He was up and had breakfast started before Pelliter awoke. Little Mystery was still sleeping, and the two men moved about softly in their moccasined feet. On this morning the sun shone brilliantly over the southern ice-fields, and Pelliter aroused Little Mystery so that she might see it before it disappeared. But to-day it did not drop below the gray murkiness of the snow-horizon for nearly an hour. After breakfast Pelliter read his letters again, and then Billy read them. In one of the letters the girl had put a tress of sunny hair, and Pelliter kissed it shamelessly before his comrade.
"She says she's making the dress she's going to wear when we're married, and that if I don't come home before it's out of style she'll never marry me at all," he cried, joyously. "Look there, on that page she's told me all about it. You're— you're goin' to be there, ain't you, Billy?"
"If I can make it, Pelly."
"If you can make it! I thought you was going out of the Service when I did."
"I've sort of changed my mind."
"And you're going to stick? "
"Mebbe for another three years."
Life in the cabin was different after this. Pelliter and Little Mystery were happy, and Billy fought with himself every hour to keep down his own gloom and despair. The sun helped him. It rose earlier each day and remained longer in the sky, and soon the warmth of it began to soften the snow underfoot. The vast fields of ice began to give evidence of the approach of spring, and the air was more and more filled with the thunderous echoes of the "break up." Great floes broke from the shore-runs, and the sea began to open. Down from the north the powerful arctic currents began to move their grinding, roaring avalanches. But it was a full month before Billy was sure that Pelliter was strong enough to begin the long trip south. Even then he waited for another week.
Late one afternoon he went out alone and stood on the cliff watching the thunderous movement of arctic ice out in the Roes Welcome. Standing motionless fifty paces from the little storm-beaten cabin that represented Law at this loneliest outpost on the American continent, he looked like a carven thing of dun-gray rock, with a dun-gray world over his head and on all sides of him, broken only in its terrific monotony of deathlike sameness by the darker gloom of the sky and the whiter and ghostlier gloom that hung over the ice-fields. The wind was still bitter, and his vision was shut in by a near horizon which Billy had often thought of as the rim of hell. On this afternoon his heart was as leaden as the day. Under his feet the frozen earth shivered with the rumbling reverberations of the crashing and breaking mountains of ice. His ears were filled with a dull and steady roar, like the echoes of distant thunder, broken now and then— when an ice-mountain split asunder— with a report like that of a thirteen-inch gun. There were curious wailings, strange screeching sounds, and heartbreaking moanings in the air. Two days before MacVeigh had heard the roar of the ice ten miles inland, where he had gone for caribou.
But he scarcely heard that roar now. He was looking toward the warring fields of ice, but he did not see them. It was not the dead gloom and the gray monotony that weighted his heart, but the sounds that he heard now and then in the cabin— the laughing of Little Mystery and of Pelliter. A few days more and he would lose them. And after that what would be left for him? A cry broke from his lips, and he gripped his hands in despair. He would be alone. There was no one waiting for him down in that world to which Pelliter was going, no girl to meet him, no father, no mother— nothing. He laughed in his pain as he faced the cold wind from the north. The sting of that wind was like the mocking ghost of his own past life. For all his life he had known only the stings of pain and of loneliness. And then, suddenly, there came Pelliter's words to him again— "Mebbe some day you'll have a kid." A flood of warmth swept through his veins, and in the moment of forgetfulness and hope which came with it he turned his eyes into the south and west and saw the sweet face and upturned lips of Isobel Deane.
He pulled himself together with a low laugh and faced the breaking seas of ice and the north. The gloom of night had drawn the horizon nearer. The rumble and thunder of crumbling floes came from out of a purple chaos that was growing blue-black in the distance. For several minutes he stood listening and looking into nothingness. The breaking of the ice, the moaning discontent in the air, and the growling monotone of the giant currents had driven other men mad; but they held a fascination for him. He knew what was happening, and he could almost measure the strength of the unseen hands of nature. No sound was new or strange to him. But now, as he stood there, there rose above all the other tumult a sound that he had not heard before. His body became suddenly tense and alert as he faced squarely to the north. For a full minute he listened, and then turned and ran to the cabin.
