The evening meal over, Gordon Duncan dropped into a great rustic chair before the fire. As Johnny watched he saw the old man start as a change came over him. A battle of conflicting emotions played across his expressive face. Twice he half rose in his chair. Many times he clenched his fists tight. Three times he turned to speak to the Corporal. At last, as he sank down deep in his chair, a look of resignation came over his face. Peace now reigned where a battle had raged. He was soon sleeping in his chair.
Johnny could not read all the story that had been recorded there. He knew too little regarding the two possible courses of action that lay before them and the purposes and emotions that were back of them. He did know that an idea had taken possession of Gordon Duncan. He had had a partner in the past. They had found some metal. He called it green gold. Was it? Whatever it was, the whole soul of the old man had been bent on finding that partner and his treasure.
Now a man, an officer of the law, had told him of a starving people. He had at once conceived of a plan for helping them. Just what those plans were Johnny did not clearly know. Of one thing he felt certain. Having observed the old man and understanding something of his deep convictions, he felt sure that he would feel compelled to go to the aid of those who faced starvation.
“Faye will go,” the old man had said.
“Will I?” Johnny asked himself this question in all seriousness, but did not attempt to answer it. He had seen much of life, had lived in many climes; but to go into the great white wilderness to a desperate tribe of starving half savages in the company of an old man and a girl, armed only with bows and arrows—
“What good could we possibly do?” he asked himself.
The simple household duties of the cabin done, Faye joined them beside the fire.
She had been sitting there but a short time when a great shaggy dog, one of the Corporal’s team, rose from the floor and approached her. After kissing her hand he laid his shaggy head in her lap.
“He knows you,” said the Corporal in surprise.
“Yes,” she said. “He used to belong to a next door neighbor. You must have bought him from that man. We are great friends,” she said, addressing the dog. “Aren’t we, Tico?”
At the sound of the name Tico, the dog gave forth a low woof, then stood staring intently into her eyes.
“Tell you what,” the Corporal said quite suddenly. “I’ll give him to you. Then if you go—” he hesitated, “wherever you go, he’ll be company, protector and guide.
“He’s not much account in the team, anyway,” he added half apologetically. “Too old when I took him. Dogs need to be trained young.”
“I—I—why, thank you! That would be grand, wouldn’t it, Tico?”
The dog woofed again; then, as if he had understood everything that had been said, dropped to a place at her side.
“So now we are four,” Johnny thought to himself as, rising from his place he took up the axe and went out into the night to gather a fresh supply of fuel.
When he returned Gordon Duncan was still fast asleep. Sitting quite close to the girl, the Corporal was talking in low tones. As Johnny took his place he caught the word cabin. A little later a boat was spoken of, then timber and a broad tundra.
Taking the stub of a pencil and a sheet of paper from his pocket, the officer drew what was likely to be a rough map.
Johnny understood in a general way what was happening. The Corporal realized that he had, without intending to do so, stirred up in Gordon Duncan’s breast a fire not easily quenched. He had so worked upon his almost exaggerated sense of duty that he would be driven to attempt the seemingly impossible. Without adding fuel to the flames by giving the old man a detailed description of the route to be taken, he was imparting that knowledge to Faye Duncan.
“Well thought out and mighty decent of him,” was Johnny’s mental comment. With that thought uppermost in his mind, he went about the business of preparing for a night’s repose.
CHAPTER VII
A LOOK BEYOND
The Corporal was up and away before dawn. Having assisted him with his dogs, Johnny returned to the cabin.
In his sleeping bag on a rude bunk in the corner Gordon Duncan still slept. Before the fire sat Faye Duncan. She had thrown fresh fuel on the fire. The flames were leaping up the chimney.
“I suppose you know,” she said as he took a seat beside her, “that Grandfather will accept this new mission.”
“I had supposed he would.”
“He doesn’t want to. The finding of his long lost partner and the green gold has obsessed him for years. It is natural that he should want to go on. But he is deeply religious and, what is better, has a great heart. There are those who suffer. It is possible for him to give them aid. Duty calls. He must go.”
