Part 9 (2/2)

Johnny's lips parted, but he uttered not a sound. His hand gripped the blue automatic. If the Russian found her, there would be no more Russian, that was all.

But to his intense surprise, he saw that as the man tore angrily at the pile, he uncovered nothing but skins.

Johnny smothered a sigh of relief which was mixed with a gasp of admiration. The girl was clever, he was obliged to admit that. In a period only of seconds, she had cut away the rope which bound the skin wall to the floor and had crept under the wall to freedom.

As Johnny settled back to watch, his brain was puzzled by one question; what was it that the j.a.p girl sought? Was it certain papers which the Russian carried, or was it--was it something which Johnny himself carried in his pocket at this very moment--the diamonds?

This last thought caused him a twinge of discomfort. If she was searching for the diamonds, could it be that they rightfully belonged to her or to her family, and had they been taken by the Russian? Or had the girl merely learned that the Russian had the jewels and had she followed him all this way with the purpose of robbing him? If the first supposition was correct, ought Johnny not to go to her and tell her that he had the diamonds? If, on the other hand, she was seeking possession of that which did not rightfully belong to her, would she not take them from him anyway and leave him to face dire results? For, though no law existed which would hold him responsible for the jewels, obtained as they had been under such unusual conditions, still Johnny knew all too well that the world organization of Radicals to which this Russian belonged had a system of laws and modes of punishment all its own, and, if the Russian succeeded in making his way to America and if he, Johnny, did not give proper account of these diamonds, sooner or later, punishment would be meted out to him, and that not the least written in the code of the Radical world.

He dismissed the subject from his mind for the time and gave his whole attention to the Russian. But that gentleman, after evincing his exceeding displeasure by kicking his sleeping bag about the room for a time, at last removed his outer garments, crept into the bag and went to sleep.

One other visit Johnny made that night. As the result of it he did not sleep for three hours after he had let down the deer skin curtain to his sleeping compartment.

”Hanada! Hanada?” he kept repeating to himself. ”Of all the j.a.ps in all the world! To meet him here! And not to have known him. It's preposterous.”

Johnny had gone to the igloo now occupied by Iyok-ok. He had gone, not to spy on his friend, but to talk to him about recent developments and to ascertain, if possible, when they would cross the Strait. He had got as far as the tent flaps, had peered within for a few moments and had come away again walking as a man in his dream.

What he had seen was apparently not so startling either. It was no more than the boy with his parka off. But that was quite enough. Iyok-ok was dressed in a suit of purple pajamas and was turned half about in such a manner that Johnny had seen his right shoulder. On it was a three-cornered, jagged scar.

This scar had told the story. The boy was not an Eskimo but a j.a.p masquerading as an Eskimo. Furthermore, and this is the part which gave Johnny the start, this j.a.p was none other than Hanada, his schoolmate of other days; a boy to whom he owed much, perhaps his very life.

”Hanada!” he repeated again, as he turned beneath the furs. How well he remembered that fight. Even then--it was his first year in a military preparatory school--he had shown his tendencies to develop as a featherweight champion. And this tendency had come near to ending his career. The military school was one of those in which the higher cla.s.smen treated the beginners rough. Johnny had resented this treatment and had been set upon by four husky lads in the darkness. He had settled two of them, knocked them cold. But the other two had got him down, and were beating the life out of him when this little j.a.p, Hanada, had appeared on the scene. Being also a first year student, he had come in with his ju'jut'su and between them they had won the battle, but not until the j.a.p had been hung over a picket fence with a jagged wound in his shoulder. It was the scar of that wound Johnny had seen and it was that scar which had told him that this must be Hanada.

He smiled now, as he thought how he had taken Hanada to his room after that boy's battle and had attempted to sew up the cut with an ordinary needle. He smiled grimly as he thought of the fight and how he had resolved to win or die. Hanada had helped him win.

And here he had been traveling with the j.a.panese days on end and had not recognized him. And yet it was not so strange. He had not seen him for six years. Had Hanada recognized him? If he had, and Johnny found it hard to doubt it, then he had his own reasons for keeping silent. Johnny decided that he would not be the first to break the silence. But after all there was a strange new comfort in the realization that here was one among all these strangers whom he could trust implicitly. And Hanada would make a capital companion with whom he might cross the thirty-five miles of drifting, piling ice which still lay between him and America.

It was the contemplation of these realities which at last led him to the land of dreams.

CHAPTER IX

JOHNNY'S FREE-FOR-ALL

Johnny smiled as he sat before his igloo. Two signs of spring pleased him. Some tiny icicles had formed on the cliff above him, telling of the first thaw. An aged Chukche, toothless, and blind, had unwrapped his long-stemmed pipe to smoke in the suns.h.i.+ne.

Johnny had seen the old man before and liked him. He was cheerful and interesting to talk to.

”See that old man there?” he asked Hanada, whom he still called Iyok-ok when speaking to him. ”Communism isn't so bad for him after all.”

Hanada squinted at him curiously without speaking.

”Of course, you know,” said Johnny, ”what these people have here is the communal form of government, or the tribal form. Everything belongs to the tribe. They own it in common. If I kill a white bear, a walrus or a reindeer, it doesn't all go in my storehouse. I pa.s.s it round. It goes to the tribe. So does every other form of wealth they have. Nothing belongs to anyone. Everything belongs to everybody. So, when my old friend gets too old to hunt, fish or mend nets, he basks in the sun and needn't worry about anything at all. Pretty soft. Perhaps our friend the Russian is not so far wrong after all if he's a communist.”

”Uh-hu,” the j.a.p grunted; then he exclaimed, ”That reminds me, Terogloona, the Chukche who lives three doors from here, asked me to tell you to stay out of his igloo this afternoon.”

”Why?”

<script>