A FRUITLESS JOURNEY
It was night; such a night as only the Arctic knows. Cold stars, gleaming
like bits of burnished silver in the sky, shone down upon vast stretches
of glistening snow. Out of that whiteness one object loomed, black as ink
against the whiteness of its background.
Weary with five days of constant travel, Marian found herself approaching
this black bulk. She pushed doggedly forward, expecting at every moment
to catch a lightning-like zig-zag flash of purple flame shooting up the
side of it.
The black bulk was the old dredge in Sinrock River. She had passed that
way twice before. Each time she had hoped to find there a haven of rest,
and each time she had been frightened away by the flash of the purple
flame. Those mysterious people had left this spot at one time. Had they
returned? Was the dredge now a place of danger, or a haven for weary
travellers? The answer to this question was only to be found by marching
boldly up to the dredge.
This called for courage. Born with a brave soul, Marian was equal to any
emergency. Sheer weariness and lack of sleep added to this a touch of
daring.
Without pausing, she drove straight up to the door. Reassured by the snow
banked up against it, she hastily scooped away the bank with her
snow-shoe, and having shoved the door open, boldly entered.
It was a cheerless place, black and empty. The wind whistled through the
cracks where the planks had rotted away. Yet it was a shelter. Passing
through another door, she found herself in an inner room that housed the
boiler of the engine that had furnished power to the dredge. The boiler,
a great red drum of rust, stood directly in front of her.
“Here’s where we camp,” she said to Attatak. “We can build a fire in the
fire-box of the boiler and broil some steak. That will be splendid!”
“_Eh-eh_,” grinned Attatak.
“And Attatak, bring the deer through the outer door, then close it. They
were fed two hours ago. That will do until morning.”
She lighted a candle, gathered up some bits of wood that lay strewn about
the narrow room, and began to kindle a fire while Attatak went out after
the deer.
For the moment, being alone, she began to think of the herd. How was the
herd faring? What had happened to Patsy during those many days of her
absence? Were Bill Scarberry’s deer rapidly destroying her herd ground.
“Well, if they are, we are powerless to prevent it,” she told herself
with a sigh.
As she looked back upon it now, she felt that her whole journey had been
a colossal failure. They had discovered the mountain cave treasure, only
to be obliged to leave the treasure behind. They had reached the Station
in time to talk with the Government Agent, but he had not been able to
come with her. Only twenty-four hours before they had reached the cabin
of Ben Neighbor, only to find it dark and deserted. He had gone
somewhere, as people in the Arctic have a way of doing; and where that
might be she could not even hazard a guess. At last, in despair, she had
headed her deer toward her own camp. In thirty-six hours she would be
there.
“Well, at any rate,” she sighed, “it will be a pleasure to see Patsy and
to sleep the clock round in our own sweet little deerskin bedroom.”
She was indeed to see Patsy, but the privilege of sleeping the clock
round was not to be hers for many a day. She was destined to find the
immediate future far too stirring for that.
Twenty-four hours later saw Marian well on her way home. Ten hours more,
she felt sure, would bring her to camp. And then what? She could not even
guess. Had she been able to even so much as suspect what was going on at
camp, she would have urged her reindeer to do their utmost.
Patsy was right in the middle of a peck of trouble. Because of the fact
that for the last few days she had been living in a realm of exciting
dreams, the troubles that had come down upon her seemed all the more
grievous. Since that most welcome radio message regarding the proposed
purchase of reindeer by the Canadian Government had come drifting in over
the air, she had, during every available moment, hovered over the
radio-phone in the momentary expectation of receiving the confirmation of
that rumor which might send the herd over mountains and tundra in a wild
race for a prize, a prize worth thousands of dollars to her uncle and
cousin—the sale of the herd.
Perhaps it was because of her too close application to the radio-phone
that she failed to note the approach of Scarberry’s herd as it returned
to ravish their feeding ground. Certain it was that the first of the
deer, with the entire herd close upon their heels, were already over the
hills before she knew of their coming.
It was night when Terogloona brought this bit of disquieting news.
“And this time,” Patsy wailed, “we have not so much as one hungry Eskimo
with his dog to send against them.”
As if in answer to the complaint, the aged herder plucked at her sleeve,
then led her out beneath the open sky.
With an impressive gesture, he waved his arm toward the distant hills
that lay in the opposite direction of Scarberry’s herd. To her great
surprise and mystification, she saw gleaming there the lights of twenty
or more campfires.
“_U-bogok_,” (see there) he said.
“What—what does it mean?” Patsy stammered, grasping at her dry throat.
“It is that I fear,” said Terogloona. “They come. To-morrow they are
here. You gave food for a week for a few; flour, sugar, bacon. They like
him. Now come whole village of Sitne-zok. Want food. You gave them food.
What you think? No food for herders, no herders. No herders, no herd.
What you think?”
Patsy did not know what to think. Gone was all her little burst of pride
over the way she had handled the other situation that had confronted her.
Now she felt that she was but a girl, a very small girl, and very, very
much alone. She wished Marian would come. Oh, how she did wish that she
would come!
“In the morning we will see what can be done,” was all she could say to
the faithful old herder as she turned to re-enter the igloo.
That night she did not undress. She sat up for hours, trying to think of
some way out. She sat long with the radio head-set over her ears. She
entertained some wild notion of fleeing with the herd toward the Canadian
border, providing the message confirming the offer for the deer came. But
the message did not come.
At last, in utter exhaustion, she threw herself among the deerskins and
fell into a troubled sleep.
She was roused from this sleep by a loud: “Hello there!” followed by a
cheery: “Where are you? Are you asleep?”
It was Marian. The next moment poor, tired, worried Patsy threw herself
sobbing into her cousin’s strong arms.
“There now,” said Marian, soothingly, as Patsy’s sobbing ceased, “sit
down and tell me all about it. You’re safe; that’s something. Your
experiences can’t have been worse than ours.”
“The Eskimo! Bill Scarberry’s herd!” burst out Patsy, “They’re here. All
of them!”
“Tell me all about it,” encouraged Marian.
“Wait till I get my head-set on,” said Patsy, more hopefully. “It’s been
due for days; may come at any time.”
“What’s due?” asked Marian, mystified.
“Wait! I’ll tell you. One thing at a time. Let’s get it all straight.”
She began at the beginning and recited all that had transpired since
Marian had left camp. When she came to tell of her discovery that one of
the mysterious occupants of the tent of the purple flame was a girl,
Marian’s astonishment knew no bounds. When told of the bloody trail,
Marian was up in arms. The camp of the purple flame must be raided at
once. They would put a stop to that sort of thing. They would take their
armed herders and raid that camp this very night.
“But wait!” Patsy held up a warning finger, “I am not half through yet.
There is more. Too much more!”
She was in the midst of recounting her experiences with the band of
wandering Eskimo and Scarberry’s herd, when suddenly she clapped the
radio receiver tightly to her ears and stopped talking. Then she
murmured:
“It’s coming! At last, it is coming!”
“For goodness sake!” exclaimed Marian, out of all patience, “Will you
kindly tell me what is coming?”
But Patsy only held the receiver to her ears and listened the more
intently as she whispered:
“Shush! Wait!”