“But only three of us!” said Johnny. “How can we help? We may starve, ourselves. In their ignorance, superstition and great need they may attack us.”
“We have eight bows between us,” the girl said quietly. “A bow weighs very little. We always carried a good supply. Never as many as now. Providence must have directed us. We have many arrow points. Thongs, feathers, material for shafts may be had in the wilderness. A bow is a precious thing. Its wood must be of the best and seasoned many months. We are fortunate in having so many.”
“After all, we can use but three bows at a time,” Johnny said.
“Grandfather believes that there are old men among the Eskimos who have been archers and have not forgot. If he can arm these with our extra bows, if we can somehow ambush the caribou when they come, we may save those starving ones yet.”
Johnny looked at her in silence. His mind was in a whirl. Here was an old man and a girl who but a few days before, as if guilty of some crime, were hiding in the brush. Yet, at this moment they were planning a long and dangerous journey far out on the tundra in the hope of saving the lives of a few half savage people.
“Queer folks,” he told himself.
“So here we are,” the girl went on after a moment’s silence. “In an hour we shall be on our way. Before us is the wilderness, after that a river, the land of little sticks and the silent, white tundra. We carry only our precious bows and arrows. It seems a foolhardy and futile undertaking.
“But think!” Her voice became vibrant with emotion. “Unless someone comes to them, men, women and cute little brown babies will starve—starve!”
She cupped her chin in her hands to stare at the fire. “I don’t fear for myself,” her tone was deep and solemn. “I only fear for him. He is old, though he has the heart of a boy.
“I hear him stirring,” she said softly, springing to her feet. “I must prepare breakfast. He is always impatient of delays.”
“Listen,” said Johnny. “I promised to go with you. I’ll not turn back now. Count me in.”
The girl did not speak. She put out a hand. It was a good, strong, capable hand. Johnny gripped it heartily. And there in the dawn was sealed a compact that was to live through many a long day of wild adventure.
Noon of that day found the little party looking down upon a scene of surpassing beauty. This was one of those days of crystal-like clearness. From the promontory on which they now stood, the crest of the range, their vision stretched mile on mile, seeming never to end.
Spreading out a roughly drawn map, Gordon Duncan traced for Johnny the course they were to take. He had gotten it from Faye, who in turn had it from the Corporal. Here, down the ridge, they followed the blazed trail. There, where a huge black tamarack tree stood, they bent to the right. A short way farther, and they came to the boiling and tumultuous stream again. Following this as best they might over rock pile and ledge, through dense forest and thicket, they would come at last to a broad, tree covered valley.
“At the entrance to that valley,” the old man ended, carefully refolding his map, “unless we have gone wrong, we will find a rude shelter and close beside it an Indian dugout canoe. The canoe was left there six months ago, but the Corporal thinks it is still in condition.”
“Here’s hoping,” said Johnny. “For if it is not, our journey ends there.”
“And with its ending the fate of many human lives is sealed,” said Gordon Duncan solemnly. “It is strange that so much should depend upon so little. But we must do our part. We are enlisted in a great cause, the welfare of a vanishing race.”
As Johnny stood there looking away to the north, where even now it seemed he caught the gleam of a snow blanket, strange thoughts passed through his mind.
In a spirit almost of bravado, he had one morning slung his quiver of arrows over his back, bound his pack together, seized his bow and walked away into the wilderness.
“I meant to be away a month,” he told himself. “I would remain in the wilderness a month and receive no support save that which came from my bow and arrow. Well,” his face twisted into a doubtful smile, “it will be a month right enough, probably two, perhaps three. And the bow and arrow must support us, not one but three. There is no other way.”
“Two months! Perhaps three!” He said the words out loud. “Why, they’ll think me dead! I must go back. It isn’t treating them right. I must go back!” He was thinking of his own people.
