Part 3 (1/2)

Their dress was a one-piece suit made of short haired deer skins. Men, women and children dressed alike, with the exception that very small children were sewed into their garments, hands, feet and all and were strapped on the sleds like bundles.

The food was strange to the American. One needed a good appet.i.te to enjoy it. Great twenty-five pound white fish were produced from skin bags and sliced off to be eaten raw. Reindeer meat was stewed in copper kettles. Hard tack was soaked in water and mixed with reindeer suet. Tea from the ever present Russian tea kettle and seal oil from a sewed up seal skin took the place of drink and relish. The tea was good, the seal oil unspeakable, a liquid not even to be smelled of by a white man, let alone tasted.

By the second day Johnny had found himself confining his a.s.sociations to one person, who, to all appearances, was a fellow pa.s.senger, and not a member of the tribe. He had learned to pitch his own igloo and hers. Not five hours before he had hewn away a hard bank of snow and built there a shelf for his bed. When his igloo was completed he had erected a second not many feet away. This was for his fellow pa.s.senger. In case anything should happen he felt that he would like to be near her, and she had shown by many little signs that she shared his feelings in this.

”In case something happened,” Johnny reflected drowsily. He had a feeling that, sooner or later, something was going to happen. There was something altogether mysterious about the actions of these Chukches, especially one great sullen fellow, who had come skulking about Johnny's igloo just before he had turned in.

These natives were supposed to be trustworthy, but Johnny had his misgivings and was on his guard. They had come in contact with Russians, perhaps also with Orientals, and had learned treachery.

”And yet,” thought Johnny, ”what could they want from me? I paid them well for my transportation. They sold their reindeer to the American army for a fat price. They would be more than greedy if they wanted more.”

Nevertheless, the air of mystery hung about him like a dark cloud. He could not sleep. And not being able to sleep, he meditated.

He had already begun the eternal round of thoughts that will revolve through a fellow's brain at night, when he heard a sound--the soft crush of a skin boot in the snow it seemed. He listened and thought he heard it again, this time more distinctly, as if the person were approaching his igloo. A chill crept up and down his spine. His right hand involuntarily freed itself from the furs and sought the cold hilt of the Russian knife. He had his army automatic, but where there are many ears to hear a shot, a knife is better.

”What an ideal trap for treachery, this igloo! A villain need but creep through tent-flaps, pause for a breath, then stealthily lift the deer skin curtain. A stab or a shot, and all would be ended.” These thoughts sped through Johnny's mind.

Scarcely breathing, he waited for other signs of life abroad at that hour of night--a night sixteen hours long. He heard nothing.

Finally, his mind took up again the endless chain of thought. He had arrived safely at Khabarask, the terminus of the Russian line. Here he had remained for three days, half in hiding, until the ”Reindeer Special” had completed its loading and had started on its southern journey to the waiting doughboys. During those three days he had made two startling discoveries; the short Russian of the broad shoulders and sharp chin, he of the envelope of diamonds, was in Khabarask. Johnny had seen him in an eating place, and had had an opportunity to study him without being observed. The man, he concluded, although a total stranger in these parts, was a person of consequence, a leader of some sort, accustomed to being obeyed. There seemed a brutal certainty about the way he ordered the servants of the place to do his bidding. There was a constant wrinkle of a frown between his eyes. A man, perhaps without a sense of humor, he would force every issue to the utmost. Once given an idea, he would override all obstacles to carry it through, not stopping at death, or at many deaths. This had been Johnny's mental a.n.a.lysis of the character of the man, and at once he began to half hate and half admire him. He had lost sight of him immediately, and had not discovered him again. Whether the Russian had left town before the native band did, Johnny could not tell. But, if he had moved on, where did he go?

The other shock was similar in character. The woman who had bought furs for the North had also been in Khabarask. Whether she was a j.a.panese Johnny was not prepared to say, and that in spite of the fact that he had studied her carefully for five days. She might be a Chukche who, through some strange impulse, had been led south to seek culture and education. He doubted that. She might be an Eskimo from Alaska making her way north to cross Behring Strait in the spring. He doubted that also. Finally she might be a j.a.panese woman, but in that case, what could be the explanation of her presence here, some two hundred miles north of the last vestige of civilization?

Now, not ten feet from the spot where Johnny lay in an igloo a.s.signed for her private use by the natives, that identical girl slept at this moment. Only four hours before, Johnny had bade her good night, after an enjoyable repast of tea, reindeer meat and hard bread prepared by her own hand over a small wood fire. It was she who was his fellow pa.s.senger, whose igloo he had erected, close to his own. Yes, there was mystery enough about the whole situation to keep any fellow awake; yet Johnny hated himself for not sleeping. He felt that the time was coming when he would need stored strength.

He had half dosed off when a sound very close at hand, within the walls of canvas he thought, started him again into wakefulness. His arm ready and free for action, he lay still. His breathing well regulated and even, as in sleep, he watched through narrow slit eyes the deer skin curtain rise, and a head appear. The ugly shaved head of a Chukche it was; and in the intruder's hand was a knife.

The knife startled Johnny. He could not believe his eyes. He thought he was seeing double; yet he did not move.

Slowly, silently the arm of the native rose until it hung over Johnny's heart. In a second it would--

In that second something happened. There came a deadly thwack. The native, without a cry, fell backward beyond the curtain. His knife shot outward too, and stuck hilt downward in the snow.

Johnny drew himself slowly from beneath the furs. Lifting the deer skin curtain cautiously, he looked out. Then he chuckled a cold, dry chuckle.

His knuckles were b.l.o.o.d.y, for the only weapon he had used was that truly American weapon, a clenched fist. Johnny, as I have suggested before, was somewhat handy with his ”dukes.” His left was a bit out of repair just now, but his right was quite all right, as the crumpled heap of a man testified.

Johnny bent over the man and twisted his head about. No, his neck was not broken. Johnny was thankful for that. He hated to see dead people even when they richly deserved to die.

Then he turned to the knife. He started again, as he extricated the hilt from the snow. But there was no time for examining it. His ear caught a stifled cry, a woman's cry. It came, without a doubt, from the igloo of his fellow traveler, the woman. Hastily thrusting his knife in his belt, he threw back the tentflap and crossed the intervening snowpatch in three strides.

He threw back the canvas just in time to seize a second native by the hood of his deer skin parka. He whirled the man completely about, tossed him high in the air, then struck him as he was coming down; struck him in the same place he had hit the other, only harder, very much harder.

He did not examine him later for a broken neck, either.

Turning, Johnny saw the woman staring at him. Evidently she had slept in her furs. As she stood there now, she seemed quite equal to the task of caring for herself. There was a muscular st.u.r.diness about her which Johnny had failed to notice before. In her hand gleamed a wicked looking dagger with a twisted blade.

But that she had been caught unawares, there could be no question, and from the kindly flash in her eyes Johnny read the fact that she was grateful for her deliverance.

He threw one glance at the other igloos. Standing there casting dark, purple shadows, they were strangely silent. Apparently these two murderers had been appointed to accomplish the task alone. The others were asleep. For this Johnny was thankful.

Turning to the woman he said sharply: