THE BLACK SEAL’S TOOTH
Florence stopped short in her tracks. It was early next morning. She had
wandered some distance from camp. Bending over, she picked something from
the snow. That something was brightly colored orange and green. It had
shone out of the solid white of snow at her feet.
“Tracks,” she thought, “Eskimo tracks, and now this.” The thing she held
in her hand was strange. A small leather packet, it was decorated with
masses of bright beads. As she examined it she saw that it had been sewn
up tight, but she could feel some small hard objects within.
“Gold nuggets, perhaps,” her imagination soared. Two bits of leather
thong led out from the bag. That they had been one piece she knew at
once. “Worn about the neck,” she concluded, “and the thong broke.”
Next instant she was calling, “At-a-tak!”
“Let’s see.” The Eskimo girl burst through a clump of evergreens.
“Ah-ne-ca!” she exclaimed at sight of the little sack. “Came from Russia,
this one. Not Eskimo, no! no! _Chuckches_ from Russia. What you call it?
Charm! Keep bad spirits away, think that, this _Chuckche_ man.”
“Well,” said Florence, “it might keep bad spirits away, but it didn’t
keep bad ideas out of his mind. He and his friends tried to steal five
hundred of John Bowman’s reindeer, that’s plain.
“Now—” her tone changed, “looks as if these natives had become
frightened, leaving us with the reindeer on our hands. Two hundred miles
from anywhere. What are we going to do about it?”
“Yes,” said At-a-tak. What she meant was, ‘Yes, here’s a situation for
you!’ And Florence agreed with her. Here they were on a golden quest,
marching with dog teams and supplies into the uncharted North in search
of a lost and hidden mine, and now of a sudden they found themselves
encamped with a whole herd of reindeer belonging to a friend.
“Anyway, we won’t starve,” the girl laughed. “Plenty of reindeer steak.”
“Yes,” said At-a-tak.
“We won’t go back,” Florence decided suddenly.
“No,” agreed the Eskimo girl.
“We’ll go on north,” said Florence. “We’ll take the deer with us. We’ve
just got to!”
“Yes,” said At-a-tak.
It was the day after the storm. All was white and quiet now. Florence and
the Eskimo girl had gone in search of a clue that would give them a
reason for the presence of this valuable herd of reindeer in such a
place. Apparently they had found the answer. Here and there were
snow-blown tracks of dogs, sleds and natives. These led away from the
narrow valley. Without question, these natives, overcome by a desire to
live easily off that which belonged to another, had driven these deer
into the hills. At sight of white men they had fled. Would they return?
Florence shuddered. “Have to be on the watch,” she told herself. To
At-a-tak she said:
“Come! Let’s go back to camp.”
When their report had been made, Tom Kennedy agreed that they should take
the deer with them. “We’ll camp here until tomorrow morning, give the
deer a chance to feed, then we’ll press on up the fork to the mine.
“The mine,” his voice rose, “it’s still there. Bound to be! Joe and me,
we hid it, hid it good and plenty.”
“Hid it?” Florence wanted to ask. “How can you hide a gold mine?” She did
not ask. She would wait and see for herself. Long ago she had learned the
uselessness of asking questions when a little patient waiting would
permit one to answer them for oneself.
A short time later, in the shadow of a fir tree, she cut the threads that
closed that small beaded bag, then shook into her hand three bits of
ivory. Two were white, the long, sharp teeth of a fox, and one was black
as night, the tooth of a seal. This black one had been buried perhaps for
hundreds of years beneath the sands of the sea.
“Good luck charm,” she murmured. “Wonder if it will bring good luck to
us.”
Hours later, in a dreamy sort of way she was wondering this all over
again. There was need at this moment for luck.
She was seated beside the coals of a campfire. The moon in all its glory
hung above her. Stretching across the sky the Milky Way seemed a scarf of
finest lace.
Her eyes, however, were not much upon the sky. They roved the snowy
slopes. They took in every clump of fir and spruce. They rested with
pleasure upon the brown spots that were, she knew, sleeping reindeer. She
was guarding camp. They had decided that it was best to keep a watch.
Jodie had all but insisted upon keeping her watch, but to this she would
not listen.
“I’m as good a man as you are, even if I am a girl,” was her laughing
challenge.
“_Chuckches_,” she was thinking, “how would natives of Siberia come so
far?” And yet, the charm in her pocket had come from Russia—Siberia—the
Arctic coast of Asia. At-a-tak had assured her of that. How strange!
Then she thought of the hidden mine. They would be there tomorrow. A
feeling of pleased excitement, like the day before Christmas, ran through
her being. Be there tomorrow. Would they? Perhaps there was no mine
worthy of the name—only an old man’s dream. Well, even this had to be
proved tomorrow. Tomorrow—
She started from this reverie, then listened sharply. Had there come an
unaccustomed sound, like someone talking low in the distance?
A sound did reach her ears, a short, sharp barking. White foxes barking
in the night. But this other sound—could it be some wild creature,
perhaps a wolf, grumbling to his mate?
After that the night was still. She thought there had never before been
such silence—the great white silence of the North. She imagined one might
hear the rush of stars in their orbits.
Then again that silence was broken. The sound this time was very near,
like the low mush-mush of footsteps on the snow, it seemed to come from
the ridge above. Three clumps of spruce trees were there. Anyone passing
from one to the other would be hidden. The nearest was not twenty yards
from the camp. Her hands moved nervously as she sat watching those low
spruce trees.