“And yet—” As he closed his eyes to think he saw a group of little brown people, many groups, seated round the fast vanishing lights of crude tallow lamps. He saw the wan faces of mothers, the eyes of children that gleamed the bright gleam of death by starvation.
“One must always think of the highest good of the greatest number.” He quoted the words of a great teacher.
“Are we ready?” said Gordon Duncan.
“We are ready,” said Johnny. “Lead on.”
Once more they marched on.
Two days later the girl and boy stood upon the crest of a high hill. Gordon Duncan was back some distance on the trail. Johnny would have gone back for his pack. But the aged Scotchman was still proud of his strength. This was the last climb for the day. Their camping place for the night was at the foot of the hill just before them.
Here there were no trees, only rocks. Their view was not obstructed. Far away behind hills that had turned to pure gold and mountains that appeared to smoke with the snow driven far and wide by the wind of their summits, the sun was setting. Far below was the river, a golden ribbon winding across a field of white satin.
So they stood there, the boy and the girl. Life, beautiful, glorious life, surged through their beings. It was inconceivable that anyone in all the world could be starving at this moment.
Spring was in the making. They did not see it. The willows by the river were not budding. The snow of the trail was hard as the rocks on which they now stood; yet spring was coming. They could feel it in their blood.
Youth, spring, life. The night before they had stood for a moment beneath the starry heavens wondering what life could exist in those great distances beyond.
“Whatever it may be,” Johnny told himself, “it could not be more wonderful than life here and now.”
Life! The great cities with their noise and dirt, with their artificiality, their fraud and sham, were far away. The girl that stood at his side was real. From toes to fingertips, she was genuine. Her mackinaw was faded, her knickers frayed in spots, but the color in her cheeks, the smile on her lips, the glint of pure joy in her eye, were real.
“Real!”
He said the word aloud. She heard and understood.
It was well for them that they enjoyed this perfect moment together, for the days that were to come were such as require strong and beautiful memories to lessen their pain.
Gordon Duncan came toiling up the hill. Seeing the halo of sunset glory that had been cast about them, he said;
“It is truly wonderful. Who could believe that less than two hundred miles from this spot men, women and little children may be starving? There are men who will tell you that nature is God. A cruel God indeed who could furnish us such beauty and offer to them only death.”
The sun sank from sight. Darkness and a sudden chill overtook them. Turning, they marched down the hill in silence.
Several nights later, with only a shelter of poles covered by boughs, Johnny slept again in his blankets before the fire. His was the sleep of one whose burdens are heavy, whose trails have been long, but whose heart is light.
“The canoe is fit,” was the last word of Gordon Duncan before they went to rest. “Fit as a fiddle. To-morrow the river takes us on the way.”
“But remember,” said his granddaughter, “that there are rapids in the river.”
“There are never rapids in any life till we reach them,” said the rugged old Scot. “And when we do reach them we can but do our part. God will see that all is for the best.”
CHAPTER VIII
A HAVEN OF REFUGE
“It is going to storm.” The old Scot dropped his paddle to the bottom of the dugout long enough to turn up the collar of his jacket, then he took up the mechanical swing of his brawny arms that had done so much in the days that had just passed to speed the three adventurers on into the Northland.
“Going to be a bad one!” Johnny threw a fleeting glance at the girl before him. Like her grandfather, she performed wonders. She had kept up the steady, monotonous swing of paddle until Johnny thought she must be working in her sleep. The muscles of her arms had grown hard as a man’s.
They had found the Corporal’s cottonwood dugout a good one. For three days it had carried them straight on into the great unknown.
“After all, she’s only a girl,” he told himself, thinking once more of the girl. “This storm will be a bad one. Wish we’d come to shelter. The map shows a cabin or something down here somewhere. Be easy enough to pass it in the storm. Map don’t show which bank. Wish—”
Just then the advance guard of the storm struck. A rattling drive of cutting snow, a sudden gust that set their canoe on side, and it was gone.
