CHAPTER XXIIA FRUITLESS JOURNEY

“You stay with the deer,” she said to Attatak. “Tether them strongly to the sleds. If dogs come, beat them off.”

She was away like an arrow. Straight to that cabin of the one smoke she hurried. She caught her breath as she saw a splendid team of dogs standing at the door. Someone was going on a trip. The sled was loaded for the journey. Was it the Agent’s sled? Had she arrived in time?

She did not have long to wait before knowing. She had come within ten feet of the cabin when a tall, deep-chested man opened the door and stepped out. She caught her breath. Instantly she knew him. It was the Agent.

He, in turn, recognized her, and with cap in hand and astonishment showing in his eyes, he advanced to meet her.

“You here!” he exclaimed. “Why Marian Norton, you belong in Nome.”

“Once I did,” she smiled, “but now I belong on the tundra with our herd. It is the herd that has brought me here. May I speak to you about it?”

“Certainly you may. But you look tired and hungry. The Trader has a piping Mulligan stew on the stove. It will do you good. Come inside.”

An Indian boy, who made his home with the Trader, was dispatched to relieve Attatak of her watch, and Marian sat down to enjoy a delicious repast.

There are some disappointments that come to us so gradually that, though the matters they effect are of the utmost importance, we are not greatly shocked when at last their full meaning is unfolded to us. It was so with Marian. She had dared and endured much to reach this spot. She had arrived at the critical moment. An hour later the Agent would have been gone. The Agent was her friend. Ready to do anything he could to help her, he would gladly have gone back with her to assist in defending her rights. But duty called him over another trail. He had no one, absolutely no one to send from this post to execute his orders.

“Of course,” he said after hearing her story, “I can give you a note to that outlaw, Scarberry, but he’d pay no attention to it.”

“He’d tear it up and throw it in my face,” asserted Marian stoutly.

“I’ll tell you what I’ll do,” said the Agent, rising and walking the floor. “There is Ben Neighbor over at the foot of Sugar Loaf Mountain. His cabin is only three days travel from your camp. He’s a good man, and a brave one. He is a Deputy Marshal. If I give you a note to him, he will serve you as well as I could.”

“Would we need take a different trail home?”

“Why? Which way did you come?”

Marian described their course. The Agent whistled. “It’s a wonder you didn’t perish!”

“Here,” he said, “is a rough map of the country. I will mark out the course to Ben’s cabin. You’ll find it a much safer way.”

“Oh, all right,” she said slowly. “Thanks. That’s surely the best way.”

She was thinking of the treasure left at the cabin. She had hoped to return by that route and claim it. Now that hope was gone.

It was night; such a night as only the Arctic knows. Cold stars, gleaming like bits of burnished silver in the sky, shone down upon vast stretches of glistening snow. Out of that whiteness one object loomed, black as ink against the whiteness of its background.

Weary with five days of constant travel, Marian found herself approaching this black bulk. She pushed doggedly forward, expecting at every moment to catch a lightning-like zig-zag flash of purple flame shooting up the side of it.

The black bulk was the old dredge in Sinrock River. She had passed that way twice before. Each time she had hoped to find there a haven of rest, and each time she had been frightened away by the flash of the purple flame. Those mysterious people had left this spot at one time. Had they returned? Was the dredge now a place of danger, or a haven for weary travellers? The answer to this question was only to be found by marching boldly up to the dredge.

This called for courage. Born with a brave soul, Marian was equal to any emergency. Sheer weariness and lack of sleep added to this a touch of daring.

Without pausing, she drove straight up to the door. Reassured by the snow banked up against it, she hastily scooped away the bank with her snow-shoe, and having shoved the door open, boldly entered.

It was a cheerless place, black and empty. The wind whistled through the cracks where the planks had rotted away. Yet it was a shelter. Passing through another door, she found herself in an inner room that housed the boiler of the engine that had furnished power to the dredge. The boiler, a great red drum of rust, stood directly in front of her.

“Here’s where we camp,” she said to Attatak. “We can build a fire in the fire-box of the boiler and broil some steak. That will be splendid!”

“Eh-eh,” grinned Attatak.

