Part 5 (2/2)

”And squirrel skin!” Johnny breathed.

He was not kept long in doubt as to the ident.i.ty of the wearer. As the man turned to look behind him, Johnny saw the sharp chin of the Russian, the man of the street fight and the many diamonds. He had acquired something of a beard, but there was no mistaking those frowning brows, square shoulders and that chin.

”So,” Johnny thought, ”he is the fellow we have been trailing. The j.a.p girl wanted to follow him and so, perhaps, did Iyok-ok. I wonder why?

And say, old dear,” he whispered, ”I wonder if it could have been you who dropped that harpoon. It's plain enough from the looks of you that you'd do it, once you fancied you'd half a reason. I've a good mind--”

His hand reached for his automatic.

”No,” he decided, ”I won't do it. I don't really know that you deserve it; besides I hate corpses, and things like that. But I say!”

A new and wonderful thought had come to him. He felt that, at any rate, he owed this person something, and he should have it. Beside Johnny on the ledge, where some native had left it, out of reach of the dog's, was a sewed up seal skin full of seal oil. To the native of the north seal oil is what Limburger cheese is to a Dutchman. He puts it away in skin sacks to bask in the sun for a year or more and ripen. This particular sackful was ”ripe”; it was over ripe and had been for some time. Johnny could tell that by the smooth, balloon-like rotundity of the thing. In fact, he guessed it was about due to burst. Once Johnny had taken a cup of this liquid for tea. He had it close enough to his face to catch a whiff of it. He could still recall the smell of it.

Now his right hand smoothed the bloated skin tenderly. He twisted it about, and balanced it in his hand. Yes, he could do it! The Russian was not looking up. There was a convenient ledge, some three feet above his head. There the sack would strike and burst. The boy smiled, in contemplation of that bursting.

”This for what you may have done,” Johnny whispered, and balancing the sack in his hand, as if it had been a football, he gave it a little toss. Over the cliff it went to a sheer fall of fifteen feet. There followed a m.u.f.fled explosion. It had burst! Johnny saw the Russian completely deluged with the vile smelling liquid. Then he ducked.

As he lay flat on the ledge, he caught a silvery laugh. Looking quickly about, he found himself staring into the eyes of the little j.a.p girl.

She had been watching him.

”You--you--know him?” he stammered.

The girl shrugged her shoulders.

”Your friend?”

She shook her head vigorously.

”Enemy? Kill?” Johnny's hand sought his automatic.

”No! No! No!” she fairly screamed. ”Not kill!” Her hand was on his arm with a frantic grip.

”Why?”

”No can tell. Only, not kill; not kill now. No! No! No! Mebby never!”

”Well, I'll be--” Johnny took his hand from his gun and peered over the ledge. The man was gone. It was a dirty trick he had played. He half wished he had not done it. And yet, the j.a.p girl had laughed. She knew what the man was. She had been close enough to have stopped him, had she thought it right. She had not done so. His conscience was clear.

They crept away in the gathering darkness, these two; and Johnny suddenly felt for this little j.a.p girl a comrades.h.i.+p that he had not known before. It was such a feeling as he had experienced in school days, when he was prowling about with boy pals.

Shortly after darkness had fallen, Johnny was seated cross-legged on a deer skin, staring gloomily at the ragged hole left by the whale harpoon bomb. He had not yet seen Iyok-ok. He was trying now to unravel some of the mysteries which the happenings of the day had served only to tangle more terribly. He had not meant to kill the Russian, even though the j.a.p girl had told him to; Johnny did not kill people, unless it was in defense of his country or his life. He had been merely trying the j.a.p girl out. He was obliged to admit now that he had got nowhere. She had laughed when he had played that abominable trick on the Russian; had denied that the stranger was her friend, yet had at once become greatly excited when Johnny proposed to kill him. What could a fellow make of all this? Who was this j.a.p girl anyway, and why had she followed this Russian so far? Somehow, Johnny could not help but feel that the Russian was a deep dyed plotter of some sort. He was inclined to believe that he had had much to do with that harpoon episode as well as the murder attempted by the reindeer Chukches.

”By Jove!” the American boy suddenly slapped his knee. ”The knife, the two knives exactly alike. One he tried to use in the street fight at Vladivostok; the other he must have given to the reindeer Chukche to use on anyone who might follow him.”

For a time he sat in deep thought. As he weighed the probabilities for and against this theory, he found himself doubting. There might be many knives of this pattern. The knife might have been stolen from him by the Chukche, or the Russian might have given it to the native as a reward for service, having no idea to what deadly purposes it would be put.

And, again, if he were that type of plotter, would not the j.a.p girl know of it, and desire him killed?

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