“But there will be other blasts and worse ones,” he told himself.
In this he was right. A half hour had not passed before they were shooting along through a veritable wall of driving white. One of those sudden and terrible storms that haunt the Arctic had come driving down from the North.
“Have to go ashore and try to get up something of a camp,” said the old Scot, as with the greatest difficulty he unbent his benumbed fingers. “Can’t stand this. Cold and damp will get us. Wind off that ice water is terrible.”
Once more Johnny looked at the girl. Gripping her paddle, she still swung her arms in rhythmic motion.
“Half froze,” he thought, with a tightening of the throat. “She’s doing and enduring all for the good of people she has not seen.”
Just then there was a stir in the prow of the canoe. Tico, the dog given to Faye by the Corporal, had crept from his snug corner to lift his nose to the air, point toward the farther shore, and let out an unhappy wail.
“Something over there.” The girl spoke now for the first time in a half hour. “Maybe game. That’s something. Our food supply is very low. Better go over.”
Neither the old Scot nor Johnny questioned her judgment. Turning the canoe half about, they struck for that distant shore.
It was a perilous journey. The moment they left the sheltering bank, waves began crashing over the gunwale.
The boat was half filled when the girl, dropping her paddle, began to bale. The men toiled unremittingly at the oars.
“Wind’s with us. Be there soon,” Johnny said cheeringly.
“Wa-roo!” answered the dog. Standing high in the prow, he appeared to direct their course.
They were still half a boat length from shore when with a mighty leap the dog, clearing the boat, landed on the ice that edged the water and at once shot away into the forest.
“Tico! Tico!” the girl cried. “Come back! Come back!”
Wind and water drowned her cries. The dog did not return.
“All we can do is to follow him,” said Johnny as he made the boat fast to a bough that hung far out over ice and water, then tested the ice with an axe.
“Here, let me have those,” he said as Gordon Duncan was about to throw his bundle of bows and arrows ashore.
“Guess you better carry them,” said Gordon Duncan. “Can’t be too careful of your artillery in such a land.”
After a dangerous slide or two they were on land.
Following the dog’s steps in the snow, Johnny led the way into the tangled brush. To his great joy he found indications of a rough trail.
“May have been made by moose or caribou, for all that,” he told himself.
“What was that?” the girl exclaimed suddenly, stopping short.
From behind them had come a cracking sound.
Dropping the bundle of arrows he carried, Johnny sprang back over the trail.
“It’s gone!” There was a touch of despair in his voice as he called to his companions. “The boat’s gone! The branch tore away.”
Never in his life had he felt more miserable. No food, no blankets, no shelter in a strange land, hundreds of miles from known human habitation, with a blizzard tearing at them.
“And it’s all my fault,” he said. “It was I who tied the boat. I should have tested the moorings.”
“No,” said Gordon Duncan. There was force and dignity in his tone. “It is not entirely your fault. We were there to offer counsel. And this is not the end. It is but the beginning. We have bows and arrows. There is game here as elsewhere. There is always a way to prepare a shelter and make a fire.”
“But first we must find Tico,” said the girl, who had just come up to them. “I can’t imagine what madness has seized him.”
“Dogs,” said Gordon Duncan, “are sometimes wiser than humans. There may be something in his actions that is worth investigating. Let us be going.”
In this he was more right than he knew.
They had not gone a hundred yards when the trail widened. Another hundred yards, and a dark bulk loomed through the whirling snow.
“A cabin or a boulder,” said Johnny a little breathlessly.
“Either will prove a boon,” said the old Scot. “A shelter in the time of storm.”
“A cabin! A cabin!” the girl cried joyously as the dog came bounding back to meet her.
And such a cabin as it proved to be! Built of massive logs, with a door that required the strength of two to swing it wide, what a haven! It was equipped with rude bunks, a hand hewn table and chairs and a massive stone fireplace.