A moment passed, another, and yet another. The silence appeared to
deepen. Blue-gray shadows of trees seemed to creep toward her. Absurd!
She shook herself free of the illusion.
Then of a sudden she saw it—a face. One instant it was there among the
spruce boughs. The next it was gone.
“A native?” A prickly sensation raced up her spine. It was night. She was
alone, was awake. Should she waken the others?
“It’s my watch,” she told herself resolutely. “The face is gone. The
reindeer are safe. So-o—” with a sigh she settled back in her place.
When she awoke next morning she was tempted to believe that her seeming
to see that face among the trees was the result of an overworked
imagination.
It was At-a-tak who soon changed her mind about this. The native girl had
stood a short watch in the early morning. The face among the trees had
reappeared. The man had spoken to her in his native tongue. The story she
had to tell was strange.
This man she said was indeed a native of Russia. He and his people had
visited America in a big skin boat. When they started on the homeward
journey, ice drove them back. In America, they had no food. They must
hunt. Finding this herd, and knowing little of American laws, they had
driven it into the hills.
“But now,” At-a-tak concluded, “no more drive reindeer, those Russian
natives. I say, ‘Go away quick. White man will catch you, put in jail,
maybe shoot you.’ He say, ‘Go away quick.’ That one go away far. So,” she
sighed, “not bother reindeer more.”
“And so,” Jodie laughed, “we have one fine reindeer herd on our hands.
What shall we do with it?”
“Take them along; eat them one by one if we must,” was Tom Kennedy’s
reply. “But now the cry is ‘On to the mine!’
“On to the gold mine!” he shouted.
“On to the mine! On! On to the mine!” came echoing back.
Not so fast. There was the herd of reindeer, they must be driven on
before. In spite of the fact that this herd in an emergency would save
them from starvation, Florence felt inclined to bewail the fact that this
extra responsibility had been thrust upon them.
“Friends,” she said to her grandfather as they ate a hurriedly prepared
breakfast of sourdough pancakes, “friends are fine, but sometimes they
are a lot of trouble. If John Bowman hadn’t been our friend, we might
have left those deer to shift for themselves.”
“N-no,” the old man spoke slowly, “no, girl, that’s where you’re wrong.
It does give us an added responsibility, our friendship with John. But
reindeer are property, valuable property. Many a man in this cold white
world would have starved had it not been for the reindeer. So we’ll have
to look after ’em the best we can.”
“Grandfather,” the girl thought with increased admiration, “surely is a
fine old man! If everyone was like him, what a world this would be!”
“We’ll get there all the same!” exclaimed Tom. “You watch and see.”
“Come on, Phantom, old boy!” Florence shouted to the collie dog a few
moments later. “We’ve got to get this Arctic caravan on the move.”
The dog let out a joyous yelp and they were on their way.
It was growing dusk on that short day of the Northland when, on crossing
a low ridge, they sighted a large oval spot that seemed jet black against
the surrounding white.
“A frozen lake,” said Jodie.
For one full moment they stood there in silence. The scene that lay
before them was beautiful beyond compare. The sun setting behind white
and purple mountains, the frozen oval of water that in summer must seem a
mirror, the graceful reindeer wandering down over the sloping field of
white—all this beauty would remain with Florence as long as she lived.
Yet the words of her grandfather would linger longer. What he said was:
“Yes, girl, that’s the lake. In fact, it’s _the_ lake! And yonder—” his
voice broke with emotion, “yonder is the cabin Joe and I put up so long
ago.”
Sure enough, as the girl looked closely, she did see a small cabin, half
buried in snow, nestling among the trees.
“The cabin!” she exclaimed. “The cabin! And now, where’s the mine?”
“Time enough for that, girl.” With eager stride the old man started down
the hill. “Time enough. The cabin comes first.” At that they all went
racing away.
“It’s strange,” the old man murmured a half hour later, “fifteen years
have gone. And yet here is our cabin, just as we left it. Even the flour
in that big can is good. No one has been here since we left. Surely this
is a strange, mysterious, empty land.”
“But the gold mine?” The words slipped unbidden from Florence’s lips.
At that her grandfather did a curious thing. With one long bony finger
that trembled slightly, he pointed straight down at the center of the
floor:
“We hid it. Hid it good.”
“But wh—where is it?” the girl stammered.
“The two middle planks we hewed out of a spruce log,” was the answer.
“Lift ’em up and you’ll see.”
Florence and Jodie did lift the planks. They did see. Beneath the cabin
floor was a dark cavity.
“Not very deep,” the old man laughed happily. “Not far down to the bed
rock. Flash your light down there, son.”
Jodie threw the gleam of his electric torch to the bottom of the cavity.
Then an exclamation escaped his lips. Casting back the gleam of his
torch, some tiny objects appeared to turn the place into an inverted sky,
all full of stars.
“Gold!” the old man murmured. “It’s gold, son. Gold!”
After Florence had crept into her sleeping bag that night, she found her
mind filled with many questions. Would they truly find gold, much gold,
down there in that dark hole? For her grandfather’s sake, she hoped so.
What of the reindeer? They were feeding and sleeping now in that narrow
valley. Would they be able to drive these all the way to Nome? Would
those Russian natives truly remain away, or would hunger drive them back?
“There’ll be trouble if they come back,” she thought. “Trouble. Troub—”
At that she fell fast asleep.