“It’s like a church,” Patsy said in an awed voice.
“God’s great cathedral,” answered Marian.
Fortunately the trees were not too close together. There was room for the deer to pass between them. So, as before, the herd moved forward in a fairly compact mass.
“Going to be easy,” was Patsy’s comment after three hours had passed.
“I don’t know,” Marian shook her head in doubt, “I hope so, but you know an Alaskan who is used to barren hills and tundra, dreads a forest. I belong to the tundra, so I dread it, too.”
In spite of her fears, just at nightfall Marian found herself passing from beneath the last spruce tree and gazing away at rolling hills beyond.
She was just offering up a little prayer of thanksgiving, when some movement of the forward herd leaders attracted her attention.
“They’re stopping,” she said. “I wonder why?”
Instantly the vision of the morning flashed through her mind.
“The river!” she exclaimed in alarm. “If—if we can’t cross it, we’ll have to camp at the edge of the forest. And that is bad, very bad. Animals that are cowards, and slink away by day, become daring beasts of prey at night.”
A hurried race forward confirmed her worst suspicions; there, at her feet was a river, flanked on one side by willows and on the other by a steep bank. It was not a broad stream—she could throw a stone across it—but it did flow swiftly. Its powerful current had thus far defied the winter’s fiercest blasts. It was full to the brim with milky water and crowding cakes of ice. No creature could brave that torrent, and live.
“Blocked!” she cried. “And just when I was hoping for so much!”
Sinking down upon the snow, she gave herself over for a moment to hopeless despair. The next moment she was on her feet. With arms outstretched toward the stars as if in appeal for aid, she spoke through tight clenched teeth:
“We must! We will! We will win!”
As if in mockery of her high resolves, at that moment there came to her ears the long-drawn howl of a timber wolf.
The call of the wolf was answered by another, and yet another. At the moment they seemed some distance away, but Marian trembled at the sound.
“A wolf travels fast,” she told herself as she turned to hurry back to Patsy and her faithful Eskimo.
“Listen!” she exclaimed, as she came near to her companions. “Sounds like ten or twelve of them howling at once. Terogloona, do wolves travel in packs?”
“Mebby not,” the Eskimo shrugged his shoulders, “but often they are many. Then they call to one another. They come all to one place. Then there’s trouble. There will be trouble to-night, and we have no rifle. We—”
He broke off abruptly to lean forward in a listening attitude. “That is strange,” he murmured, “They have found some prey back there where they are, perhaps a caribou.”
As they stood at strained attention, it became evident to all that the creature being pursued was coming down the wind toward them. The yap-yap of the wolves, now in full pursuit, grew momentarily louder. At the beginning they had seemed two miles away. Now they seemed but one mile; a half mile. The girls fairly held their breaths as they watched and waited.
And now it seemed that the wolves must be all but upon them. Then, with a sudden cry, Marian saw the great spreading antlers of old Omnap-puk, the king of reindeer and caribou, rise above the ridge.
“He’s not alone. There are others,” Patsy breathed.
“Reindeer!” Marian murmured in astonishment.
It was true. One by one at first, then by fives and tens, a drove of deer, fifty or sixty in number, appeared on the crest of the hill and came plunging down toward Marian’s herd.
The old Monarch had never before joined their herd, but this time, without a second’s hesitation, he plunged straight on until he came to the edge of the herd. Then, with a peculiar whistled challenge, he wheeled about and with antlers lowered for battle, pawed defiance at the on-rushing band of wolves.
Then a strange and interesting drama began to be enacted. There was a shifting and turning of deer. Front ranks were quickly formed. When the wolves, with lolling tongues and dripping jaws reached the spot, they found themselves facing a solid row of bayonet-like antlers.
Quick as they were to understand the situation, and to rush away in a circle to execute a rear attack, the deer, under the monarch’s leadership, were quicker. Other lines were formed until a complete circle of antlers confronted the beasts of prey. The weaker and younger deer were in the center.