“This,” said Gordon Duncan, a note of deep, silent joy creeping into his voice, “is the very place we were to leave the canoe and strike away across the tundra. Truly we have been guided by a great good God.”
“God, and Tico,” whispered the girl as she sank down upon a chair. There was no suggestion of irreverence in her tone.
“Aye, and the dog,” said the old Scot. “I doubt not that many times the great Creator finds a dog’s course more easy to direct than that of a human.”
A hasty survey of the cabin revealed many delightful surprises. Built, no doubt, by some trader and trapper of bygone days, it had been fashioned to shut out the rigor of winter and the tearing rush of wild northern gales. It had been equipped with massive iron cooking utensiles which were still serviceable. It had, beyond doubt, been used by the Mounted Police as a temporary station, for, hidden away among the rafters were blankets, a coffee pot, a small quantity of flour and baking powder, a can of coffee, a sack of beans and a square of bacon.
“Man! Did I not tell you?” exclaimed the joyous Scot. “’Twas God’s hand that led us. ’Tis a royal feast we’ll have.
“No better fritters were ever made than those moulded by the hands of the bonny lassie here. Bacon, fritters, coffee beside a fire that laughs up a generous chimney. Who could ask for more?”
Johnny joined with the old Scot in his rejoicing. He had not, however, forgotten that their boat was irretrievably lost and that it was many, many weary miles back, even to the cabin where they had enjoyed their last real night’s sleep.
Being young and strong, possessed of a healthy body and a vigorous mind, he did not trouble about the future for long, but springing out into the storm, began dragging in dry brush and logs.
“Ah, now the storm may laugh and the wind crack her cheeks!” exclaimed the Scot as he attacked the branches with an axe he had found in the corner.
Bacon, fritters and coffee might seem a meager feast. But to those who had lived for days on caribou steak, rabbits, partridge and squirrel, it was indeed a rich repast. Even Tico enjoyed it beyond his power to express.
When at last the feast was over and the heavy pots and pans hung in their places Johnny piled three great spruce logs in the center of the fireplace, thrust dry branches and wind wrecked splintered fragments in the niches between, then with his friends sat down to watch with dreamy eyes the leaping, laughing, roaring flames.
The old Scot was soon nodding in his chair. Lower and lower his head sank upon his breast until only the tangled gray of hair and beard were visible.
Softly, on tiptoe, the girl went to bend over his chair. As she tiptoed back to her place beside the boy, she whispered:
“Sleeping.”
Johnny nodded.
For a long time, save for the roar of the wind outside answered by the crackle of the fire within, there was silence. But who can say what communion may be had between hearts loyal and true in moments of silence?
When the girl spoke her tone was deep and low. “I am afraid for him. His heart,” she said, glancing toward the sleeping patriarch, “Some day—”
She did not finish, but once more sat starring at the fire.
“This,” she said at last, “is to be his one great adventure. He has the heart of youth, of a knight, a Crusader. We have always lived quietly on our farm, except for these trips into the forest. Always since he was a boy, he has told me, he has longed for an opportunity to render a great service. He believes this is his great opportunity, his crowded hour, this and his final search for old Timmie and his green gold. What a triumph it will be if he accomplishes all!” Again she stared at the fire.
Johnny nodded. He understood.
“We will do all we can to help him realize his highest hope,” he said huskily.
A moment later, as the wind shook the cabin, the girl’s mood changed. She found herself longing for the home of many simple comforts she had left to follow her grandfather on this strange and uncertain quest.
“You have never seen our home,” she said dreamily. “It’s not a palace, but it’s home. Just a cottage with vines climbing up the front and with fine old fashioned roses, yellow, pink and red, on either side. There’s a cozy little parlor with a reed organ in one corner. Grandfather loves to sing to it on a Sunday afternoon, those old, old fashioned tunes that are so quaint and so—so sort of wonderful. You should hear him boom them out.
“My room,” she went on as if speaking to herself, “looks out upon a field of red clover at the side, and at the back is a clump of forest. The squirrels are so tame that they come to perch on my window sill and beg for sweets and nuts.”