Pelliter had lighted a lamp, and in its glow Billy's face shone white with excitement.
"Good God, Pelly, come here!" he cried from the door.
As Pelliter ran out he gripped him by the shoulders.
"Listen!" he commanded. "Listen to that!"
"Wolves!" said Pelliter.
The wind was rising, and sent a whistling blast through the open door of the cabin. It awakened Little Mystery, who sat up with frightened cries.
"No, it's not wolves," cried MacVeigh, and it did not sound like MacVeigh's voice that spoke. "I never heard wolves like that. Listen!"
He clutched Pelliter's arm as on a fresh burst of the wind there came the strange and terrible sound from out of the night. It was rapidly drawing nearer— a wailing burst of savage voice, as if a great wolf pack had struck the fresh and blood-stained trail of game. But with this there was the other and more fearful sound, a shrieking and yelping as if half-human creatures were being torn by the fangs of beasts. As Pelliter and MacVeigh stood waiting for something to appear out of the gray-and-black mystery of the night they heard a sound that was like the slow tolling of a thing that was half bell and half drum.
"It's not wolves," shouted Billy. "Whatever it is, there's men with it! Hurry, Pelly, into the cabin with our dogs and sledge! Those are dogs we hear— dogs who are howling because they smell us— and there are hundreds of 'em! Where there's dogs there's men— but who in Heaven's name can they be?"
He dragged the sledge into the cabin while Pelliter unleashed the huskies from the lean-to. When he came in with the dogs Pelliter locked and bolted the door.
Billy slipped a clipful of cartridges into his big-game Remington. His carbine was already on the table, and as Pelliter stood staring at him in indecision he pulled out two Savage automatics from under his bunk and gave one of them to his companion. His face was white and set.
"Better get ready, Pelly," he said, quietly. "I've been in this country a long time, and I tell you they're dogs and men. Did you hear the drum? It's made of seal belly, and there's a bell on each side of it. They're Eskimos, and there isn't an Eskimo village within two hundred miles of us this winter. They're Eskimos, and they're not on a hunt, unless it's for us!"
In an instant Pelliter was buckling on his revolver and cartridge-belt. He grinned as he looked at the wicked little blue-steeled Savage.
"I hope you ain't mistaken, Billy," he said, "for it 'll be the first excitement we've had in a year."
None of his enthusiasm revealed itself in MacVeigh's face.
"The Eskimo never fights until he's gone mad, Pelly," he said, "and you know what madmen are. I can't guess what they've got to fight over, unless they want our grub. But if they do—" He moved toward the door, his swift-firing Remington in his hand. "Be ready to cover me, Pelly. I'm going out. Don't fire until you hear me shoot."
He opened the door and stepped out. The howling had ceased now, but there came in its place strange barking voices and a cracking which Billy knew was made by the long Eskimo whips. He advanced to meet many dim forms which he saw breaking out of the wall of gloom, raising his voice in a loud holloa. From the Doorway Pelliter saw him suddenly lost in a mass of dogs and men, and half flung his carbine to his shoulder. But there was no shooting from MacVeigh. A score of sledge
s had drawn up about him, and the whips of dozens of little black men cracked viciously as their dogs sank upon their bellies in the snow. Both men and dogs were tired, and Billy saw that they had been running long and hard. Still as quick as animals the little men gathered about him, their white-and-black eyes staring at him out of round, thick, dumb-looking faces. He noted that they were half a hundred strong, and that all were armed, many with their little javelin-like narwhal harpoons, some with spears, and others with rifles. From the circle of strangely dressed and hideously visaged beings that had gathered about him one advanced and began talking to him in a language that was like the rapid clack of knuckle bones.