Then it was that the girls discovered for the first time that they, too, were in the center; that they were surrounded by the restless, snorting, pawing herd of deer. In their interest at watching the progress of events, they had not been aware of the fact that the deer, in swinging about, had encircled them.
That they were in peril, they knew all too well. They read this in the look of concern on Terogloona’s face.
“Circle hold, all right,” he said soberly. “Not hold, bad! Deer afraid. Go mad. Want’a trample down all; want’a get away fast. Mebby knock down my master’s daughter, her friend, Terogloona, Attatak; knock down all; mebby trampled. Mebby die. Mebby wolf kill.”
There was apparently nothing to do but wait. To the wolf pack new numbers appeared to be added from time to time. The sound of their yap-yapping came incessantly. The circle swayed now to this side and now to that as some frightened deer appeared ready to break away. It was with the utmost difficulty that the girls prevented themselves from being knocked down and trampled under the sharp hoofs of the surging deer.
“What will it be like if the circle breaks and they really stampede?” groaned Patsy. For the first time in her Arctic experience she was truly frightened.
“I don’t know,” answered Marian. “We can only trust. I wish we were out of this. I wish—”
A sharp exclamation escaped Marian’s lips. Over to the left a deer had gone down. The wolves appeared to have cut the tendons to his forelegs. There was terrible confusion. It seemed that the day was lost, that the stampede was at hand.
“Keep close to me,” Marian whispered bravely. “Some way we will pull through.”
Patsy gripped her arm for the final struggle. Then, to her astonishment, she heard the sound of a shot, then another, and yet another.
“Someone to our rescue,” cried Marian. “Who can it be?”
Accustomed as they were to the presence of men, the reindeer, not at all frightened by the shots, held their position in the impregnable circle. The cowardly wolves began to slink away at the first shot. It seemed no time at all until the only sound to be heard was the rattle of antlers as the deer broke ranks and began to scatter again for feeding.
Some moments before the girls could make their way out of the center of the herd the firing ceased.
“Who could it have been?” Patsy asked.
“Don’t know,” said Marian. “Whoever it was, we must find them and thank them.”
This task she found to be more difficult than she had supposed. There had doubtless been tracks left by the strange deliverer, but these had already been trampled by the deer. Search as they might, they could find no trace of the person who had fired the shots. Mute testimony of his skill as a marksman, two dead wolves lay on the snow close to the spot where the defensive circle had been formed.
“What did you make of that?” Marian asked at last in great bewilderment. “Terogloona, where could they have gone?”
“Canok-ti-ma-na” (I don’t know), Terogloona shook his head soberly.
One of Marian’s sleds had been left at the edge of the forest. Upon returning to this, they experienced another great surprise. Lying across the sled was a rifle, and in a pile beside it were five boxes of cartridges.
“A rifle!” exclaimed Marian, seizing it and drawing it from his leather sheath. “A beauty! And a new one!”
The two girls sat down on the sled and stared at one another in speechless silence.
Terogloona and Attatak soon joined them.
“It was the Indian, the one we saved from starving!” exclaimed Patsy at last, “I just know it was.”
Terogloona shook his head. “Old rifle, mebby all right,” he mumbled; “new rifle, mebby Indian not give.”
The girls, not at all convinced that this conclusion was a correct one, still clung to the belief that their protector had been the Indian.
Since it was impossible to cross the river, it was decided that they should make camp at the edge of the forest; that Terogloona, with the rifle, was to keep watch over the herd the first part of the night; and Marian, who was a good shot, the latter half.
It was while Marian was packing away the dishes after supper that the piece of old ivory with the ancient engraving on it, the newest piece which they had found in the mountain cave, fell out of her sleeping bag. Without knowing it, she had saved this, the least of their treasures.
“Look!” she said to Terogloona, who sat cross-legged before the fire, “we found this in a mountain cave. What does it say? Surely you can read it.”
