Patsy, having read his thoughts, threw back her head and laughed.
“We won’t do that,” she said soberly, “but, Terogloona, if each one of those strange Eskimo people should take a dog by his draw rope, and then they all should walk toward that old cheat’s herd, what would happen?”
A sudden gleam stole into the aged herder’s eyes. He was beginning to catch her meaning. The deer were upon forbidden ground. She was finding a way to drive them back to the place where they belonged.
“They would go away very fast,” he said quickly.
“And would these Eskimos do that; would they do it for two sacks of flour; two cans of baking-powder; two slabs of bacon and some sugar?” asked Patsy breathlessly.
“For all that,” said Terogloona, staring at her, “they would do anything; anything you say.”
“Go tell them they shall have it,” said Patsy. “Tell them they must drive Scarberry’s herd back to the Come-saw River valley where they belong, and that they may take their flour, sugar and other things along.”
The Eskimos crowded about Terogloona, listened to him in silence until he had finished, then burst into a chorus of “Eh-eh! Ke! Ke Kullemuk, Ke-Ke,” which Patsy rightfully interpreted as meaning that they were ready for the enterprise and that Terogloona was to bring on the reward.
It was a strange line of march that formed soon after. Seven Eskimos, each holding to a strap, at the other end of which a native dog reared and ki-yi’ed, spread out in a broad line, and followed by a sled drawn by the four remaining dogs, they started toward Scarberry’s herd.
As they came closer to the herd, the leaders of the antlered throng tossed their heads and whistled. As they came still closer there sounded the rattle of antler upon antler as the herd backed in upon itself.
The solitary herder, who had been left to watch the herd, looked at the on-coming members of his own race and then shouted at them angrily.
The Eskimos with the dogs marched straight ahead, appearing not to hear the shouts of the angry herder. In less time than it takes to tell it the herd was in full stampede. In vain were the shouts of Scarberry’s herders. In vain their herd dogs sought to stem the flight. The reindeer had scented their ancient foe; they had heard his loud ki-yi. They were headed for their home range, and would not pause until they had reached it. Marian’s hills and tundra were not for them.
As for Scarberry’s herders, they might remain where they were or follow. They chose to follow. An hour later, with a sigh of satisfaction, Patsy saw them driving their sled deer over the broad trail of the herd that had vanished.
“Will they come back?” she asked Terogloona.
“Mebbe yes; mebbe no,” said Terogloona. “Can’t tell.”
For a moment he was silent; then with a queer look on his face he said:
“One thing I am much afraid of.”
“What is that?” asked Patsy.
“Mebbe not come,” said Terogloona, looking as if he was sorry he had spoken.
That was all he would say and Patsy felt a bit uneasy over his remark. Nevertheless, she could not help having a feeling of pride in her first day’s work as manager of the herd. Two serious problems had arisen and she had matched them against each other with the result that both had vanished. She had succeeded in getting rid of the unwelcome visitors and Bill Scarberry’s great herd. She had a right to feel a bit proud.
“10 - 10 = 0,” she marked on the floor with a bit of charcoal. “We are minus a few eatables but we can spare them all right. Besides, it’s real satisfying to know that you’ve given several hungry people an opportunity to earn a week’s provisions.”
Had she known the full and final effect of that week’s provisions, she might have experienced some moments of uncomfortable thinking. Lacking that knowledge, she smiled as she busied herself with preparing a belated breakfast for Terogloona and herself.
CHAPTER X
A STARTLING DISCOVERY
To Attatak, whose mind was filled with the weird tales of the spirit world, to enter a cave away on this unknown mountain side was a far greater trial than it was to Marian. Cold, blizzards, the wild beasts of timberlands—these she could face; but the possible dwelling place of the spirits of dead polar bears and walruses, to say nothing of old women who had died because they had disregarded the incantations of witch doctors, “Ugh!”—this was very bad indeed.
