THE LUCK OF THE KID
THE LUCK OF THE KID
THE LUCK OF THE KID
The brilliant June night was like a midsummer day. The deathless sun knew no rest for all the Arctic world was wrapt in slumber. The stillness of it all, the perfect quiet; it was a world of serene solitude, with only the sounds which came from unseen creatures, and the rustle of stirred vegetation caught on a gentle zephyr, to whisper of the life prevailing.
Marty Le Gros was back in his own home. He was at the little table which served him for such writing as his work as missionary entailed. It was a simple apartment characteristic of the habitation he had set up. The walls were plastered with a dun-coloured mud smoothed down but retaining all its crudeness which nothing could disguise. The room was of considerable extent. Its furnishing was no less primitive than its walls, but also no less robust. Every article was of his own design and manufacture, and that which it lacked in refinement it made up in substance. Chairs were rawhide-strung, square and solid. The table had legs of saplings, and a top that was made from packing cases obtained from Jim McLeod. The ceiling above his head was of cotton. So were the two windows which were flung open to admit air through the mosquito netting beyond them.
Yes, it was all very crude. Nevertheless it lost nothing of its sense of home. The floor was strewn with sun-dried furs, and there were shelves of well-read books. The man’s simple sleeping bunk was curtained off in one corner near by to the doorway which communicated with a lesser room where slept his motherless child. And there was still another doorway which led to a third room. It was the kitchen place where Usak and Pri-loo slept, and where the latter prepared such food as was needed.
There was no sound in the place but that of the man’s occasional movements and the scratching of the pen with which he was working. Felice was asleep in the next room in the cot which he and his dead wife had long since fashioned and adorned. Pri-loo, awaiting the return of her man from the reindeer farm, which was his work, had finally yielded her vigil and retired to her blankets in the kitchen. It was the calving season down at the farm, and as likely as not Usak would not return to her for many hours.
The missionary had applied himself to his task with that close concentration which betokened the urgency of his desire. He had been at work for over an hour. Now he sat with his great body hunched over the table, and, with poised pen, was at last regarding his completed work. The large sheet of paper stared back at his darkly brooding eyes, and the careful tracery on its surface spread from one end of it to the other. It was the drawing of a wide, winding river. And along its entire course was dotted every detail of natural formation which his keen memory supplied him with. Hills were carefully drawn. Woodland bluffs were marked with due regard to their extent. Everything that could serve to guide the explorer was there set out. Every title for each natural feature was inscribed, and one wide stretch of river foreshore was outlined in red ink and inscribed with the words “mouth of creek.”
It was complete. It was complete with that care and consideration which spoke of the tremendous anxiety lying behind the man’s purpose.
At last he abandoned his scrutiny and a deep sigh escaped him. Then he leisurely picked up his tobacco bag and began to fill his pipe. Leaning back in his chair his gaze sought the daylight beyond the window, and in a moment he became absorbed in profound, wakeful dreaming and his pipe remained forgotten.
He had reached another great crisis in his simple life. He knew it. He understood to the last detail the ominous significance of the thing he had just completed. His thought began by searching ahead, but swiftly it was caught and flung back into the deep channels of memory such as never fail to claim when the heart of man is deeply stirred.
A wide panorama of the past swept into his view. It began, as everything seemed to begin with him now, at that time when he and his young wife had taken their final decision to move northwards where their spiritual desires could find expression in the wilderness of untamed Nature. He remembered, how keenly he remembered, the surge of thrilling anticipation with which they had embarked on their mission. The bitter hardships they had had to endure, and the merciless labours that had been theirs to make even their simple lives possible here on the Hekor River, which followed so nearly the course of the Arctic Circle. He remembered the selfless kindness of Jim McLeod and his gentle wife. How they had helped him with everything that lay in their power. Yes, it was a happy memory which eased the strain of the thing besetting him now.
Then had come that first great happiness and finally disaster. Jim was looking forward now to just the same moment in his life. That first-born child. It was an ineffaceable landmark in the life of any man.
He sighed. He was contemplating again the tragedy which had followed hard in the wake of his overwhelming happiness. Poor little Jean. Poor, poor little woman.