“And Attatak, bring the deer through the outer door, then close it. They were fed two hours ago. That will do until morning.”

She lighted a candle, gathered up some bits of wood that lay strewn about the narrow room, and began to kindle a fire while Attatak went out after the deer.

For the moment, being alone, she began to think of the herd. How was the herd faring? What had happened to Patsy during those many days of her absence? Were Bill Scarberry’s deer rapidly destroying her herd ground.

“Well, if they are, we are powerless to prevent it,” she told herself with a sigh.

As she looked back upon it now, she felt that her whole journey had been a colossal failure. They had discovered the mountain cave treasure, only to be obliged to leave the treasure behind. They had reached the Station in time to talk with the Government Agent, but he had not been able to come with her. Only twenty-four hours before they had reached the cabin of Ben Neighbor, only to find it dark and deserted. He had gone somewhere, as people in the Arctic have a way of doing; and where that might be she could not even hazard a guess. At last, in despair, she had headed her deer toward her own camp. In thirty-six hours she would be there.

“Well, at any rate,” she sighed, “it will be a pleasure to see Patsy and to sleep the clock round in our own sweet little deerskin bedroom.”

She was indeed to see Patsy, but the privilege of sleeping the clock round was not to be hers for many a day. She was destined to find the immediate future far too stirring for that.

Twenty-four hours later saw Marian well on her way home. Ten hours more, she felt sure, would bring her to camp. And then what? She could not even guess. Had she been able to even so much as suspect what was going on at camp, she would have urged her reindeer to do their utmost.

Patsy was right in the middle of a peck of trouble. Because of the fact that for the last few days she had been living in a realm of exciting dreams, the troubles that had come down upon her seemed all the more grievous. Since that most welcome radio message regarding the proposed purchase of reindeer by the Canadian Government had come drifting in over the air, she had, during every available moment, hovered over the radio-phone in the momentary expectation of receiving the confirmation of that rumor which might send the herd over mountains and tundra in a wild race for a prize, a prize worth thousands of dollars to her uncle and cousin—the sale of the herd.

Perhaps it was because of her too close application to the radio-phone that she failed to note the approach of Scarberry’s herd as it returned to ravish their feeding ground. Certain it was that the first of the deer, with the entire herd close upon their heels, were already over the hills before she knew of their coming.

It was night when Terogloona brought this bit of disquieting news.

“And this time,” Patsy wailed, “we have not so much as one hungry Eskimo with his dog to send against them.”

As if in answer to the complaint, the aged herder plucked at her sleeve, then led her out beneath the open sky.

With an impressive gesture, he waved his arm toward the distant hills that lay in the opposite direction of Scarberry’s herd. To her great surprise and mystification, she saw gleaming there the lights of twenty or more campfires.

“U-bogok,” (see there) he said.

“What—what does it mean?” Patsy stammered, grasping at her dry throat.

“It is that I fear,” said Terogloona. “They come. To-morrow they are here. You gave food for a week for a few; flour, sugar, bacon. They like him. Now come whole village of Sitne-zok. Want food. You gave them food. What you think? No food for herders, no herders. No herders, no herd. What you think?”

Patsy did not know what to think. Gone was all her little burst of pride over the way she had handled the other situation that had confronted her. Now she felt that she was but a girl, a very small girl, and very, very much alone. She wished Marian would come. Oh, how she did wish that she would come!

“In the morning we will see what can be done,” was all she could say to the faithful old herder as she turned to re-enter the igloo.

That night she did not undress. She sat up for hours, trying to think of some way out. She sat long with the radio head-set over her ears. She entertained some wild notion of fleeing with the herd toward the Canadian border, providing the message confirming the offer for the deer came. But the message did not come.

At last, in utter exhaustion, she threw herself among the deerskins and fell into a troubled sleep.

She was roused from this sleep by a loud: “Hello there!” followed by a cheery: “Where are you? Are you asleep?”

It was Marian. The next moment poor, tired, worried Patsy threw herself sobbing into her cousin’s strong arms.

“There now,” said Marian, soothingly, as Patsy’s sobbing ceased, “sit down and tell me all about it. You’re safe; that’s something. Your experiences can’t have been worse than ours.”