Marian felt the native girl tremble as she took her arm and led her gently forward into the dark depths of the cave.
The entrance was not wide, perhaps twelve feet across, but it was fully as high as it was broad.
“Our deer can come in, too,” whispered Marian, “if it goes back far enough.”
“If there are no wolves,” said Attatak with a shudder.
“Wolves?” Marian had not thought of that. “You wait here,” she whispered. “I’ll go for the rifle.”
“No! No!” Attatak gripped her arm until it hurt. “I will go, too.”
So back out of the cave they felt their way, now tripping over rocks that rolled away with a hollow sound like distant thunder, now brushing the wall, till they came at last to the open air.
Marian hated all this delay. Famished with hunger, chilled to the very marrow, and weary enough to drop, she longed for the warmth of the fire she hoped they might light, for the food they would warm over it, and the comforting rest that would follow. Yet she realized that the utmost caution must be taken. Wolves, once driven from a cave, might stampede their reindeer and lose them forever in the mountains. Without reindeer they should have great trouble in getting back to camp; the Agent would go on his way ignorant of their dilemma; their pasture land would be lost, and perhaps their herd with it.
The rifle securely gripped in the hands of Attatak, who was the surer shot of the two, they again started into the cave. Strange to say, once the rifle was in her grasp, Attatak became the bravest of the brave.
Marian carried a candle in one hand, and in the other a block of safety matches. The candle was not lighted. So drafty was the entrance that no candle would stay lighted. Each step she hoped would bring them to a place where the draft would not extinguish her candle. But in this she was disappointed.
“It’s a windy cavern,” she said. “Must be an entrance at each end.”
Calling on Attatak to pause, Marian struck a match. It flared up, then went out. A second one did the same. The third lighted the candle. There was just time for a hasty glance about. Gloomy brown walls lay to right and left of them, and the awful gloom of the cave was most alarming.
Glancing down at her feet, Marian uttered a low exclamation of surprise. Then, with such a definite and direct puff of wind as might come from human lips, the candle was snuffed out.
“Wha—what was it?” Attatak whispered. She was shaking so that Marian feared she would let the rifle go clattering to the rocky floor.
“Nothing,” Marian answered. “Really nothing at all. The ashes of a camp-fire, and I thought—thought,” she gulped, “thought I saw bones in the ashes!”
“Bones?” This time the rifle did clatter to the floor.
“Attatak,” Marian scolded; “Attatak. This is absurd!”
Groping in the dark for the rifle, she grasped a handful of ashes, then something hard and cold that was not the rifle.
“Ugh!” she groaned, struggling with all her might to keep from running away.
Again she tried for the rifle, this time successfully. She gave it to Attatak, with the admonition:
“Ca-ca!” (Do take care!)
“Eh-eh,” Attatak whispered.
Stepping gingerly out of the ashes of the mysterious camp-fire, they again started forward.
The current of air now became less and less strong, and finally when Marian again tried the candle it burned with a flickering blaze.
A glance about told them they were now between narrow dark walls, that the ceiling was very high, and there was nothing beneath their feet but rock.
The yellow
glow of light cheered them. If there were wolves they had made no sound; the gleam of their eyes had not been seen. If the spirits of the men who had built that long extinguished fire still haunted the place, the light would drive them away. Attatak assured Marian of that.
With one candle securely set in a rocky recess, and with another close at hand, Attatak was even willing to remain in the cave while Marian brought the reindeer in a little way and carried the articles necessary for a meal to the back of the cave.
“There is no moss on this barren mountain,” Marian sighed. “Our reindeer must go hungry tonight, but once we are off the mountain they shall have a grand feast.”
By the time they had made a small fire on the floor of the cave and had finished their supper, night had closed in upon their mountain world. Darkness came quickly, deepened tenfold by the wild storm that appeared to redouble its fury at every fresh blast. The darkness without vied with the bleakness of the cave until both were one. Such a storm as it was! Born and reared on the coast of Alaska, Marian had never before experienced anything that approached it in its shrieking violence. She did not wonder now that the mountains appeared to smoke with sweeping snow. She shivered as she thought what it would have meant had they not found the cave.