For a long time Terogloona studied the crude picture in silence. When at last he spoke, it was to inform her that the ivory had once belonged to his great-uncle; that it told of a very successful hunt in which twenty caribou had been driven into a trap and killed with bows and arrows; that shortly after that they had come upon a white man with a long beard, starving in a cabin beside a stream. They had given the man caribou meat. He had grown strong, then had gone away. As pay for their kindness he had offered them heavy yellow pebbles and dust from a moosehide sack. This they had not taken because they did not know what it was good for. They had asked two cups and a knife instead.
As he explained this, the Eskimo showed each picture that told the part of the story narrated.
“It seems very real,” said Marian. “How long ago could it have been?”
“Mebby twenty years,” said Terogloona.
“The white man was a prospector.”
“And the yellow pebbles and dust must have been gold!” exclaimed Patsy. “Oh, Marian! If we could find that place we’d be rich. Terogloona, could you find the place?”
Again the Eskimo studied the ancient picture-writing.
“Eh-eh,” he said at last. “Mebby could.”
“Oh, Marian! We’ll go back,” said Patsy, doing a wild dance on her sleeping bag. “We’ll go back for gold!”
“For the present,” said Marian, quietly, “we have work enough. We must get our herd to Fort Jarvis. Looks as if that will be a difficult enough task.”
“But tell me,” she turned suddenly to Terogloona, “there were more than fifty reindeer with old Omnap-puk, were there not?”
“Yes.”
“Where did they come from?”
“My master’s herd.”
“They are the deer we have been missing all winter, the ones we thought had been killed?”
“Yes.”
“Why, then—” she leaped suddenly to her feet in her excitement, “then those people can not have killed our deer at all!”
“No. Not kill.”
“Then why did they follow us? Are they following us now? What was it they killed that night, if not our deer? Oh! it’s too perplexing for words.”
Terogloona looked at her and smiled a droll smile. “Many strange things on hill and tundra. Some time mebby know; mebby not. Terogloona must go watch; you sleep. To-morrow mebby very hard.” Taking up the rifle, he left the tent.
Before creeping into her sleeping bag, Marian stepped out of the tent to cool her heated brow in the crisp night air. Above her the stars gleamed like tiny camp-fires; beyond her the dark forest loomed. From the distance she caught the bump and grind of ice crowding the banks of the river.
Morning came, and with it the problem of crossing the river. They had been traveling by compass. As far as Marian could tell, to go either up or down the river would be to go out of their direct path. Terogloona advised going north. Some signs unintelligible to the girls, but clear enough to him, appeared to promise a crossing two or three miles above.
For once the canny instincts of the Eskimo failed. He was no longer in his own land of barren hills, tundra and sea; perhaps this caused him to err. One thing was certain, as they traveled northward the hills that lined the stream grew more rugged and rocky, and the river more turbulent.
“We won’t find a crossing for miles,” Marian said, with a tone of conviction.
Even Terogloona paused to ponder and scratch his head.
It was just at the moment when despair appeared about to take possession of them that Patsy, chancing to glance away at the hills that loomed above the opposite banks, suddenly cried:
“Look! A man!”
All looked in the direction she had pointed. The man was standing perfectly still, but his right hand was pointing. Like a wooden signboard, it pointed downstream. Three times the arm dropped. Three times it was raised to point again.
“He is an Indian,” said Terogloona, stoically. “It is his country. He knows. We must go back. The crossing lies in that direction.”
As the man on the hill saw them turn their herd about and start back, he began to travel slowly downstream. All that day, and even into the night, he went before them, showing the way.
“Like the pillar of fire,” said Marian, with a little choke in her voice.
There was no doubt in her mind that this benefactor was the Indian they had befriended when he was starving. To her lips there came a line she had long known, “I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat.”
Not wishing to camp again at the edge of the forest, they traveled without rest or food for eight hours. At last, when they were so hungry and weary that they felt they must drop in their tracks and fall asleep, they came suddenly to a place where the troubled rush of waters ceased; where the river spread out into a broad, quiet, icebound lake.
