_GRUESOME DISCOVERIES._
It will be remembered that Kasba was left fleeing in panic terror to her
father’s hut; while the boy David, who had been wholly instrumental in
effecting her escape, lay on the snow, beaten senseless by an infuriated
ruffian’s cowardly blows.
Now Kasba was not composed of the stuff that heroines are made of, and
when she found herself free, her natural impulse was to place as great a
distance between herself and the scene of danger as she conveniently
might. This she contrived to do with the best possible speed, but once
safe in her father’s hut and the door secured, her thoughts returned
with a shock to David.
Where was he? Like a flash the remembrance of the dark object she had
left battling with the enraged man occurred to her. It was, it must have
been, David. He had sacrificed himself to Broom’s fury that she might
escape. Once thoroughly convinced of this, all fears for herself
vanished, terror for the boy’s safety crowded everything else from her
mind. Emboldened by her love for him, she hastily unfastened the door
and, stepping fearlessly forth, flew back over the narrow track.
Realizing that every moment was precious, she returned with incredible
speed to the spot she had quitted in such haste. Heavens! What was that?
The man she loathed and dreaded was gone, but on the snow lay David.
Regardless that the brutal ruffian might still be lurking in the close
neighborhood, the girl, uttering a low cry, rushed to the senseless boy.
With tender solicitude she bent over him and raised his head upon her
arm. His face was swollen, bruised, and stained with blood. His eyes
were closed.
“Oh, David, David!” she sobbed piteously, “you have suffered for my
sake.”
But her first agony of feelings over, she was relieved to find that the
boy was breathing regularly. Still the knowledge that he had received
this cruel treatment in order to save her from insult brought a fresh
flood of tears to her eyes.
Tenderly she bent over him, while from her heart a low, piteous appeal
went up to heaven.
At length the boy’s eyes unclosed, he gazed around in a dazed,
bewildered fashion, then:
“What has happened? Where am I?” he asked wearily, and then: “Ah! I
remember, the Ball-eye (white man),” he added with a quick start of
apprehension.
“But he has gone now, dear,” said Kasba. “He is a bad, wicked man and
will be abundantly punished when Bekothrie returns. Come, dear, you must
not stay here any longer. You will freeze. Let me help you up.”
David staggered to his feet. Broom’s dastardly blows had been directed
at his upturned face, so although giddy and faint he was still able to
walk. The pair had not gone far before they heard a voice hailing them
from the rear. Turning, they discovered Sahanderry striding toward them
in vague alarm. When told of Broom’s offences he was impatient to find
and chastise him, but controlled his impetuosity till he had seen Kasba
and the boy in safety.
Walking slowly with the assistance of Sahanderry and Kasba, for he would
not hear of being carried, David was brought to the hut. Then, leaving
Kasba to attend to the wounded boy, Sahanderry rushed in blind,
impetuous haste to the Fort, his whole frame trembling with passion—and
with what result we already know.
With infinite tenderness the girl washed and dressed David’s bruised
face. Then she assisted the boy to her own bed. He at first strongly
objected to this, but Kasba was obdurate, and with a sigh of content he
at last laid his aching head on the pillow.
Leaving him to fall asleep, the girl sank upon a seat in utter
dejection. She remained seated a long time, fearing to move lest she
wake the boy, who had quickly fallen asleep; then an explosion shook the
little house to its foundations. Kasba started to her feet and stood
petrified with fear. With a heart beating rapidly she waited and
listened, but could detect no further sound.
A scared cry from the bed brought her to her senses. She flew to David,
whom the noise had rudely awakened, and throwing her arms protectingly
around him she turned her scared face to the door.
The situation was nerve-trying. Except for their own audible breathing
the darkness of the hut was as silent as the tomb. Clasped in each
other’s arms the two waited tremulously, expectantly, with fearful
apprehensions, but of what they could not know, for only silence
followed, silence becoming painful as it lengthened into minutes.
Choking down the hysterical sobs which threatened to overcome her, Kasba
gently released herself from the boy’s embrace. A pale gleam of light
relieved the gloom from pitchy blackness. Moving cautiously about, she
found the lamp and lit it. The light gave her additional courage. She
went to the window and looked out. All was quiet. The view was bleak and
cold, the dim light outside revealed the desolate waste but
indistinctly; objects took phantom forms, appearing weird and out of all
proportion. With a shudder of undefined dread, the girl turned away from
the casement and went back to the boy.