Her happiness was short enough lived, and his— In his simple, earnest fashion he prayed God that Jim and Hesther should never know a similar disaster. He wondered if little Jean knew of the thing he was doing now. And if she would have approved had she been there to witness it. Yes. Somehow he felt that her full approval would have been his. It was for Felice. He desired nothing for himself but to be permitted to carry on the labours of his Mission. But for Felice—
He stirred uneasily. The scene of his devastated Mission lit again before his mental gaze and tortured him. And suddenly he sat up and carefully folded the annotated map he had prepared. He finally enclosed it in a piece of American cloth, tied it up securely, and sealed it with the fragment of wax he had discovered for that purpose. Then he stood up and gazed about him. His dark eyes took in every happy detail of the home which had served him so long. And presently the man of peace found himself contemplating the cartridge belt, with its two great revolvers protruding from their holsters, which was hanging from its nail on the log wall.
For some moments he regarded it without any change of expression. Then of a sudden he stirred and moved quickly over to it. He removed first one gun from its holster, then the other. He examined them. They were old-fashioned, and their chambers were empty. Very deliberately, almost reluctantly, he loaded them in each chamber. Then with another sigh he returned them to the holsters where they belonged.
He turned away quickly. It was as though he detested the thing he had just done and was anxious to rid himself of the memory of it. So he passed into the room which he had always shared with his wife, but which now was given up to the atom of humanity which was the priceless treasure of his life.
The man was sitting on the stool set beside the simple bedcot. It was the stool which Pri-loo was wont to occupy when watching over the slumbers of the child she had taken to her mother heart. He was gazing down upon the sleeping babe as she lay there under the coloured blankets and patch-work quilt which was the daintiest covering with which he had been able to provide her.
Fair-haired and sweetly cherubic the child lay breathing in that calm, almost imperceptible fashion so sure an indication of perfect health. Her colouring was exquisite. A subtle tracery of blue veins was plainly visible beneath the delicate, fair skin. She was sweetly pretty, and her brief four years of life had afforded her a generous development sufficient to satisfy the most exacting parent.
The man’s dark eyes were infinitely tender as he regarded the sleeping child. Gold? There was no treasure in the world comparable with that, which, with her dying effort, his well-loved wife had presented him. Felice—little Felice. The smiling, prattling creature, the thought of whose wide blue eyes was unfailing in lightening even the darkest shadows which the cares of her father’s life imposed upon him.
He feasted himself now on the beauty which was so like to that of the mother who had given up her life for his desire. And as he gazed a surge of deep, tender feeling recalled a hundred happy memories. And so for awhile he was filled with smiling thought.
But it passed. It passed with a suddenness that left a cold dew of fear upon his brow for all the warmth of the Arctic summer night. For even as memory had transported him to the days wherein his life had known no shadow, so it had brought him again to the recollection of the scene of mutilation he had witnessed at his Mission. There he had seen children, younger even than Felice, lying upon the ground limbless, headless, almost unrecognisable trunks.
An unconscious movement stirred him, and he shook his head as though in denial of his thought. Then he gazed down upon the sealed packet he was carrying in his hand. For long moments he looked at it, and then, of a sudden, his eyes came back to the face of the sleeping babe, and words came in a low, tender whisper.
“No, kiddie,” he murmured, “not while I have life. My poor Jean gave you to me, little bit. And you’re just mine. All I am in the world will defend you from harm such—such as—God! No. Not that. Psha! No, it couldn’t be.” He wiped his forehead with a hand that was unsteady. Then he forced a smile to his eyes just as he forced his fears back and strove to think of the thing he had spent so many hours preparing. He held up the packet in his hand before the child’s closed eyes. “This wasn’t sent my way for nothing,” he whispered. “It’s your luck, little kid. Yours. It’s for you, half of it. And—and if I should fail—well, there’s others’ll see you get it. My little kiddie. My little—”
He broke off. The man’s tender admonition died on his lips which closed almost with a snap. His whole attitude underwent a change. He sat rigid and listening, and his dark eyes were turned as though seeking to peer over his shoulder.
It was a sound. A sound that came from beyond the outer room. It was not from the direction of the kitchen place where Usak might be returning home. No. It came from beyond the front door of the shanty which was not the way Usak would come.
The missionary made no movement. Every sense was straining, every faculty was alert. Sounds came in the night. It was a common enough thing. But he had that in his mind now which gave to any sound in the night the possibility of a new interpretation.
The moments passed. The tension eased. And again the fathers eyes came back to the face of the sleeping child. But it was only for an instant. Of a sudden he dropped the sealed packet into the child’s cot and leapt to his feet.
Headlong he ran for the open doorway, and the purpose in his mind was obvious. He passed it, and ran for the loaded guns hanging upon the wall of his room. But he failed to reach them. A shot rang out and he stumbled. Putting forth a superhuman effort he sought to recover himself. But his legs gave under him and he crashed to the floor with the first tearful cry of his wakened child ringing in his ears.