"Kogmollocks!" Billy groaned, and he lifted both hands to show that he did not understand. Then he raised his voice. "Nuna-talmute," he cried. "Nuna-talmute— Nuna-talmute! Ain't there one of that lingo among you?"
He spoke directly to the chief man, who stared at him in silence for a moment and then pointed both short arms toward the lighted cabin.
"Come on!" said Billy. He caught the little Eskimo by one of his thick arms and led him boldly through the breach that was made for them in the circle. The chief man's voice broke out in a few words of command, like a dozen quick, sharp yelps of a dog, and six other Eskimos dropped in behind them.
"Kogmollocks— the blackest-hearted little devils alive when it comes to trading wives and fighting," said MacVeigh to Pelliter, as he came up at the head of the seven little black men. " Watch the door, Pelly. They're coming in."
He stepped into the cabin, and the Eskimos followed. From Pelliter's bunk Little Mystery looked at the strange visitors with eyes which suddenly widened with surprise and joy, and in another moment she had given the strange story that Pelliter or Billy had ever heard her utter. Scarcely had that cry fallen from her lips when one of the Eskimos sprang toward her. His black hands were already upon her, dragging the child from the bunk, when with a warning yell of rage Pelliter leaped from the door and sent him crashing back among his companions. In another instant both men were facing the seven Eskimos with leveled automatics.
"If you fire don't shoot to kill!" commanded MacVeigh.
The chief man was pointing to Little Mystery, his weird voice rising until it was almost a scream. Suddenly he doubled himself back and raised his javelin. Simultaneously two streams of fire leaped from the automatics. The javelin dropped to the floor, and with a shrill cry which was half pain and half command the leader staggered back to the door, a stream of blood running from his wounded hand. The others sprang out ahead of him, and Pelliter closed and bolted the door. When he turned MacVeigh was closing and slipping the bolts to the heavy barricades of the two windows. From Pelliter's bunk Little Mystery looked at them and laughed.
"So it's you?" said Billy, coming to her, and breathing hard. "It's you they want, eh? Now, I wonder why? "
Pelliter's face was flushed with excitement. He was reloading his automatic. There was almost a triumph in his eyes as he met MacVeigh's questioning gaze.
They stood and listened, heard only the rumbling monotone of the drifting ice— not the breath of a sound from the scores of men and dogs.
"We've given them a lesson," said Pelliter, at last, smiling with the confidence of a man who was half a tenderfoot among the little brown men.
Billy pointed to the door.
"That door is about the only place vulnerable to their bullets," he said, as though he had not heard Pelliter. "Keep out of its range. I don't believe what guns they've got are heavy enough to penetrate the logs. Your bunk is out of line and safe."
He went to Little Mystery, and his stern face relaxed into a smile as she put up her arms to greet him.
"So it's you, is it? " he asked again, taking her warm little face and soft curls between his two hands. "They want you, an' they want you bad. Well, they can have grub, an' they can have me, but"— he looked up to meet Pelliter's eyes— "I'm damned if they can have you," he finished.
Suddenly the night was broken by another sound, the sharp, explosive crack of rifles. They could hear the beat of bullets against the log wall of the cabin. One crashed through the door, tearing away a splinter as wide as a man's arm, and as MacVeigh nodded to the path of the bullet he laughed. Pelliter had heard that laugh before. He knew what it meant. He knew what the death-whiteness of MacVeigh's face meant. It was not fear, but something more terrible than fear. His own face was flushed. That is the difference in men.
MacVeigh suddenly darted across the danger zone to the opposite half of the cabin.
"If that's your game, here goes," he cried. "Now, damn y', you're so anxious to fight— get at it 'n' fight!"
He spoke the last words to Pelliter. Billy always swore when he went into action.
XI - The Night of Peril
*
On his own side of the cabin Pelliter began tugging at a small, thin block laid between two of the logs. The shooting outside had ceased when the two men opened up the loopholes that commanded a range seaward. Almost immediately it began again, the dull red flashes showing the location of the Eskimos, who had drawn back to the ridge that sloped down to the Bay. As the last of five shots left his Remington Billy pulled in his gun and faced across to Pelliter, who was already reloading.
