Chapter XXII: A Fruitless Journey

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!”