David received her with a keenly expectant look. Kasba shook her head
with a wan smile in answer to his mute inquiry.
“There’s nothing, that I can see, dear,” she declared with relief,
sinking on the bed beside him.
“Was it an earthquake or an explosion?” he asked, in an awed whisper.
“An explosion, dear, and at the Fort, I’m afraid.”
“More of that devil’s work, I suppose,” said the boy after some
considerable thought. Then quickly, “I wonder if Bekothrie was at home.”
The girl sprang to her feet. The knowledge that her father and Roy were
expected back that evening had entirely slipped from her mind. She stood
rigidly erect, thinking desperately. What should she do? Perhaps the
trader or her father had been injured by the explosion, perhaps both.
She must go to the Fort to discover by their living presence that they
were safe. Snatching her coat from where it hung, she drew it on without
further delay or thought.
The boy watched her breathlessly, wide-eyed.
“I’m going to the Fort, dear,” she said gently but firmly. “Like a good,
brave boy you will stay here. I shall not be long away.”
David caught his breath sharply, but smiled back manfully with a
palpable effort to hide his fears.
Without pausing for further speech the girl stepped into the night, into
the solitude and darkness, and with anxious heart passed swiftly along.
Suddenly there broke forth upon the intense silence a loud, long-drawn
howl. Kasba’s blood ran cold. Again that dismal howl. From its great
resemblance to a dog’s she knew it for the voice of a wolf, and one
suffering from hunger—its presence so near the Fort told her that—yet
no thought of turning back beset her.
Awed and breathless she paused on the overhanging rocks at the back of
the Fort, straining her eyes to distinguish between the conglomeration
of buildings beneath her, which loomed up indistinctly; but there was
just sufficient light from the stars to enable her to see that one of
them was missing, that Roy’s dwelling had tumbled down. The space it had
occupied was lumbered with a disorderly pile of logs. “Good heavens!”
came from the girl’s lips—she was speaking distractedly.
So intent was she on trying to divine what had really happened that she
shrieked aloud when something approached and touched her. It was
Minnihak, Roy’s Eskimo guide. Perceiving who it was, Kasba clutched him
excitedly by the arm and eagerly questioned him as to her father and
Roy’s whereabouts. Failing to make him understand in Chipewyan she
essayed in English, but only to meet with the like unsatisfactory
result; the bewildered native shook his head, for he was conversant with
neither language. The girl’s feelings on first perceiving the Eskimo
were of surprised relief, but her fears were instantly goaded to the
utmost the moment she found she was unable to make herself understood.
The suspense was appalling. Conjecturing evils of the very worst type,
the girl was moved by an irresistible impulse to approach and search the
ruins. Neglecting all precautions, regardless of all peril to herself,
she flew down the uneven track, with an instinct that was truly
marvellous avoiding the boulders and holes. A few moments and she was
beside the mass of logs.
An awful accident must have happened to bring about the ruinous
condition of the trader’s dwelling.
“What should she do?” she again asked herself. “What could she do? Where
was her father, where Roy?”
She waited and listened. All was still. The situation for a young, timid
girl was extremely nerve-trying. A short time previously Kasba’s natural
disinclination to scenes of violence would probably have caused her to
rush frantically away and precipitate herself in her father’s hut to
indulge in a fit of hysterical weeping, but now the uncertainty of her
father’s and Roy’s fate chained her to the spot.
“Where were they? Perhaps beneath those logs!” The thought was horrible.
When contemplating that huge pile all hope faded from her mind. The mere
possibility of their being in the house when the explosion took place
caused her heart to stand still, her blood to run cold. For it seemed an
impossibility that they could have escaped being crushed to death
beneath the falling logs, even if they had in some miraculous manner
escaped injury by the explosion. Perhaps they now lay pinned to the
earth, mangled and bleeding; and struggling with the convulsive sobs the
mere thought called forth, she bent over the débris. Frantically she
strove to push aside the heavy timbers that she might discover what lay
beneath them, fearing at any moment that her eyes would meet some
ghastly remains of one of the two men she loved. Yet with unflagging
energy she worked on. In her frantic haste she was dimly conscious that
the Eskimo had followed her, was lifting and throwing aside the
ponderous logs with surprising energy; evidently he had caught her idea.
But despite the native’s prodigious efforts and her own desperate
exertions the work proceeded at a snail’s pace. Kasba quickly realized
that her own puny strength availed her nothing, and a despairing moan at
her own impotency escaped her. Her head was whirling round and round and
she felt faint and giddy.
