabin where they had last slept.
Instead he struck away across the hills. When they had traveled for the
greater part of an hour and had come to a barren and rocky dry ravine, he
piled a heap of large stones in the form of a rude oven. Beneath this he
kindled a fire and roasted meat.
After giving Johnny a liberal supply of bear meat and devouring great
quantities himself, he again took up his burden and led away over other
hills.
“How is this all to end?” Johnny asked himself. “It doesn’t much matter
where we go. I haven’t the slightest notion which direction would lead me
to my friends.”
That the hunchback was pleased with him was shown by his actions as they
paused now and then to rest. At such times he went through the motions of
a charging bear. Opening his mouth wide he acted a pantomime of receiving
a mortal wound in the mouth, and falling backward dead. These actions
were followed by loud laughter.
“This,” Johnny told himself, “probably indicates approval.”
He was not the least bit displeased that the hunchback held a friendly
feeling for him; yet he was led to wonder many times and how long he was
to wander and how the affair was to end.
* * * * * * * *
Faye’s escape from her island was less dramatic than that of the Indians
she had saved. As she waited, a surprisingly large cake of ice drifted
by. Seizing the opportunity, she sprang once more into the chilling
waters, swam a few strokes, clambered aboard, drifted close to shore, was
caught and dragged to land by the husky natives. Then, followed by the
dripping Tico, she raced away to camp.
For a second time that night her garments were hung by a fire to dry.
This time, however, she did not dance away the chill, but creeping deep
down among the blankets and deerskins, fell asleep to dream of towering
icebergs and racing floods.
* * * * * * * *
As he tramped on and on, mile after mile over low ridges, down narrow
valleys, through sparse growth of fir and tangled masses of willows,
following his strange guide through the night, Johnny wondered over and
over what their destination might be.
More than this, his mind was filled with wild speculations regarding the
future. What were the plans that revolved in the mind of this hunchback?
Had he any plans? His attitude amused Johnny. Of course he was only a
boy, but in the wilds where he so often takes a man’s part a boy soon
enough gets to rate himself as a man.
“He seems to think of me as a child,” he told himself after the strange
being had finished patting him on the head. “No, not quite that either;
more like a cub. That’s it, a bear cub.”
In a park where bears were protected and tame, Johnny had often amused
himself by watching the actions of mother bears and their cubs.
“He seems a great hunter of bears,” Johnny told himself. “No doubt,
living as he does in such isolation, he knows more about bears than human
beings. But am I to be his cub weeks on end?”
He pictured himself living in the wilderness with this curious wanderer,
dressing in skins, hunting with bow and arrow, fishing with crude nets,
living the life of a savage.
“No,” he told himself. “It can’t be.”
The hunchback heard. Turning about, he leered at him in a strange
fashion. Then they tramped on.
Just as dawn was breaking they came upon a thick growth of fir trees
crowning the crest of a hill. At the very center of this they found a
cabin.
This cabin was much more perfectly built than the other. The stones for
its chimney were cut in squares. The logs had been hewn off on two sides.
And beside the fireplace hung two heavy iron skillets and three
stew-pans.
“Did he build it, or appropriate it after some trapper or prospector had
left it?” the boy asked himself.
Too weary for thought, he went about the business of frying bear steak
over the fire kindled by his companion. After eating, he buried himself
in a great heap of furs and lost himself in the land of dreams.