“The Eskimo! Bill Scarberry’s herd!” burst out Patsy, “They’re here. All of them!”

“Tell me all about it,” encouraged Marian.

“Wait till I get my head-set on,” said Patsy, more hopefully. “It’s been due for days; may come at any time.”

“What’s due?” asked Marian, mystified.

“Wait! I’ll tell you. One thing at a time. Let’s get it all straight.”

She began at the beginning and recited all that had transpired since Marian had left camp. When she came to tell of her discovery that one of the mysterious occupants of the tent of the purple flame was a girl, Marian’s astonishment knew no bounds. When told of the bloody trail, Marian was up in arms. The camp of the purple flame must be raided at once. They would put a stop to that sort of thing. They would take their armed herders and raid that camp this very night.

“But wait!” Patsy held up a warning finger, “I am not half through yet. There is more. Too much more!”

She was in the midst of recounting her experiences with the band of wandering Eskimo and Scarberry’s herd, when suddenly she clapped the radio receiver tightly to her ears and stopped talking. Then she murmured:

“It’s coming! At last, it is coming!”

“For goodness sake!” exclaimed Marian, out of all patience, “Will you kindly tell me what is coming?”

But Patsy only held the receiver to her ears and listened the more intently as she whispered:

“Shush! Wait!”

The message that was holding Patsy’s attention was one from the Canadian Government. It was a bonafide offer from that Government to purchase the first herd of from four to six hundred reindeer that should reach Fort Jarvis.

When Patsy had imparted the exciting news to her, Marian sat long in silent thought. Fort Jarvis, as she well knew, lay some five hundred miles away over hills and tundra. She had just returned from one such wearisome journey. Should she start again? And would this second great endeavor prove more successful than the first? Of all the herds in Alaska, two were closest to Fort Jarvis; Scarberry’s and her own. She had not the slightest doubt that Scarberry would start driving a section of his herd toward that goal. It would be a race; a race that would be won by the bravest, strongest and most skillful. Marian believed in her herders. She believed in herself and Patsy. She believed as strongly in her herd, her sled-deer and her dogs. It was the grand opportunity; the way out of all troubles. That the band of begging natives would not follow, she knew right well. Nor would the mysterious persons of the purple flame camp; at least, she hoped not. As for their little herd range, if they sold their deer, Scarberry might have it, and welcome; if they did not sell, they could doubtless find pasture in some far away Canadian valley.

“Yes,” she said in a tone of decision, “we will go. We will waken the herders at once. Come on, let’s go.”

As they burst breathlessly into the cabin of their Eskimo herders, they received something of a shock. Since all the work of the day had long since been done, they had expected to find the entire group of four assembled in the cabin, or asleep in their bunks. But here was only old Terogloona and Attatak.

“Where’s Oatinna? Where’s Azazruk?” demanded Marian.

“Gone,” said Terogloona solemnly.

“Where? Go call them, quick!”

Terogloona did not move. He merely shrugged his shoulders and mumbled:

“No good. Gone long way. Bill Scarberry’s camp. No come back, say that one.”

“What!” exclaimed Marian in consternation. “Gone? Deserted us?”

“Eh-eh,” Terogloona nodded his head. “Say Bill Scarberry pay more money; more deer; say that one Oatinna, that one Azazruk. No good, that one Bill Scarberry, me think.” He shook his head solemnly. “Not listen that one Oatinna, that one Azazruk. Say wanna go. Go, that’s all.”

“Then we can’t start the herd,” murmured Marian, sinking down upon a rolled up sleeping-bag. “Yes, we will!” she exclaimed resolutely. “Terogloona, where are the rifles?”

“Gone,” he repeated like a parrot. “Mebby you forget. That one rifle b’long herder boys.”

“And your rifle?” questioned Marian, “where is your rifle?”

“Broke-tuk. Hammer not want come down hard. Not want shoot, that one rifle, mine.”

Marian was stunned with surprise and chagrin. She and Patsy returned silently to their igloo.

“Oh, that treacherous Bill Scarberry!” she exploded. “He has known this was coming. He knew our herders were energetic and capable. He thought if they remained with us, we might beat him to the prize; so he sent some spy over here to buy them away from us with promises of more pay.”