“Why,” she said to Attatak, “we should have been caught up by the wind like two bits of snow and hurled over the mountain peak.”
The two girls walked to the mouth of the cave and for a moment stood peering into the night. The whistle and howl of the wind was deafening. “Whew—whoo—whoo—whe-w—w-o—,” how it did howl! The very rock ribbed mountain seemed to shake from the violence of it.
“Eleet-pon-a-muck,” (too bad), said Attatak as she turned her back to the storm.
For Marian, however, the spectacle held a strange fascination. Had the thing been possible, she should have liked nothing better than leaping out into it. To battle with it; to answer its roar with a wild scream of her own; to whirl away with it; to become a part of it; to revel in its madness—this, it seemed to her, would be the height of ecstatic joy. Such was the call of unbridled nature to her joyous, triumphant youth.
It was with reluctance that she at last turned back into the depths of the cave and helped Attatak unroll the bedding roll and prepare for the night.
“Tomorrow,” she whispered to Attatak before she closed her eyes in sleep, “if the storm has not passed, and we dare not venture out, we will explore the cave.”
“Eh-eh,” Attatak answered drowsily.
The next moment the roaring storm had no auditors. The girls were fast asleep.
CHAPTER XI
THE GIRL OF THE PURPLE FLAME
There is something in the sharp tang of the Arctic air, in the honest weariness of a long day of tramping, in the invigorating freshness of everything about one, that makes for perfect repose. In spite of the problems that faced them, regardless of the mystery that haunted this chamber of nature, hour after hour, to the very tune of the whirling storm, the girls slept the calm and peaceful sleep of those who bear ill will toward no one.
When at last Marian pried her eyes open to look at her watch, she was surprised to learn that eight hours had passed. She did not look to see the gleam of dawn at the mouth of the cave. Dawn in this strange Arctic land was still four hours away.
She knew that the storm was still raging. There came the roar and boom of the wind. Now and again, as if the demons of storm were determined upon pulling them from their retreat, a steady sucking breath of it came sweeping down through the cave. Marian listened, and then she quoted:
“‘Blow high, blow low,
Not all your snow
Can quench our hearth-fire’s
Ruddy glow.’”
She smiled to herself. Their tiny fire had gone out long ago, but another might easily be kindled.
She was about to turn over in her bed for another ten winks, when she suddenly remembered the mysterious discovery of the night before—the ashes and the bones, and at once she found herself eager for an exploration of the place. To discover if possible what sort of people had been here before her; to guess how long ago that had been; to search for any relics they may have left behind—all these exerted upon her mind an irresistible appeal.
She had risen and was drawing on her knickers when Attatak awakened.
“Come on,” Marian cried, “it is morning. The storm is still tearing away at the mountain side. We can’t go on our way. We—”
“Eleet-pon-a-muck!” (too bad), broke in Attatak. “Now Bill Scarberry will get our pasture. The Agent will pass before we arrive. We shall have no one to defend our herd.”
At this Marian plumped down upon her sleeping bag. What Attatak said was true. Should they be unable to leave the cave this day, the gain they had hoped to make was lost.
“Well,” she laughed bravely, “we have reindeer, and they are swift. We will win yet.”
“Anyway,” she said, springing to her feet, “no use crying over spilled milk. Until we can leave the cave our time’s our own. Come on. Get dressed. We’ll see what wealth lies hidden in this old home in the mountain side.”
