MYSTERIOUS MUSIC
Two days later Marian and Attatak found themselves tramping slowly along
behind their tired deer. It was night. Now and again the moon shot a
golden beam of light across their trail. For the most part that trail was
dark, overshadowed by great spruce and fir trees that stood out black
against the whiteness of the snow, each tree seeming a gown clad
monk—silent witnesses of their passing.
There was now a definitely marked trail. An ax cut here and there on a
tree told them this trail had been made by men, and not by moose and
caribou. They had seen no traces of man. No human habitation had sent its
gleam of light across their trail to bid them welcome. Scarcely knowing
whether she wished to see the light of a cabin, Marian tramped doggedly
on. It was long past camping time, yet she feared to make camp. Several
times she had caught the long drawn howl of a wolf, faint and indistinct
in the distance.
With a burst of joy and hope she thought of the progress they had made.
The tramp across open tundra had been fearfully hard. They had, however,
reaped from it a rich reward; the river they had found was larger than
the other and its surface had offered an almost perfect trail. It flowed
north by west instead of southwest. It took them directly on their way.
Even now Marian was wondering if this were not the very river at whose
junction with the great Yukon was located the station they sought to
reach before the Government Agent had passed.
“If it is,” she murmured, “what can hinder us from making the station in
time?”
It seemed that there could be but one answer to this; yet in the Arctic
there is no expression that is so invariably true as this one: “You never
can tell.”
Then, suddenly, Marian’s thoughts were drawn to another subject. A
peculiar gleam of moonlight among the trees reminded her of the purple
flame. At once she began wondering what could be the source of that
peculiar and powerful light; who possessed it, and what their purpose was
in living on the tundra.
“And Patsy?” she questioned herself, “I wonder if they are troubling her.
Wonder if they are really living off our deer. I wish I had not been
obliged to leave our camp. Seems that there were problems enough without
this. I wish—”
Suddenly she put out one hand and stopped her deer, while with the other
she gave Attatak a mute signal for silence.
Breaking gently through the hushed stillness of the forest, like a spring
zephyr over a meadow, there came to her ears a sound of wonderful
sweetness.
“Music,” she breathed, “and such music! The very music of Heaven!”
Moments passed, and still with slightly bowed heads, as if listening to
the Angelus, they stood there, still as statues, listening to the strange
music.
“The woods were God’s first temples,” Marian whispered.
For the moment she lived as in a trance. A great lover of music, she felt
the thrill of perfect melody breaking over her soul like bright waves
upon golden sand. She fancied that this melody had no human origin, that
it was a spontaneous outburst from the very heart of the forest; God
himself speaking through the mute life of earth.
When this illusion had passed she still stood there wondering.
“Attatak, what day of the week is this?”
For a moment Attatak did not answer. She was counting on her fingers.
“Sunday,” she said at last.
“Sunday,” Marian repeated. “And that is a pipe organ. How wonderful! How
perfectly beautiful! A pipe organ in the midst of the forest!”
“And yet,” she hesitated, scarcely daring to believe her senses, “how
could a pipe organ be brought way up here?”
“But it is!” she affirmed a few seconds later. “Attatak, you watch the
deer while I go ahead and find out what sort of place it is, and whether
there are dangerous dogs about.”
Her wonder grew with every step that she took in the direction of the
mysterious musician. As she came closer, and the tones became more
distinct, she knew that she could not be mistaken.
“It’s a pipe organ,” she told herself with conviction, “and a splendid
one at that! Who in all the world would bring such a wonderful instrument
away up here? Strange I have never heard of this settlement. It must be a
rather large village or they could not afford such an organ for their
church.”
As she thought of these things, and as the rise and fall of the music
still came sweeping through the trees, a strange spell fell upon her. It
was as if she were resting upon the soft, cushioned seat of some splendid
church. With the service appealing to her sense of the artistic and the
beautiful, and to her instinct of reverence; with the soft lights
pervading all, she was again in the chapel of her own university.
“Oh!” she cried, “I do hope it’s a real church and that we’re not too
late for the service.”
One thought troubled her as she hurried forward. If this was a large
village, where were the tracks of dog teams that must surely be
travelling up the river; trappers going out over their lines of traps;
hunters seeking caribou; prospectors starting away over the trail for a
fresh search for the ever illusive yellow gold? Surely all these would
have left a well beaten trail. Yet since the last snow there had not been
a single team passing that way.
“It’s like a village of the dead,” she mused, and shivered at the
thought.
When at last she rounded a turn and came within full sight of the place
from which the enchanting tones issued, the sight that met her eyes
caused her to start back and stare with surprise and amazement.
She had expected to find a cluster of log cabins; a store, a church and a
school. Instead, she saw a yawning hole in a bank of snow; a hole that
was doubtless an entrance to some sort of structure. Whether the
structure was built of sod, logs, or merely of snow, she could not guess.
Some thirty feet from this entrance, and higher, apparently perched on
the crust of snow, were two such cupola affairs as Marian had seen on
certain types of sailing vessels and gasoline schooners. From these there
streamed a pale yellow light.
“Well!” she exclaimed. “Well, of all things!”
For a moment, undecided whether to flee from that strange place, she
stood stock still.
The organ, for the moment, was stilled. The woods were silent. Such a
hush as she had never experienced in all her life lay over all. Then,
faint, indistinct, came a single note of music. Someone had touched a
key. The next instant the world seemed filled with the most wonderful
melody.
“_Handel’s Largo_,” she whispered as she stood there enchanted. Of all
pipe organ music, she loved Handel’s Largo best. Throughout the rendering
of the entire selection, she stood as one enchanted.
“It is enough,” she said when the sound of the last note had died away in
the tree tops. “It’s all very mysterious, but any person who can play
_Handel’s Largo_ like that is not going to be unkind to two girls who are
far from home. I’m going in.”
With unfaltering footsteps she started forward.