“And now?” asked Patsy.

“Now he will drive his herd to Fort Jarvis and sell it, and our grand chance is gone forever.”

“No!” exclaimed Patsy, “He won’t! He shall not! We will beat him yet. We are strong. Terogloona and Attatak are faithful. We have our three collies. We can do it. We will beat him yet. Our herd is better than his. It will travel faster. Oh, Marian! Somehow,somehowwe must do it. It’s your chance! Your one big, wonderful opportunity.”

“Yes,” exclaimed Marian, suddenly fired by her cousin’s hot blooded southern enthusiasm, “we will do it or perish in the attempt. It’s to be a race,” she exclaimed, “a race for a wonderful prize, a race between two large herds of reindeer over five hundred miles of hills, tundra and forest. There may be wolves in the forests. In Alaska dangers lurk at every turn; rivers too rapid to freeze over and blizzards and wild beasts. We will be terribly handicapped from the very start. But for father’s sake we must try it.”

“For your father’s and for your own sake,” murmured Patsy. “And, Marian, I have always believed that our great Creator was on the side of those who are kind and just. Bill Scarberry played us a mean trick. Perhaps God will somehow even the score.”

An hour was spent in consultation with old Terogloona. His face became very sober at the situation, but in the end, with the blood of youth coursing eternally in his veins, he sprang to his feet and exclaimed:

“Eh-eh!” (Yes-yes) “We will go. Before it is day we will be away. You go sleep. You must be very strong. In the morning Terogloona will have reindeer and sleds ready. We will call to the dogs. We will be away before the sun. We will shout ‘Kul-le-a-muck, Kul-le-a-muck’ (Hurry! Hurry!) to dogs and reindeer. We will beat that one Bill yet.

“You know what?” he exclaimed, his face darkening like a thundercloud, “You know that mean man, that one Bill Scarberry. Want my boy, So-queena, work for him. Want pay him reindeer. Give him bad rifle, very bad rifle. Want shoot, my boy So-queena. Shot at carabou, So-queena. Rifle go flash. Crooch! Just like that. Shoot back powder, that rifle. Came in So-queena’s eyes, that powder. Can’t see, that one. Almost lost to freeze, that one, So-queena. Bye’m bye find camp. Stay camp mebby five days. Can see, not very good. Bill, he say: ‘Go herd reindeer,’ So-queena, he say: ‘Can’t see. Mebby get lost. Mebby freeze’.

“He say Bill very mad. ‘Get out! No good, you! Go freeze. Who cares?’

“So-queena come my house—long way. Plenty starve. Plenty freeze. No give reindeer that one So-queena, that one Bill. Bad one, that Bill. So me think; beat Bill. Sell reindeer herd white man. Think very good. Work hard. Mebby beat that one Bill Scarberry.”

There came a look of determination to Patsy’s face such as Marian had never seen there.

“If that’s the kind of man he is; if he would send an Eskimo boy, half-blinded by his own worthless rifle, out into the snow and the cold, then we must beat him. We must! We must!” said Patsy vehemently.

“That’s exactly the kind of man he is,” said Marian soberly. “We must beat him if we can. But it will be a long, hard journey.”

They had hardly crept between their deerskins when Patsy was fast asleep. Not so Marian. The full responsibility of this perilous journey rested upon her shoulders. She knew too well the hardships and dangers they must face. They must pass through broad stretches of forest where food for the deer was scarce, and where lurking wolves, worn down to mere skeletons by the scarcity of food, might attack and scatter their herd beyond recovery.

They must cross high hills, from whose summits the snow at times poured like smoke from volcanoes in circling sweeps hundreds of feet in extent. Here there would be danger of losing their deer in some wild blizzard, or having them buried beneath the snows of some thundering avalanche.

“It’s not for myself alone that I’m afraid,” she told herself. “It’s for Patsy, Patsy from Kentucky. Who would have thought a girl from the sunny south could be so brave, such a good sport.”

As she thought of the courageous, carefree manner in which Patsy had insisted on the journey, a lump rose in her throat, and she brushed a hand hastily over her eyes.