“Thank God!” Marian murmured reverently as she dropped exhausted upon her sled.
After resting and eating a cold lunch of hardtack, frozen boiled beans, and reindeer steak, they headed the herd across the lake. Having passed through the narrow forest that skirted the lake, they came upon a series of low-lying, barren hills. Here, in a little gully lined with willows whose clinging dead leaves rustled incessantly in the breeze, the girls made camp.
Before going to sleep, Marian walked out into the night to view her herd. The sky was clear. The golden moon made the night light as day. The herd was resting peacefully. She wondered vaguely if other human beings might be near. Their mysterious guide had left them at the shore of the lake. At no time had he come close enough to be identified. She was wondering about him, and as her gaze swept the horizon she saw the red and yellow gleam of a camp-fire.
Her feeling toward that camp-fire had changed. There had been a time when it filled her with fear. Now, as she gazed steadily at it, it seemed a star of hope, a protecting fire that was perhaps to go with them all their long journey through.
“The Indian’s camp, I suppose. And yet,” she asked herself, “is it? It might be the tent of the purple flame, and if it is, do they mean us good or ill?”
Sleep that night was long and refreshing. They awoke next morning with renewed courage. Before them lay great sweeping stretches of tundra. For days, without a single new adventure, they pushed on toward Fort Jarvis. Sometimes, beside a camp-fire of willows, Marian sat wondering how they were coming on with their race. Were Scarberry and his herd nearer the Fort than they? There was no way to tell. Traveling the trackless Arctic wilderness is like sailing the boundless sea. As a thousand ships might pass you by night or day, so a thousand herds, taking other courses, might pass this one on its way to Fort Jarvis and no owner know of the others passing.
Sometimes, too, she thought of those mysterious camp followers—the people of the purple flame. She no longer feared them; was curious about them, that was all. No longer did she catch the gleam of their light by night. Had they turned aside, gone back, or had they merely extinguished their unusual light?
The Indians, she thought, must have been left behind. They would not travel far from their hunting ground. They had been served, and had served in turn. Now they might safely be forgotten.
Then there came a time that called for all the courage and endurance their natures could command. One night they found themselves camped among the foothills of a range of mountains. The mountains, a row of alternating triangles of deep purple and light yellow, lay away to the east and at their peaks the snow, tossed high in air by the incessant gales that blew there, made each peak seem a smoking volcano.
“To-morrow,” said Terogloona, throwing out his hand in a sweeping gesture, “we must cross.”
“Is there no other way?” asked Patsy.
“Must do!” said Terogloona as he turned to the task of putting all in readiness.
Two o’clock in the afternoon of the following day found them engaged in a terrific battle with the blizzard that ever raged up the mountain pass which they must cross.
“‘Try not the pass,The old man said,The storm is lowering overhead,’”
“‘Try not the pass,
The old man said,
The storm is lowering overhead,’”
Patsy chanted bravely as, with snow encrusted head and with cheeks that must be rubbed incessantly to prevent them from freezing, she struggled forward.
A moment later, as a fiercer shock seemed about to lift her from her feet and hurl her down the mountain side, Marian heard her fairly shriek into the teeth of the gale:
“Excelsior! Excelsior!”
Many hard battles had Marian fought out on the tundra, but nothing had ever equalled this. The snow, seeming never to stop, shot past them, or in a wild whirling eddy dashed into their faces. The wind tore at them. Now it came in rude gusts, and now poured down some narrow pass with all the force of the waterfall. Only by bending low and leaping into it could they make progress.
The herd plunged stumblingly forward in a broad line. The dogs, incessantly at their heels, urged them forward. Terogloona, and even the brave Attatak, did all in their power to keep the herd moving.
“If they stop; oh, if they do!” panted Marian. “If they refuse to go on we are lost! If only we reach the summit I am sure we will be safe. It must be calm on the other side.”