As she ceased speaking Johnny looked at her and realized as never before that she was, despite her rugged face and splendid untiring muscles, only a girl very far from the nest that she called home.
“But,” she exclaimed suddenly as if waking from a dream, “we must not turn back! We must go on! Go on for him!” She nodded toward the sleeping grandfather. “And for the little brown people who, but for us, may starve.”
Three days the storm raged on. Restful days these were, but not idle ones. Some of their arrows had gone downstream with their ill-fated cottonwood boat. Fortunately they found within the cabin two steel sled runners and a home-made feather duster. The dusters were made of wild goose feathers. No better for arrows can be found. With the aid of fire and such tools as were at hand, they succeeded in cutting the sled runners into bits and fashioning them into arrow heads. Dry fir furnished them shafts for the arrows. Long hours, working side by side over the table, the boy and girl, directed by the old man, worked at the task of making arrows. Cutting, scraping, shaping, pounding, forging, binding, with grimy hands but gleaming eyes they worked on and on until when the storm broke and the sun came out they found themselves better armed than ever before.
“So we may say the storm was a blessing in disguise,” said Gordon Duncan. “To-morrow we must be on our way,” he said as he gazed upon the fading tints of their first red sunset in the wilderness. “We must hurry. The caribou may come and pass to their northern feeding grounds before us. Then indeed our little brown friends will starve.”
“And we with them,” Johnny wanted to add, but did not.
That night, by the light of the fire, Johnny spent a full hour studying three maps he had spread out on the table. More than once a sudden exclamation escaped his lips. At last he rose and began pacing the floor. The old Scot was asleep in his chair. Faye Duncan had watched Johnny with keen interest. Now as she caught the light of a quizzical smile playing across his face, she said,
“What is it?”
“Why look!” he replied, leading her to the table. “See, here are three maps, the one done on white leather by your grandfather so many years ago, the roughly drawn one by the Corporal to guide us on this trip, and an old general map of the country which I found here in the cabin.
“It’s strange,” he said, straightening up, “but when you trace the two routes out, the one your grandfather proposed to follow in his search for that more or less mythical partner of his—”
“Don’t say that!” Her finger touched his lips. “It’s all very real to him.”
“Well, anyway, we are now across the river, and if we follow the route the Corporal has marked out for us we will be going almost directly toward the spot your grandfather has marked for Timmie’s cabin.
“So,” he said, reading the surprise and joy in her eye, “the longest way round is the shortest way home, after all! See!” He pointed to a spot on the map. “See. There is the camp of the Eskimo. And here, just a short way across the tundra, then over these low mountains, is Timmie’s cabin and the—the green gold.”
“So in choosing to be of service to the natives, Grandfather was really serving himself,” the girl said as they returned to their places before the fire. “How often life is like that.”
“Green gold.” She repeated the words thoughtfully after a time. “Do you suppose there is any such thing?”
“Yes, of course there is,” said Johnny. “They use it for making jewelry, rings, watch-cases and the like. But where it comes from I haven’t the least notion.”
“Is—is it very valuable?”
“Why yes, it must be.”
“And if there was a lot of it, a mine or something, and Grandfather has a share, we would be—might be—”
“Quite rich.”
“Oh!” Her eyes shone.
“You know,” she said after some time, “we are quite poor and we—Grandfather might need money badly to—to defend—”
Johnny waited long for the rest of that sentence. It never came.
“Well,” he said at last, “to-morrow it’s the long, long trail once more.”
CHAPTER IX
A MOVING ISLAND
“They’re coming!”
Johnny Thompson thought he heard the beating of Faye Duncan’s heart as she whispered these words in his ears.
They lay close together on the snow against a little rise of land. From this place they could see nothing before them. A faint crackling sound was all that told them that a moving island of brown, a great herd of caribou, was moving up the narrow valley and would, within the space of a quarter of an hour, be abreast of them and within easy bow shot.