“And yet,” she asked herself, “ought I to allow her to do it? She’s younger than I, and not so strong. Can she stand the strain?”

Again her mind took up the thought of the perils they must face.

There were wandering tribes of Indians in the territory they must cross; the skulking and oft-times treacherous Indians of the Little Sticks. What if they were to cross the path of these? What if a great band of caribou should come pouring down some mountain pass and, having swallowed up their little herd, go sweeping on, leaving them in the midst of a great wilderness with only their sled-deer to stand between them and starvation.

As if dreaming of Marian’s thoughts, Patsy suddenly turned over with a little sobbing cry, and wound her arms about Marian.

“What is it?” Marian whispered.

Patsy did not answer. She was still asleep. The dream soon passed, her muscles relaxed, and with a deep sigh she sank back into her place.

This little drama left Marian in an exceedingly troubled state of mind.

“We ought not to go,” she told herself. “We will not.” Then, from sheer exhaustion, she too, fell asleep.

Three hours before the tardy Arctic sunrise, she heard Terogloona pounding at their door. She found that sleep had banished fear, and that every muscle in her body and every cell of her brain was ready for action, eager to be away.

As for Patsy, she could not dress half fast enough, so great was her desire for the wonderful adventure.

It was just as Marian was tightening the ropes to the pack on her sled that, happening to glance away at a distant hill, she was reminded of Patsy’s latest story of the purple flame. From the crest of that hill there came a purple flare of light. Quickly as it had come, just so quickly it vanished, leaving the hill a faint outline against the sky.

“The purple flame,” she breathed. “I wonder if we can leave those mysterious camp-followers of ours behind?”

On the instant a disturbing thought flashed through her mind. It caused an indignant flash of color to rise to her cheek.

“I wonder,” she said slowly, “if those mysterious people are spies set by Bill Scarberry to dog our tracks?”

“They may start with us,” she smiled to herself, as she at last dismissed the subject from her mind, “but unless they really are Bill Scarberry’s spies and set to watch us, they’ll never finish with us. Camp-followers don’t follow over five hundred miles of wild trail. They’re not that fond of hard marching.”

In this conclusion she was partly wrong.

Just as the sun was painting the distant mountain peaks with a gleam of gold, the collies began to bark and the broad herd of reindeer moved slowly forward. Marian and Patsy touched their deer gently with the reins, and they were away.

It was with a distinct feeling of homesickness that Marian turned to look back at the campsite. She had spent many happy hours there. Now she was leaving it, perhaps forever. What was more, she was leaving the tundra; the broad-stretching deer pastures of the Arctics. Should their enterprise succeed, she would pass over one of the Canadian trails, southward to the States and back to the University. Should they fail, she might indeed return to the tundra, but she knew it could never be the same to her.

“We must not fail,” she told herself, clenching her hands tight and staring away at the magnificent panorama which lay before her. “We must not! Must not fail!”

As she saw the reindeer, a mass of brown and white moving down the slope, a feeling of sadness swept over her. She had come to love these gentle and half-wild creatures of the North. She was especially fond of the sled-deer, her three; the spotted one, the brown one, and the white. Many hundred miles had she driven them. Nowhere in the world, she was sure, could there be deer who covered more miles in a day, who were quicker to recognize the pull of rein, more willing to stomp the tiresome nights away at the ends of their tethers.

Dearest of all were the three collie dogs; Gold, Copper and Bronze, she whimsically named them, for their coats were just what their names indicated. Copper and Bronze were young dogs. Gold was the pick of the three; an old, well-trained sheep dog. Accustomed to the sunny pastures of California, he had been brought to this cold and barren land to herd reindeer. With the sturdy devotion of his kind, he had endured the biting cold without a whimper, and had gnawed his toes, cut by the crusted snow, in silence. He had done the work assigned to him with a zeal and thoroughness that might have shamed many a human master.

“These, too, I must leave,” she told herself. “Worse than that, I am leading them out into wild desert. Within a week that beautiful herd may be hopelessly scattered; our sled-deers killed by wolves; our dogs—well, anyway, they will never desert us. Together we will fight it out to the bitter end.”