Now Gold, the master collie, completely exhausted and blinded by the snow, came slinking back to his mistress. Marian rubbed the snow from the eyes of the faithful dog and, patting his side, bade him go back into the fight. Tears came to her eyes as the dog bravely returned to his task.
The time came at last when all three dogs seemed done in; when the deer all but stopped; when it seemed impossible that they might be kept moving another five minutes. Then it was that the indomitable Marian sank down upon her sled in the depths of despair.
“Look! Look!” cried Patsy, who had turned about to rub the frost from her cheeks. “Wolves! A whole pack of them!”
Marian wheeled about for one look; then, digging into her pack, drew forth her rifle.
“We’ll die fighting!” she murmured as she took steady aim at the foremost member of the pack that came tearing up the trail.
She was about to press the trigger when Patsy gave her arm a sudden pull.
“Wait!” she cried. “Wait! Those are not wolves. They’re dogs; great big, wonderful dogs!”
Troops of conflicting hopes and fears waged battle in Marian’s brain when she realized that the pack approaching them on the run up the trail in the teeth of the storm were not wolves, but dogs. There are two types of dogs in Alaska; one, more wolf than dog, is the native wolf dog. This type, once he is loosed, leaps at the throat of the first reindeer he sees. A pack of these dogs, in such a crisis as the girls were now facing, would not only destroy many of the feebly struggling, worn-out and helpless younger deer, but beyond doubt would drive the remainder of the herd into such a wild panic as would lose them to their owners forever.
Were the dogs of this or the other type—white men’s dogs, who treat the reindeer as they might cattle or sheep, and merely bark at them and drive them forward? If they were white men’s dogs they might save the day; for the barking of such a pack, as fresh for the struggle they appeared to be, would doubtless drive the exhausted deer to renewed efforts and carry them on over the top.
With bated breath and trembling heart Marian watched their approach. Once hope fell as she thought she caught the sharp ki-yi of a wolf dog. In this she must have been mistaken, for as they came closer she saw that they were magnificent shaggy-coated fellows, with an unmistakable collie strain in their blood.
“Oh!” she cried, “‘the chariots of the Lord, and the horsemen thereof.’”
It was a strange expression, but fitted the occasion so well that Patsy felt her heart give a great leap of joy.
Indeed the steeds of the Arctic, if not the horsemen, had come to their aid in a time of great need, and, passing them with a wild leap, the dogs burst upon the deer with a rush and roar that sent them forward by leaps and bounds.
Staggering forward, the girls followed as best they could. Now they were a thousand yards from the summit, now five hundred, now three, now two. And now the first deer were disappearing over the top. Enheartened by this, the others crowded forward until with one final rush they all passed over the top and started down on the other side.
Just as the girls reached the crest and were peering over the summit, a shrill whistle smote their ears. It sounded again, and yet again. There was a movement just before them. Then the snow-covered pack of dogs rushed pel-mel past them on the back trail down hill.
“Someone whistled to them. They are going back. How wonderfully they must be trained!” exclaimed Patsy.
“They were someone’s team,” Marian said slowly, as if for the first time realizing they had not really been sent direct from Heaven to save them. “They’re somebody’s team. He knew we were in trouble and turned the dogs loose to help us. I wonder who he could have been?”
For the present the question must remain unanswered. The herd had gone on before them. It was all important that they join them. So, having straightened out the draw-straps to their sleds, they began making their way down the hard packed and uncertain descent.
It was not long before they came upon the herd feeding on a little mountain plateau. Terogloona was already busy making camp, and Attatak thawing out food over a fire of tiny scrub fir trees.
“Isn’t it wonderful to think that the great struggle is over?” whispered Marian, contentedly, as they lounged on their sleeping bags an hour later. “This is really the worst of it, I hope. Fort Jarvis can’t be more than four days away now, over a smoother down trail.”
“If only we are in time!” sighed Patsy.
“We must be. Oh, we must!” exclaimed Marian passionately. “Surely it would be too much to struggle as we have, and then lose!”