"Pelly, I don't want to croak," he said, "but this is the last of Law at Fullerton Point— for you and me. Look at that!"
He raised the muzzle of his rifle to one of the logs over his head. Pelliter could see the fresh splinters sticking out.
"They've got some heavy calibers," continued Billy, "and they've hidden behind the slope, where they're safe from us for a thousand years. As soon as it grows light enough to see they'll fill this shack as full of holes as an old cheese."
As if to verify his words a single shot rang out and a bullet plowed through a log so close to Pelliter that the splinters flew into his face.
"I know these little devils, Pelly," went on MacVeigh. "If they were Nuna-talmutes you could scare 'em with a sky-rocket. But they're Kogmollocks. They've murdered the crews of half a dozen whalers, and I shouldn't wonder if they'd got the kid in some such way. They wouldn't let us off now, even if we gave her up. It wouldn't do. They know better than to let the Law get any evidence against them. If we're killed and the cabin burned, who's going to say what happened to us? There's just two things for us to do—"
Another fusillade of shots came from the snow ridge, and a third bullet crashed into the cabin.
"Just two things," Billy went on, as he completely shaded the dimly burning lamp. "We can stay here 'n' die— or run."
"Run!"
This was an unknown word in the Service, and in Pelliter's voice there were both amazement and contempt.
"Yes, run," said Billy, quietly. "Run— for the kid's sake."
It was almost dark in the cabin, and Pelliter came close to his companion.
"You mean—"
"That it's the only way to save the kid. We might give her up, then fight it out, but that means she'd go back to the Eskimos, 'n' mebbe never be found again. The men and dogs out there are bushed. We are fresh. If we can get away from the cabin we can beat 'em out."
"We'll run, then," said Pelliter. He went to Little Mystery, who sat stunned into silence by the strange things that were happening, and hugged her up in his arms, his back turned to the possible bullet that might come through the wall. "We're going to run, little sweetheart," he mumbled, half laughingly, in her curls.
Billy began to pack, and Pelliter put Little Mystery down on the bunk and started to harness the six dogs, ranging them close along the wall, with old one-eyed Kazan, the hero who had saved him from Blake, in the lead. Outside the firing had ceased. It was evident that the Eskimos had made up their minds to save their ammunition until dawn.
Fifteen minutes sufficed to load the sledge; and while Pelliter was fastening the sledge traces MacVeigh bundled Little Mystery into her thick fur coat. The sleeves caught, and he turned it back, exposing the white edge of the lining. On t
hat lining was something which drew him down close, and when the strange cry that fell from his lips drew Pelliter's eyes toward him he was staring down into Little Mystery's upturned face with the look of one who saw a vision.
"Mother of Heaven!" he gasped, "she's—" He caught himself, and smothered Little Mystery up close to him for a moment before he brought her to the sledge. "She's the bravest little kid in the world," he finished; and Pelliter wondered at the strangeness of his voice. He tucked her into a nest made of blankets and then tied her in securely with babiche rope. Pelliter stood up first and saw the hungry, staring look in MacVeigh's face as he kept his eyes steadily upon Little Mystery.
"What's the matter, Mac?" he asked. "Are you very much afraid— for her? "
"No," said MacVeigh, without lifting his head. "If you're ready, Pelly, open the door." He rose to his feet and picked up his rifle. He did not seem like the old MacVeigh; but the dogs were nipping and whining, and there was no time for Pelliter's questions.
"I'm going out first, Billy," he said. "You can make up your mind they're watching the cabin pretty close, and as soon as the dogs nose the open air they'll begin yapping 'n' let 'em on to us. We can't risk her under fire. So I'm going to back along the edge of the ridge and give it to 'em as fast as I can work the gun. They'll all turn to me, and that's the time for you to open the door and make your getaway. I'll be with you inside of five minutes."
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