A lump came into her throat. Then, realizing that she was the commander of this expedition and that it was unbecoming of commanders to betray emotion, she quickly conquered her feelings and gave herself over to the work of assisting in keeping the herd moving steadily forward in a compact mass.

Five days later, with their herd still moving steadily on before them, and with hopes rising high because of the continued success of their march, they found themselves crossing a succession of low-lying, grass-covered hills. As they reached the crest of the highest of these, and arrived at a place where they could get an unrestricted view of the tundra that lay beyond, an exclamation escaped Marian’s lips.

“A forest!” she exclaimed.

“A real Arctic forest,” echoed Patsy. “Won’t it be wonderful!”

“Wonderful and dangerous,” Marian replied. “Unless I miss my guess, here is where our troubles begin. It may not be so bad, though,” she quickly amended, as she saw the look of fear that came over her cousin’s face. “That forest is fully ten miles away. The sun is about to set. We’ll drive our herd down into the tundra where there is plenty of moss. We’ll camp there, and get up for an early start in the morning. The forest may be only a narrow belt along a river.”

Marian did not feel very sure that her predictions would prove true, but she was the sort of person who measures all perils carefully, then hopes for the best.

Two hours later they were eating a meal of reindeer stew and hot biscuits, which had been cooked over a willow-wood fire in their Yukon stove. Then as they chatted of the future, Marian held up a finger for silence.

“What was that?” she whispered. “A shot?”

“I didn’t—”

“Yes, yes. There’s another!”

Marian was up and out of the tent in an instant.

As her eyes swept the horizon they caught a gleam of light from the hills above, the red and yellow light of a camp-fire.

With one sweeping glance she took in the position of her herd. She had just noted that a certain brown deer had strayed some distance up the hill. She was about to suggest to Terogloona, who had also been called from his tent by the shots, that he send a dog after the deer, when, to her great astonishment, she caught a flash of light, heard a sharp report, then saw the brown deer crumple up like an empty sack and drop to the snow.

For one instant she stood there as if in a trance, then with a quick turn she said:

“Patsy, you stay with Attatak. Terogloona, you come with me.”

Turning, she walked straight toward the spot where the reindeer had fallen. The faithful Terogloona, in spite of his fear of the Indians of the Little Sticks, followed at her heels.

When they arrived at the spot, they found a man bending over the dead deer. In his hand was the rifle that had sped the bullet. The soft-soled “muck-lucks” that Marian and Terogloona wore made no sound on the snow. The man’s back was toward them and they came upon him unobserved. The powerful Terogloona would have leaped upon his back and thrown him to the snow, but Marian held him back.

“Stranger,” said the girl, in as steady a voice as she could, “why did you kill our deer?”

Like a flash the man gripped his rifle as he wheeled about. Then, seeing it was a girl who spoke, he lowered his weapon.

Marian’s eyes took him in with one feeling glance. His face was haggard, emaciated. His hands were mere skin and bones. He was an Indian.

“Too hungry,” he murmured, “No come caribou. No come ptarmigan. No fish in the river; no rabbits on the tundra!” He spread out his bony hands in a gesture of despair.

“But you needn’t have killed him. Had you come to us we would have given you meat, all you could use.” The girl’s face was frank and fearless, yet there was a certain huskiness in her voice that to the sensitive ears of the Indian betokened kindness.

“Yes,” he said slowly, “maybe you would. Yesterday we saw other reindeer herd, north mebby ten miles. Want deer; ask man, big man, much whiskers; say want food. Man said: ‘Get out!’ Want’a kill me if I not go quick. Bad man, that one. We go way. Then see your herd. Say, take one deer. You want to fight, then fight. Better to die by bullet than by hunger.”

“The man you saw,” said Marian, her heart sinking as she realized that he must be a half day in the lead, “was Bill Scarberry. Yes, he is a mean man. But see! Have you a cache? Some place where you can keep meat from the wolves and wolverines?”

“Yes, yes!” exclaimed the Indian eagerly. “Ten miles. Diesa River, a cabin.”

“How many deer must you have to keep you until game comes?”

“Mebby—mebby,” the Indian stared at her in astonishment, “Mebby two, mebby three.”