Before Marian fell asleep she set her mind to meet any outcome of their adventure. She thought of the wonderful opportunities the sale of the herd would bring to her father and herself. Near some splendid school they must rent a bungalow. There she would keep house for him and go to school. In her mind she saw the wonderful roses that bloomed around their door-step, and pictured the glorious sunsets they would view from their back door.
“Perhaps, too,” she told herself, “Patsy could live with us for a year or two and attend my school.”
When she had pictured all this, she saw in her mind that the race had been lost; that Scarberry had sold his herd to the Canadian officials; that she was to turn the heads of her leading reindeer toward the home tundra.
With great difficulty at first, but with ever increasing enthusiasm, in her imagination she drove the herd all the way back to enter once more upon the wild, free, life of the herder.
“It really does not matter,” she told herself; “it’s really only for father. He is so lonely down there all by himself.”
In her heart of hearts she knew that it did matter, mattered a very great deal indeed. Brave girl that she was, she only prepared her mind for the shock that would come if the race were really lost.
Four days later the two girls found themselves approaching a small village of log cabins and long, low-lying buildings. This was Fort Jarvis. They had made the remainder of the journey in safety. Leaving their herd some ten miles from the Fort, where the deer would be safe, they had tramped in on snowshoes.
Marian found her heart fluttering painfully as her feet fell in the hard-packed village path. Had Scarberry been there? Was the race lost? Had the man of the purple flame been there? Had he anything to do with the deal?
Twice they asked directions of passing Indians. At last they knocked at a door. The door swung open and they found themselves inside a long, low room. At a table close to an open fire sat a man in uniform. He rose and bowed as they came toward him.
“You—you are the agent for the Canadian Government?” Marian faltered, addressing the man in uniform.
The man nodded his head and smiled a little welcome.
“You wish to buy a reindeer herd?” Marian asked the question point-blank.
“I believe,” the man answered quietly, “that I have already agreed to purchase one—”
“You—you—” Marian sank to a chair. The shock was too much.
“You see, the truth is,” smiled the Major, as though there had been no interruption, “I believe I have agreed to purchase your herd.”
“My herd!” exclaimed Marian, unable to believe her ears. “But how did you know of my herd—how did you know I was on the way? Who told you—”
“One question at a time, young lady,” laughed the Major. “I think I have a number of surprises for you. As to your first question, I will say that I have never heard of your herd until two days ago. That day, two days after the great storm, a half famished Indian reached Fort Jarvis, driving a splendid team of white men’s dogs. They had been hard driven.
“After we had fed him, he jerkily told us the story of your race against a man named Scarberry. He told us of the treatment you had given him; of your kindnesses to his people. Then he told of Scarberry. Told how Scarberry’s herd had been delayed and held up along the trail, and how he had tried to be of help to you. Then he told of your battle against the storm, and how, once you were safely over the pass, he had driven night and day to reach here. His hope was to get here ahead of any other herd and intercede for you. Such loyalty is not to be denied. And I told him that should your herd reach here in good shape, that I would give it preference, even should Scarberry get here ahead of you. I believe that answers one of your questions.”
“But how in the world did this Indian know that the Government had agreed to purchase a herd?” asked Marian.
“In the North,” answered the Major, “rumor flies fast, even over seemingly uninhabited places. And you may depend upon it that the Indian will know what is going on; even if he does have but little to say. Now, to business. I understand you have brought the herd with you?”
“Yes,” answered Marian, “they are at our camp about ten miles out.”
“Then we may consider the deal closed. There remains but to count the deer; to weed out those that are too old or too weak for the final drive, then to make out your order on our Government. We have Lapland herders who will assist in the work. You may rest here with us until the count is completed. After that I will see that you have guides and dog-teams for the passage south to the rail head.”
“Oh! how wonderful!” exclaimed Patsy, impulsively leaping to her feet. “But Bill Scarberry,” she asked suddenly, “did he really win?”
“No,” smiled the Major, “he has not yet been heard from. So you won the race after all.”
