Part 10 (2/2)

”Sure. What did they want to hang him for? He was too old and feeble to do anything very terrible; besides he's blind.”

”Oh,” said the boy smiling again. ”He done not anything. Too old, that why. No work. All time eat. Better dead. That way think all my people.

All time that way.”

Johnny looked at him in astonishment, then he said slowly:

”I guess I get you. In this commune, this tribe of yours, everyone does the best he can for the gang. When he is too old to work, fish or hunt, the best thing he can do is die, so you hang him. Am I right?”

”Sure a thing,” replied the boy. ”That's just it.”

Johnny shot back:

”No enjoying a ripe old age in this commune business?”

”No. Oh, no.”

”Then I'm off this commune stuff forever,” exclaimed Johnny. ”The old order of things like we got back in the States is good enough for me.

And, I guess it's not so old after all. It's about the newest thing there is. This commune business belongs back in the stone age when primitive tribes were all the organizations there were.”

He had addressed this speech to no one in particular. He now turned to the boy, a black frown on his brow.

”See here,” he said sharply, ”this man, no die, See? Live. See? All time live, see? No kill. You tell those guys that. Tell them I mebby come back one winter, one summer. Come back. Old man dead. I kill three of them. See?”

Johnny took out his automatic and played with it longingly.

”Tell them if they don't act as if they mean to do what I say, I'll shoot them now, three of them.”

The boy interpreted this speech. Some of the men turned pale beneath their brown skins; some s.h.i.+fted uneasily. They all answered quickly.

”They say, all right,” the boy explained solemnly. ”Say that one, if had known you so very much like old man, no want-a hang that one.”

”All right.” Johnny smiled as he bowed himself out.

It was the first near-hanging he had ever attended and he hoped it would be the last. But as he came out into the clear afternoon air he drank in three full breaths, then said, slowly:

”Communism! Bah!”

Hardly had he said this than he began to realize that he had a move coming and a speedy one. He was in the real, the original, the only genuine No Man's Land in the world. He was under the protection of no flag. The only law in force here was the law of the tribe. He had violated that law, defied it. He actually, for the moment, had set himself up as a dictator.

”Gee!” he muttered. ”Wish I had time to be their king!”

But he didn't have time, for in the first place, all the pangs of past homesick days were returning to urge him across the Strait. In the second place the mystery of the Russian and Hanada's relation to him was calling for that action. And, in the third place, much as he might enjoy being king of the Chukches, he was quite sure he would never be offered that job. There would be reactions from this day's business. The council of headmen would be called. Johnny would be discussed. He had committed an act of diplomatic indiscretion. He might be asked to leave these sh.o.r.es; and then again an executioner might be appointed for him, and a walrus lance thrust through his back.

Yes, he would move. But first he must see the j.a.p girl and ask about her plans. It would not do to desert her. Hurrying down the snow path, he came upon her at the entrance to her igloo.

Together they entered, and, sitting cross-legged on the deer skins by the seal oil lamp, they discussed their futures.

<script>