Meanwhile the man who had floundered free from the hammock, leaped overboard and came hopping stiffly over the slush toward us like a badly-winged snipe.
"Who are you?" I demanded, drawing bridle so suddenly that I found myself astride of my mule"s ears. Sliding back into the saddle, I repeated the challenge haughtily, inwardly cursing my horsemanship.
He stood balancing his lank six feet six of bony alt.i.tude for a few moments without replying. His large gentle eyes of baby blue were fixed on me.
"Speak!" I said. "The reputation of a lady is at stake! Who are you? We ask, before we shoot you, for purpose of future identification."
He gazed at me wildly. "I dunno who I be," he replied. "My name _was_ James Skaw before that there lady went an" changed it on me. She says she has changed my name to hers. I dunno. All I know is I"m married."
"_Married!_" echoed Dr. Delmour.
He looked dully at the girl, then fixed his large mild eyes on me.
"A mission priest done it for her a month ago when we was hikin" towards Fort Carcajou. Hoon-hel are you?" he added.
I informed him with dignity; he blinked at me, at the others, at the mules. Then he said with infinite bitterness:
"You"re a fine guy, ain"t you, a-wishin" this here lady onto a pore pelt-hunter what ain"t never done nothin" to you!"
"Who did you say I wished on you?" I demanded, bewildered.
"That there lady a-sleepin" into the nuptool hammick! You wished her onto me--yaas you did! Whatnhel have I done to you, hey?"
We were dumb. He shoved his hand into his pocket, produced a slug of twist, slowly gnawed off a portion, and buried the remains in his vast jaw.
"All I done to you," he said, "was to write you them letters sayin"s as how I found a lot of ellerphants into the mud.
"What you done to me was to send that there lady here. Was that grat.i.tood? Man to man I ask you?"
A loud snore from the hammock startled us all. James Skaw twisted his neck turkey-like, and looked warily at the hammock, then turning toward me:
"Aw," he said, "she don"t never wake up till I have breakfast ready."
"James Skaw," I said, "tell me what has happened. On my word of honor I don"t know."
He regarded me with lack-l.u.s.tre eyes.
"I was a-settin" onto a bowlder," said he, "a-fig-urin" out whether you was a-comin" or not, when that there lady rides up with her led-mule a trailin".
"Sez she: "Are you James Skaw?"
"Yes, marm," sez I, kinder scared an" puzzled.
""Where is them ellerphants?" sez she, reachin" down from her saddle an"
takin" me by the shirt collar, an" beatin" me with her umbrella.
"Sez I, "I have wrote to a certain gent that I would show him them ellerphants for a price. Bein" strictly hones" I can"t show "em to no one else until I hear from him."
"With that she continood to argoo the case with her umbrella, never lettin" go of my shirt collar. Sir, she argood until dinner time, an"
then she resoomed the debate until I fell asleep. The last I knowed she was still conversin".
"An" so it went next day, all day long, an" the next day. I couldn"t stand it no longer so I started for Fort Carcajau. But she bein" onto a mule, run me down easy, an" kep" beside me conversin" volooble.
"Sir, do you know what it is to listen to umbrella argooment every day, all day long, from sun-up to night-fall? An" then some more?
"I was loony, I tell you, when we met the mission priest. "Marry me," sez she, "or I"ll talk you to death!" I didn"t realise what she was sayin"
an" what I answered. But them words I uttered done the job, it seems.
"We camped there an" slep" for two days without wakin." When I waked up I was convalescent.
"She was good to me. She made soup an" she wrapped blankets onto me an"
she didn"t talk no more until I was well enough to endoor it.
"An" by"m"by she brooke the nooze to me that we was married an" that she had went as far as to marry me in the sacred cause of science because man an" wife is one, an" what I knowed about them ellerphants she now had a right to know.
"Sir, she had put one over on me. So bein" strickly hones" I had to show her where them ellerphants lay froze up under the marsh."
V
Where the ambition of this infatuated woman had led her appalled us all.
The personal sacrifice she had made in the name of science awed us.
Still when I remembered that detaining arm sleepily lifted from the nuptual hammock, I was not so certain concerning her continued martyrdom.
I cast an involuntary glance of critical appraisal upon James Skaw. He had the golden hair and beard of the early Christian martyr. His features were cla.s.sically regular; he stood six feet six; he was lean because fit, sound as a hound"s tooth, and really a superb specimen of masculine health.
Curry him and trim him and clothe him in evening dress and his physical appearance would make a sensation at the Court of St. James. Only his English required manicuring.
The longer I looked at him the better I comprehended that detaining hand from the hammock. _Fabas indulcet fames_.
Then, with a shock, it rushed over me that there evidently had been some ground for this man"s letters to me concerning a herd of frozen mammoths.
Professor Bottomly had not only married him to obtain the information but here she was still camping on the marsh!
"James Skaw," I said, tremulously, "where are those mammoths?"
He looked at me, then made a vague gesture:
"Under the mud--everywhere--all around us."
"Has _she_ seen them?"
"Yes, I showed her about a hundred. There"s one under you. Look! you can see him through the slush."
"Ach Gott!" burst from Dr. Fooss, and he tottered in his saddle. Lezard, frightfully pale, pa.s.sed a shaking hand over his brow. As for me my hair became dank with misery, for there directly under my feet, the vast hairy bulk of a mammoth lay dimly visible through the muddy ice.