“All right,” said Marian, “you have killed a fine doe. That was bad, but I forgive you.” She held our her hand to grasp the native’s bony fingers.

“Now,” she said briskly, “since you have killed her, you may keep the meat. Terogloona,” she turned to the Eskimo, “point out two young bucks, the best we have. Tell him he may kill them and that he and his friends may take them to their cabin.”

“I—I—” the Indian attempted to speak. Failing utterly, he turned and walked a few steps away, then turning, struck straight away toward the spot where the red and yellow campfire gleamed.

“That is his camp?” asked Marian.

Terogloona nodded silently.

“They will come for the meat, and will give us no further trouble?”

“Eh-eh” smiled the Eskimo. “The daughter of my master has acted wisely. The man who starves, he is different. These reindeer,” he waved his arms toward the herd, “they belong to my master and his daughter. When men are not starving—yes. When men are starving—no. To the starving all things belong. Bill Scarberry, he remember yet. Indians of Little Sticks, they never forget.”

As Marian turned to retrace her steps to camp, she chanced to glance up at the other camp where, but an hour before, she had seen the flash of the purple flame. It was closer than she thought. The flash of flame was gone, but she was sure she caught the outlines of a tent; surer still that she saw a solitary figure atop a nearby knoll. Sitting as if on watch, this solitary man held a rifle across his knees.

“I wonder why he is there?” she said to herself, “I wonder why they are following us?”

“Oh,” she breathed as she walked toward camp, “it’s so tantalizing, that purple flame and all! I have half a notion to take Terogloona, as I did with that Indian, and march right up to them and demand the meaning of their mysterious actions!”

As if intending to turn this thought into action at once, she stopped and turned about. To her surprise, as she looked toward the crest of the hill, she saw the solitary watcher was gone.

“Oh, well,” she sighed, “we have no real reason for invading their camp. We’ve no proof that they’ve ever done us any harm; except, perhaps the time that Patsy saw the blood-trail and the antler marks in the snow. It seems that it must have been our deer, but we never could prove it.”

Glancing away at a more distant hill-crest, she was surprised at the picture revealed there.

The moon, just rising from behind the hill, threw out in bold relief the broad-spreading antlers of a magnificent creature of the wilderness.

“Old Omnap-puk!” said Marian. “What do you think of that? We have traveled five days, and yet we are still in the company of the mysterious camp-followers of the purple flame and old Omnap-puk, the caribou-reindeer who has haunted the outskirts of our camp so long.

“I suppose,” she said thoughtfully, “that I should tell Terogloona to have the Indians kill Omnap-puk. That would save one of our reindeers, and besides, if we let him live, who knows but that at some critical moment he may rush in and assume the leadership of our herd and lead them to disaster, or lose them to us forever. I have heard of that happening with horses and cattle. Why not with reindeer? And yet,” she sighed, “I can’t quite make up my mind to do it. He is such a wonderful fellow!”

The time was to come, and that very soon, when she was to rejoice because of this decision.

That night Marian lay awake for a long time. She had a vague feeling that they were approaching a crisis. Many agencies were at work. Some appeared to favor the success of their enterprise, and some were working directly against them. Scarberry, with his herd, was some hours ahead of them. That was bad. If he succeeded in retaining this lead, the race was lost. However, less than half the distance had been covered, the easiest half. Many a peril awaited each herd. Who could tell when prowling wolves, large bands of Indians, a caribou herd, an impassable river, might bring either to a halt?

Marian could not answer all of the questions that troubled her. The Indians? Would they be satisfied with her gift of food, or would they continue to prey upon the herd? Would they go back to some large tribe and lead them to the herd that they might drive them away, an easy bounty?

She had dealt with Eskimos; knew about what to expect from them. “But Indians,” she whispered to herself, “What are they like?”

As if in answer to her perplexity, there came to her mind the words of a great and good man:

“Humanity is everywhere very much the same.”

This thought gave her comfort. She could not help but feel that the Indian she had befriended would not betray her, but might even come to her aid in some emergency.

“But those of the purple flame?” she whispered to herself. “That silent watcher on the hill—what did he mean by sitting there with a rifle across his knee? Is he and his companions our friends or our enemies?”