Their position was not without its element of danger. Johnny’s heart missed a beat at the thought. The caribou, when they had last seen them, were moving with the steady precision of an army. There were thousands of them.
“But if a mother wolf and her pack appears to the right of them, then what?” Johnny asked himself. He knew how broad and sharp were the hoofs of the caribou. It was these very hoofs that made the steady click and crash as of a thousand batons beating on wooden rails. Visions of that vast herd stampeding and rushing down upon them like a relentless sea passed before his mind’s eye.
“Perhaps we shouldn’t have come,” he whispered.
“It was our only chance,” the girl whispered back. “Our chance for the Eskimos and for ourselves.”
In this she appeared to speak the truth. Johnny lapsed into silence.
Four days had passed since on that bright morning they had left the abandoned trapper’s cabin.
Borrowing blankets and a little food from the cabin, they had started out.
The going had been heavy from the start. The forest had disappeared almost at once. Guided by the dog Tico, they had found themselves following a northerly course over a flat and trackless tundra.
Day after day they had tramped on. For a time there had been plenty of game, ptarmigan on little ridges, rabbits in the bottoms.
As they advanced these had disappeared. And now for an entire twenty-four hours they had eaten nothing.
An hour before they had mounted a narrow rise of land to find themselves gazing upon a curious sight. A broad brown island, long and narrow and weaving in and out, had been moving toward them.
“The caribou! We are too late!” The excitement had been too much for Gordon Duncan. Seized by a sudden heart attack, he had fallen upon the snow. All he could do as his stout hearted companions assured him that all was not lost was to lie flat upon his blankets and struggle painfully for breath.
“We will take our bows and arrows and hide in one of the little runs,” Johnny had explained.
“When that throng is passing we surely can pick off a number of caribou. The Eskimo village must not now be far away. We will build a cairn for the meat and can return for it.”
Johnny wondered now as the sound of thousands of crackling hoofs grew louder, whether his words would prove true. Was the Eskimo village near? Would they succeed in shooting enough caribou to be of real service? Could the meat be kept away from the wolves?
“At least we shall eat again,” he whispered stoutly.
“Yes,” the girl whispered back, as with nervous fingers she gripped her bow. She had been loath to leave her grandfather back there alone on the tundra. He had insisted. So here they were. And here, coming closer, ever closer, was the moving island of brown.
“There! There is one!” she whispered as a pair of massive antlers appeared above the ridge’s crest.
A splendid young buck, having climbed the ridge, had risen above the snow. There for a moment he stood, head high, sniffing the air. That moment was his last, for with the speed and precision that would have done credit to a daughter of William Tell, the stout hearted Scotch girl sent an arrow unerring to its mark.
The next instant Johnny and Faye were on their feet making the most of their opportunity.
That the opportunity was poor enough they were soon to learn. Like a mighty stream that breaks its bonds to race over land, this mass of brown flowed away before their very eyes.
A dozen arrows shot, half of them lost forever, and only two caribou to show for it all. This was their score.
“Well,” said the girl, dropping to the snow, weak with excitement, “as you said before, we will eat to-night. As for the Eskimos, there must be some other way.”
“Yes,” said Johnny, “there must be some—some other way.” He seemed suddenly to have grown very weak and old.
“We-l-l, it’s not so bad.” It was the voice of an old man grown suddenly strong that sounded in Johnny’s ear. A moment more and Gordon Duncan, with Tico hitched to an improvised sled, stood beside them.
“As for yonder little brown people, God will provide in his own good way,” he said as he led them down the ridge.
That night between the sheltering banks of a narrow gorge, they built a shanty of willow bushes. The beds they slept on after a royal feast of roasted caribou steak were made of rustling willow leaves.
Next morning, after cutting a draw line from a caribou skin, Johnny piled all the remaining meat on the sled, and putting his own shoulder to the harness, bade Tico lead on.