“Good!” exclaimed Patsy, “I could never have been happy again if we had lost, even if Marian did sell her herd.”
After a night’s rest at the post, Marian and Patsy felt like they had come into a new life. They had lain awake long into the night, exchanging excited whispers over their good luck. The next morning, as Marian was passing down the street, she noticed a dog team. There was something about the leader that looked familiar. One glance at the driver brought an exclamation of surprise to her lips. He was none other than the Indian she had saved from starvation, and who in turn had served as her guardian angel.
“That is the dog team that came to our rescue in the blizzard,” was her mental comment.
While she had been told the rest of the story by the Major, she preferred to have the story from the man’s own lips. She found him very reluctant to talk, but after his heart had been warmed by a splendid meal of boiled reindeer meat and coffee, he told his story from the time she had given him three of her reindeer until the present moment. Shortly after leaving her, he had come in with some of his own people who were well fed and prosperous. Knowing that the girls were headed straight for trouble, and feeling very grateful to them, he had persuaded one of these, his kinsmen, to go with him and to follow the reindeer herd with his team of white men’s dogs. It had been they who had driven the wolf-pack away and had left a rifle and ammunition for the girls. It was their dog team that had been released from the sled and had assisted in driving the reindeer herd over the mountain.
“But why did you do all this?” Marian asked.
The man looked at her for a moment in silence, then he asked: “Why did you give reindeer?”
“Because you were in need.”
“And you,” a faint smile played across his face, “you too were in need. Indian all same white man.”
Then Marian understood, and her heart was filled with a new love for all those strange people who inhabit the White Wilderness.
The next day, Marian and Patsy, together with the Major and his Lapland herders, went out to Marian’s camp and there began the business of sorting and counting the deer. This work continued for three days, and on the evening of the third day, leaving the herd in charge of the Lapland herders, Marian, Patsy and the Major, together with Terogloona and Attatak, started for Fort Jarvis by way of deer sled.
Topping a hill some two miles from Fort Jarvis, they suddenly came upon a tent. Just before they reached it, the interior became suddenly lighted with a strange purple flame. Marian halted her deer with an exclamation of surprise.
“The purple flame!” she gasped, and turning to the Major said: “I can stand this mystery no longer. Do you know who is in that tent?”
“Why yes, I think so,” said the Major. “I think it is Mr. Montgomery, an old prospector. He is well known throughout the North. Why do you ask?”
“I want to meet him,” said Marian. “Will you please come with me to his tent?”
A moment later a hearty old man came to the door of the tent in response to their call, and with a cheery smile acknowledged the Major’s introduction of Marian and Patsy, at once inviting them in.
Imagine Marian’s surprise, when upon entering the tent she saw a young girl of about her own age, seated at a radio sending set. And there, under the deft fingers of the girl operator, a crackling purple flash jumped back and forth across a wide spark gap.
“The girl of the purple flame,” gasped Patsy.
At sound of her voice the girl turned around and smiled a welcome. Marian turned to Mr. Montgomery:
“So you are the people of the purple flame.”
“Are we, indeed!” laughed the old Prospector.
“Yes,” said Marian, “and I thought all the while, back there in Alaska, that you were dogging our footsteps, and, to speak honestly, we feared you.”
“Well, well,” laughed the old gentleman. “So that was your reindeer camp. We thought all the while thatyouwere doggingourfootsteps.”
Then the old prospector launched into a long story that cleared up the entire mystery of the purple flame.
It appeared that in his youth he had been a prospector in Alaska and had found a very rich vein of gold. Ill health had overtaken him and he had been forced to return to the States. Years passed, and fortune and wealth had come to him, but the lure of searching for gold was still in his veins, and in the end he had come again to Alaska, thinking to find his mine. The years had somewhat dimmed his memory, and he had searched in vein for the lost mine. Moving from day to day, he had been just as surprised to note that Marian’s camp moved with him as was Marian to discover that his camp moved with hers. In time he had become suspicious, fearing that they were dogging his footsteps. He knew that he had been well known throughout the North in the past, and he feared that others knew of his lost mine.