At that precise moment, as if heaven had pitied her helplessness and
answered her prayer, a slight, muffled groan smote her ears.
Kasba uttered a cry of joy, for she recognized it as the sound of a
human voice, knew that someone was alive beneath the ruins. Gathering
strength from hopes renewed, the girl tore more frantically at the logs,
straining every muscle to draw them aside.
Suddenly the voice was heard again. It was speaking.
Instantly Kasba paused in her panic haste to listen.
“_Kli-et-ee?_” (Who is there?), it said.
“It is I, Kasba!” cried the greatly excited girl. “Who speaks?”
“Sahanderry!” returned the voice.
With a cry of disappointment Kasba fell back. In her anxiety she had
quite forgotten Sahanderry. She had imagined it to be her father who
spoke, and her heart had leaped within her for joy. But now that she
discovered it was not her father but another, the revulsion of feeling
was too much for the already distracted girl. But the thought came to
her that a life was in deadly peril, that Sahanderry was entombed in
that rude black pile and that immediate aid was necessary. Chiding
herself for the delay and for her selfish regrets, she worked
desperately to accomplish a rescue. The painfully disappointing
incident, however, had sobered her. She now worked just as desperately,
but with more system than before. By the aid of the Eskimo she quickly
had a number of logs placed on one side. She then discovered that the
house had not fallen completely, as she had at first believed, but that
the walls farthest from the seat of the explosion, and a part of the
roof attached, had not come wholly to the ground but were propped up by
the other parts of the fallen building, forming a sheltering cavity,
though threatening to fall with a crash at any minute. Beneath this
dangerous but friendly shelter the groaning Sahanderry was discovered
lying prone upon the ground. A timber pressed him to the earth and kept
him from rising.
Groping in the dark, Kasba and Minnihak ultimately freed and carried
Sahanderry from the ruins, but with heroic self-denial the girl
refrained from questioning him till a large fire had been made by
setting a light to some of the wreckage. The night was intensely cold
and Sahanderry was chilled to the bone.
He crouched over the fire, his eyes wild and bewildered in expression,
for he was not yet fully convinced of his miraculous escape. His burnt
and torn clothing, his scorched hair and eyebrows, testified to how
narrow that escape really had been.
After waiting some minutes—interminable minutes they seemed to the
girl—she could restrain herself no longer, but with a voice which
quivered with suppressed but almost overpowering anxiety.
“_Se tah_ (my father), _Bekothrie_ (master)?” she queried desperately.
The injured man staggered to his feet with a hoarse cry of horrified
remembrance. All thought of Broom’s deadly shot and its consequences had
completely slipped from his confused brain. Released from a position of
extreme peril, saved from what he had considered an absolutely certain
death, his mind had become blank to all else but his own unaccountable
deliverance. The girl’s questions brought back all the terrors of those
horrible scenes. He wiped the sweat of remembrance from his brow with
trembling hands. He shook like a leaf in a storm. Completely overcome,
he lost all power of speech and stood rocking himself to and fro.
In the horror of conviction that either Roy or her father, perhaps both,
had perished miserably, had been blown to pieces or scorched out of all
semblance of a human creature, Kasba started impetuously forward.
Clutching the distraught Sahanderry’s hands she forcibly drew them from
his face. “Where are they?” she demanded sharply.
Pointing with a shaking hand at the ruins, “Bekothrie is there,” he
cried hoarsely, then fell upon his face writhing and groaning.
Ignoring Sahanderry’s emotion the girl rushed back to the ruins. Quick
and agile as a cat, she sprang from log to log, then suddenly
disappeared altogether. Minnihak, who had remained motionless beside the
fire, watching the foregoing proceedings with great bewilderment,
followed less hastily. Arriving at the spot where the girl had
disappeared he paused to look about him. A sharp cry, proceeding from
the same pile of logs that had protected Sahanderry, caught his ear.
Squeezing himself between huge beams which hung dangerously suspended in
his path, Minnihak dimly discerned Kasba bending over a dark figure.
Picking his way carefully, he approached her, and by the uncertain light
discovered her supporting the head and shoulders of a man upon her
knees. But there was nothing in dress or figure by which to identify
him. His clothes were burned to rags, his face was black, and all his
hair had been scorched away.
Yet though Minnihak failed to recognize him, Kasba had; and all in a
flutter of tenderness words of love poured forth thick and fast, but Roy
lay all unconscious, deaf to everything.