It was hard, grinding toil, but he hung to the task until, after climbing a slight elevation, Faye let out a cry of joy. Before them in the valley, pitched in an irregular circle, were a half dozen skin tents.
“The Caribou Eskimos.” The words that came from the old Scot’s lips spoke volumes of joy. What did it matter now that the way had been long and hard, that they had faced death by water, storm and cold? What did he care that they had but two caribou on their sled and that the great caribou band had passed northward? They had found the people they had come to serve. God would find a way to perfect their labors.
“But where are the people?” Faye asked.
Where indeed? Not a living creature was stirring about the tents. Not a film of smoke curled up from the tent poles.
“It’s like a village of the dead,” Johnny said in an awed whisper. In this he was more nearly right than he knew.
“Gone hunting,” said Gordon Duncan. His words carried no conviction.
“Come on. Let’s hurry,” said the girl, springing forward.
Once more Johnny put his shoulder to the sled. Gordon Duncan and Faye also seized the strap and together they went racing away down the slight incline that led to the village.
No sadder sight had this trio known than that which met their eyes as they peered within the first low, circular tent. Sprawled upon deer skins, sitting bent over as in a stupor, or lying prone like dead men, nine Eskimos greeted their entrance with not so much as a mumbled word or a stare.
“Dead,” was Johnny’s mental comment as he felt the girl’s impulsive grip on his arm.
“No,” he said aloud, “they’re not dead; only in a stupor from lack of food.”
“Hello!” he shouted.
“Hello!” came back in a hollow tone as if from a tomb. One of the squatting figures attempted to rise. His knees doubled up under him and he rolled upon the deerskins.
“Food!” Johnny said. “We have caribou meat.”
It seemed certain that but one of the Eskimos understood, the man who had made a futile attempt to rise.
“There is no caribou meat here,” he mumbled hoarsely.
“We have caribou meat for you, a sled load.”
Rolling himself into a half sitting position, the English speaking Eskimo said a few words in his own tongue.
The effect was electrical. It was as if a strong current had been sent through the motionless bodies that lay about on the deerskins. With one accord they began creeping, crawling, tumbling toward the entrance to the tent.
For this Johnny was prepared. Quickly unlashing the sled, he produced a quantity of roasted meat. This he cut into little squares and handed to the Eskimos.
They ate like famished wolves. Yet, in this extremity they did not forget their fellow villagers. When each had eaten a little they waved their hands toward the other tents.
Fortunately the remaining tents were not so crowded as this one. Sad to relate, two of the occupants were beyond human aid.
When night fell upon the white sweep of the tundra and the three rescue workers, worn out by the day’s excitement and labor, sought the little tent and the pile of deerskins that had been surrendered to their use, the dead had been carried to their last resting place and the living had been made as comfortable as possible. Then it was that they took stock of supplies and cast about for signs of the future.
“Looks rather hopeless,” Johnny said as he sank down upon the deerskins. “Food we have can’t do more than revive them. What next?”
As if in answer to his question, the English speaking Eskimo came creeping into the tent.
“Have you cartridges?”
“No cartridges,” said Gordon Duncan.
The man’s face fell. “White man,” he mumbled, “no got cartridges. No cartridge.”
“Listen!” said Gordon Duncan, with eyes alight. “Before the white man came, how did your people live?”
“Caribou meat. Plenty caribou.”
“How did they kill them?”
“Bow and arrow.”
“Where are your bows and arrows now?”
The man shrugged, then went through the motion of breaking something over his knees. “No good, bows and arrows. Rifles better, think mine. Think that every Eskimo.”
“What could you do now if you had cartridges for your rifle?” Duncan asked.
“Get caribou.” The Eskimo’s eyes were alight with hope.
“But they have gone far north.”
“Some caribou. Not all caribou. Come more soon.”
“What?” Gordon Duncan was on his feet.
“Yes. Come more. Not tell lie, mine. Come more. Mebby to-morrow. Mebby next day. Can’t tell. Come, that’s all.”