Here, indeed, was a problem. Until this day, she had felt that these persons were to be distrusted and feared. However, there had been something about that silent watcher that had given her a feeling of safety in spite of her prejudice.

“It was as if he were set there as a watch to see that the Indian did us no harm,” she told herself. “And yet, how could he?”

It was in the midst of this perplexity that she fell asleep.

Long before dawn the girls awoke to face a new day and a new, unknown peril. The forest, stretching out black and somber against the white foreground of snow, seemed a great menacing hand, reaching out to seize their precious possession. They could not know what perils awaited them in the forest.

With breakfast over, the tents struck, sled-deer harnessed and hitched to the sled, and everything in readiness for the continuing of the race to Fort Jarvis, the girls climbed the nearest hill, hoping that they might catch some glimpse of the country beyond the forest.

Their hopes were vain. Far as eye could see, the forest stretched before them. They could only guess the miles they must travel before coming again to rolling hills and level tundra. They were traveling over a region of the great Northland which had never really been explored. No accurate maps showed where rivers ran or forests spread out over the plains.

Standing there, looking at the great forest, Patsy quoted:

“‘This the forest primeval;The murmuring pines and the hemlocksStand like Druids of oldWith beards that rest on their bosom.’

“‘This the forest primeval;

The murmuring pines and the hemlocks

Stand like Druids of old

With beards that rest on their bosom.’

“And, with two Eskimos for companions, we are to enter that forest. Only wild people, and wilder caribou and wolves, have been there before us. Oh, Marian! We are explorers! We really, truly are! Isn’t it gran-n-d!”

Marian did not answer. There was a puzzled look on her face as she stared away toward the north. Out of the very clouds faint images appeared to be marching. Yes, yes, now they became clearer. Reindeer—a whole herd of them. What could it mean? Was this a vision? Was she “seeing things,” or was it possible that much higher hills lay over there and that the reindeer were crossing them?

“Look,” she said to her cousin, pointing away to the clouds.

Together, with bated breaths, they watched the panorama that moved before them. Now they saw the herders and their dogs, saw them run this way and that; saw the herd change its course, saw the herders again take up the steady march.

“Why,” exclaimed Patsy, “Seems as if you could hear the crack-crack of reindeer hoofs and the bark of the dogs!”

“They must be miles away. It’s the Scarberry herd,” said Marian.

“Look,” whispered Patsy, “the deer are stopping.”

It was true. Having come to an abrupt halt, as if facing an insurmountable barrier, the leaders compelled those that followed to pack in a solid mass behind them or to spread out to right or left. In an incredibly short time they stood out in a straight line, facing east.

“It—it must be a river, a river that is still open, that cannot be crossed,” said Marian in tones of tense excitement.

“And that means!” exclaimed Patsy.

“That our rival has been stopped. Nature has brought them to a halt. We may win yet. Let’s hurry. We may find a crossing-place in the forest.”

“But look, look over there to the left!” cried Patsy.

“What? Where?”

“Why, they’re gone!” exclaimed Patsy. “There were three men. Indians, they looked like. They seemed to be watching the Scarberry herd from a hilltop some distance away.”

“But look!” cried Marian. “It’s gone!”

To their great astonishment, the herd had vanished. As it had appeared to march out of the clouds, so it seemed now to have receded again into them.

“Were we dreaming?” Patsy asked in an awed whisper.

“No,” said Marian thoughtfully, “It was a mirage, a mirage of the great white wilderness. We have them here just as they do on the desert. By the aid of this mirage, nature has shown us a great secret; that we still have a splendid chance to win the race. Let’s get down to camp and be away.”

“But the three Indians?” questioned Patsy. “What were they about to do?”

“Who knows?” said Marian. “We have little to do with the Scarberry herd. Our task is that of getting to Fort Jarvis.”

Two hours were consumed in reaching the edge of the forest. After that, for hours they passed through the wonder world of a northern forest in winter. Deep and still, the snow lay like a great white blanket. Black as ebonite against this whiteness stood the fir and spruce trees. There was something strangely solemn about the place. The crack of reindeer’s hoofs, the bark of dogs, all seemed strangely out of place here. It was as though they stood on holy ground.

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