DICK SEES A GHOST
Several hours had passed since Toma’s departure, and the fire Dick had
kindled had burned down to a mass of glowing, red embers. The still
falling snow hissed and sputtered over the coals. Off in the distance a
few wolves howled. Sandy lay stretched out at Dick’s feet and the owner
of the feet himself drowsed and nodded in a futile effort to keep awake.
He recovered consciousness a few moments later, however, when a
half-burned stick, lying on the outer edge of the fire, crackled forth
suddenly like a cap in a toy pistol. In an instant he was wide-eyed and
alert, his eyes straining towards the outer rim of darkness. He could
see nothing.
“Dreaming again,” he grumbled to himself, looking down at Sandy, and
wondering how much time had elapsed since the young Indian guide had set
out on his perilous journey through the storm. Then his thoughts turned
to the happenings of the day.
One thing that bothered Dick, and which he had not yet explained
entirely to his own satisfaction, was Sandy’s strange behavior a few
hours previous. The young Scotchman’s violent and unwarranted attack
upon Toma was not in the least like the usual happy-go-lucky conduct
that Dick had ascribed to his friend. Of course, he had heard many times
before, of similar cases where men, driven to the limit of physical
exertion, had acted queerly. It was a sort of temporary mental breakdown
preceding physical collapse. What Sandy needed was a good sleep,
followed by a day or two of complete rest. He’d probably feel better in
the morning.
For the next few minutes Dick busied himself in gathering more wood for
the fire. His first duty was to keep himself and Sandy warm, as warm as
possible in their hastily improvised camp there in the inadequate
shelter of the river bottom.
“Toma will be back in an hour or two,” he thought to himself, “and then
everything will be all right.”
He looked down at Sandy, whom he had bundled up in their two blankets
and hoped devoutly that nothing had happened which might delay the young
Indian’s safe return. Although not in the least doubting the guide’s
prowess, Dick had learned to his sorrow that Govereau’s opposition was
not the only factor to be considered in the successful carrying out of
their plans.
“There is always this blamed wilderness to contend with,” ruminated
Dick. “Treacherous rivers, forest fires, wild beasts, the danger of
freezing to death in the extreme cold or getting lost in a blizzard.
Sometimes I think——”
Exactly what Dick thought will probably never be recorded. He woke
suddenly from his preoccupation, a look of fear in his eyes, every nerve
tingling as if tiny electric wires ran close to the surface of his skin.
A slight sound somewhere out there in the enveloping darkness had caught
his attention. In addition, there had quickly come over him a vague
feeling that he and Sandy were not alone, that an actual presence,
either an animal of some sort or a human being, had intruded within the
circle of their campfire and was ready to pounce down upon them.
For a brief second Dick could scarcely suppress the cry of terror that
had sprung to his lips. He wanted to turn his head to look at the thing
he knew to be immediately behind him, but, for some unknown reason, his
body seemed incapable of action. Instead he sat there, weak and
trembling, the blood pounding in his throat with a force almost
suffocating.
With a truly mighty effort he contrived finally to twist and squirm
around so that his gaze could discern the thing that menaced him, and in
that instant he caught wildly at the trunk of the up-rooted tree upon
which he sat, so frozen with horror, that the person who stood
immediately opposite—probably no more than ten or twelve feet away—might
easily have advanced and overpowered him without encountering even the
slightest resistance.
In all his life, Dick had never seen so strange an apparition. His first
sickening impression was that he was confronted not by a man at all but
by a real ghost, fashioned out of a substance as hard and unyielding as
a block of ice. In the glare of the campfire, the person’s body gave
forth a peculiar gleam or sparkle that so amazed and confounded Dick
that he found himself putting up his hands to his eyes in an effort to
shut out the unusual sight.
“Toma, he tell me come,” issued a friendly voice from the ghost-like
figure, standing there in front of him. “You no ’fraid me.”
Dick came to with a start.
“No,” he mumbled weakly.
“Toma one mile down river,” continued the voice. “Him stuck in ice with
huskies. Mebbe no get sled out.”
“What’s that!” demanded Dick. “I don’t think I understand you.”
“Ice thin where river runs quick. Toma, me, drive on river too close to
rapids. Hurry up get back here for sick fella. We go fast. Toma, me, sit
in sled. All at once ice break. Toma, huskies, me, sled—everybody fall
in river.”
Dick sat and stared incredulously at the speaker. He understood now.
This was Raoul Testawich, Toma’s friend, who, in his broken English, was
trying to describe what had taken place that night farther up the river.
Dick shivered at the thought of that unexpected, icy-cold plunge when
the sled with its two occupants had broken through into the river. No
wonder that young Testawich looked like a ghost, his clothing a
glistening ice and snow-covered mantle of white.
“Is Toma safe?” he questioned eagerly.
“Yes,” nodded the half-breed, “Toma all right, but sled gone. Cut
harness away from sled to save huskies. Toma stay back there now and
watch dogs. What you think; you, me take sick fella along that far?”
“We can try,” answered Dick in an awed voice. “How far did you say it
was?”
“About one mile,” said Raoul.
“We can do it!” Dick stated with conviction. “I know we can—even if we
are compelled to drag and carry him all the way.”
There was admiration and wonder in Dick’s eyes now as he looked at the
ice-clad form of the half-breed. What tremendous endurance Toma and this
man must have. It seemed almost incredible.
He rose quickly, fired with new determination, walked over to the spot
where Sandy lay and, as gently as possible, attempted to arouse him.
“Wake up! Wake up, Sandy!” he called.
Several minutes elapsed before Dick succeeded in dragging his friend to
an upright position. Sandy swayed on his feet, mumbling incoherently,
glaring about him with blood-shot, unseeing eyes. Supported by a
friendly arm on either side, he moved forward, almost a dead weight
between them.
“We get there sooner you think,” encouraged Raoul. “Bye an’ bye we turn
bend in river an’ then you see Toma’s campfire. Little fella pretty
sick.”
They mushed on in silence. Step by step, slowly, at what seemed to Dick
a snail’s pace, they plodded through the darkness towards the place
where the courageous young half-breed guide awaited them. The snow had
ceased to fall. The roar of the storm above their heads had died down to
a faint murmuring. Presently Raoul spoke:
“I see light now. Pretty soon we get to campfire. Then dogs pull sick
fella rest of way to my home.”
“But we haven’t any sled,” interposed Dick.
“Toma tie poles together for sled by time we get there. Make ’em pole
sled for sick fella.”
Again they went on in silence. The light of Toma’s campfire gradually
grew brighter as they advanced. Presently Dick discerned the lonely
figure of the Indian guide and after a time, five blotches in the snow,
five furry forms that snarled and howled as they waited impatiently for
the return of their master.
“We’ve made it!” howled Dick, unable to suppress his exultation. “We’ve
made it, Toma, old boy. Yip! Yip!”
Toma’s answering shout was drowned out by a deafening chorus from the
huskies.