In the meantime Patsy was having a full share of strange adventure. Late in the afternoon, feeling herself quite free from the annoying presence of the visiting band of Eskimos and of Scarberry’s herd, she harnessed her favorite spotted reindeer and went for a drive up the valley. The two young Eskimos who worked under Terogloona had been sent into the hills to round up their herd and bring them into camp. This was one of the daily tasks of the herders. If this was done every day the herd would never stray too far. Patsy liked to mount a hill with her sled deer and then, like a general reviewing his troops, watch the broad procession of brown and white deer as they marched down the valley.
This day she was a little late. The herd began passing before she had climbed half way up the ridge. She paused to watch them pass. Then, undecided whether to climb on up the slope or turn back to camp, she stood there until the uncertain light of the low Arctic sun had faded and night had come. Just as she had decided to turn her deer toward home, she caught a purple gleam on the hill directly above her.
“The purple flame!” she exclaimed. “And not a quarter of a mile above me. I could climb up there in fifteen minutes.”
For a moment she stood undecided. Then, seized by a sudden touch of daring, she whirled her deer about, tethered him to his sled, and went scouting up a gully toward the spot where the mysterious flame had flashed for a moment, then had gone out.
“I’ll see something, anyway,” she told herself as she strove in vain to still the painful fluttering of her heart.
She had worked her way to a position on the side of the hill where the outlines of a tent, with its extension of stovepipe standing out black above it, was outlined against the sky. Then, to her consternation, she saw the flaps of the tent move.
“Someone is coming out,” she whispered to herself. “Perhaps they have been watching me through a hole in the tent. Perhaps—”
Her heart stopped beating at thought of the dangers that might be threatening. Should she turn and flee, or should she flatten herself against the snow and hope that she might not be seen? Suddenly remembering that her parka, made of white fawnskin, would blend perfectly with the snow, she decided on the latter course.
There was not a second to lose. Hardly had she melted into the background of snow when a person appeared at the entrance of the tent.
Then it was that Patsy received a thrilling shock. She had been prepared to see a bearded miner, an Eskimo, most any type of man. But the person she saw was not a man, but a woman; scarcely that—little more than a girl.
It was with the utmost difficulty that Patsy suppressed an audible exclamation. Closing her lips tight, she took one startled look at the strange girl.
Carefully dressed in short plaid skirt, bright checkered mackinaw, and a blue knit hood; the girl stood perfectly silhouetted against the sky. Her eyes and hair were brown; Patsy was sure
of that. Her features were fine. There was a deep shade of healthy pink in her cheeks.
“She’s not a native Alaskan,” Patsy told herself. “Like me, she has not been long in Alaska.”
How she knew this she could not exactly tell, but she was as sure of it as she was of anything in life. Suddenly she was puzzled by a question: “What had brought the girl from the warmth of the tent into the cold?”
Patsy saw her glance up toward the sky. There was a rapt look on her face as she gazed fixedly at the first evening stars.
“It’s as if she were saying a prayer or a Psalm,” Patsy murmured. “‘The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament his handiwork.’”
For a full moment the strange girl stood thus; then, turning slowly, she stepped back into the tent. That the tent had at least one other occupant, Patsy knew at once by a shadow that flitted across the wall as the girl entered.
“Well,” mused Patsy. “Well, now, I wonder?”
She was more puzzled than ever, but suddenly remembering that she had barely escaped being caught spying on these strangers, she rose and went gliding down the hill.
When she reached her reindeer she loosed him and turned him toward home, nor did she allow him to pause until he stood beside her igloo.
Once inside her lodge, with the candle gleaming brightly and a fire of dry willows snapping in the sheet-iron stove, Patsy took a good long time for thinking things through.
Somewhat to her surprise, she found herself experiencing a new feeling of safety. It was true she had not been much afraid since Marian had left her alone with the herders, for it was but a step from her igloo to Terogloona’s tent. This old herder, who treated her as if she were his grandchild, would gladly give his life in defending her from danger. Nevertheless, a little feeling of fear lingered in her mind whenever she thought of the tent of the purple flame. As she thought of it now she realized that she had lost that fear when she had discovered that there was a girl living in that tent.
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