“And that,” concluded Mr. Montgomery, “is the reason I never called at your camp.”
“And that radio set,” said Marian, “with its flash of purple flame, is the reason that I never called at your camp. There was something so mysterious about it all.”
The old prospector smiled. “I suppose,” he said, “that my having a sending and receiving radio set is a bit strange and perhaps a little mysterious. Certainly the set is a bit strange, for to my knowledge there is not another set like it in the country. It is very compact and yet most powerful. You see, my interests in the outside are very extensive, and it is necessary for me to keep in touch with them. By the use of this set, I can keep in touch with my agent in Nome, and he, in turn, can keep in touch with the States by use of the cable.
“It was the spark of my set, while sending, that made the purple colored flash which kept you so mystified. You know, most mysterious things become quite simple when you find out all about them.
“This radio has made it possible for me to come back and look for my lost mine. It’s the lure of the thing that draws me, not the desire for the gold.”
And then it was that Marian, remembering the treasures that she had found in the cave on the enchanted mountain, and feeling that she had something in common with this old prospector, told him her story.
As she told of the carved ivory, the old man’s eyes glowed with delight, and in the end he insisted that he go into Fort Jarvis with them that he might at least see the piece they had brought along and hear Terogloona’s story.
At the post old Terogloona, in a halting way, read the pictured inscription on the four sides. Other bits of information furnished by Terogloona convinced the old prospector that Terogloona’s great-uncle had been his guide in the days when he was first prospecting and had found the mine. Mr. Montgomery wanted to set out at once with Terogloona and Attatak for the cave on the mountain.
“Why,” he exclaimed, “that’s very near my lost mine, for I remember that my old guide, Terogloona’s great-uncle, spoke of the cave as a place where we might winter in safety, should winter come down upon us before we expected it.”
“How wonderful!” said Marian. “We have just completed the count and sale of our deer. Patsy and I are going back to the States, and I am sure Terogloona and Attatak will go with you. And you will be in good hands,” she added, giving both of the faithful servants a glowing smile.
The sale of the deer was successfully completed. After a much needed rest, the girls began the long journey to the “Outside.” So far were they from the strange cabin of the recluse musician, they were unable to return for the treasure they had taken from the mountain cave.
Many months passed, and then one day as the two girls returned from an afternoon of shopping in Chicago, Marian found a registered package awaiting her. From its bulk, and from the many post-marks upon it, she knew at once that it contained the long awaited ancient treasure.
Her fingers trembled as she undid the many wrappings. When at last she came to the treasure she found each piece separately wrapped. The copper instruments and the old ivory pieces were just as she had found them, tarnished and blackened with age.
“But what’s this?” she held up before Patsy’s astonished eyes a green bowl which gleamed in the light like a crystal.
“Why!” exclaimed Patsy, as she saw her cousin unpack another and another and yet another, “he has thought your old dishes were useless and has sent you some of his exquisite glassware instead.”
“How strange!” murmured Marian, ready to cry with disappointment. She had so hoped to surprise Mr. Cole, the Curator of the Museum, with rare pieces of ancient pottery such as had never before been brought from the Arctic; and here were only four pieces of glassware. How they had ever come to be here, she could not guess; but here they were.
“Look!” cried Patsy, “What a strange appearance they have when you hold them to the light! And see, two of them are blue and two are a tawny green, like huge cat’s eyes.”
“Wait!” said Marian, “here is a note from our aged friend.”
She unfolded it and read it aloud:
“Please pardon an old man’s fancy. I could not resist the temptation of polishing these up a bit. The very sight of them makes me envious. They are indeed a rare find. I have a guess as to what they are made of, but your friend the Curator will know.”
“So,” exclaimed Patsy, “they are the very dishes you found in the cave!”
“How very, very strange! We must have Mr. Cole come over at once,” said Marian, half beside herself with curiosity.