"I came here to be alone. I brought in food with a dog team. I built a cabin of logs, and here I lived for a year.
"One day a young man came up the river in a wonderful pleasure yacht and anch.o.r.ed at the foot of the rapids. Being a lover of music, he had built a pipe organ into his yacht; the one you heard last night."
"And did-did he die?" Marian asked, a little break coming in her voice.
"No," the old man smiled, "he tarried too long. Being a lover of nature-a hunter and an expert angler-and having found the most ideal spot in the world as long as summer lasted, he stayed on after the frosts and the first snow. I was away at the time, else I would have warned him. I returned the day after it happened. There had been a heavy freeze far up the river, then a storm came that broke the ice away. The ice came racing down over the rapids like mad and wrecked his wonderful yacht beyond all repair.
"We did as much as we could about getting the parts on sh.o.r.e; saved almost all but the hull. He stayed with me for a few days; then, becoming restless, traded me all there was left of his boat for my dog team.
"That winter, with the help of three Indians and their dogs, I brought the wreckage up here. Gradually, little by little, I have arranged it into the form of a home that is as much like a boat as a house. The organ was unimpaired, and here it sings to me every day of the great white winter."
He ceased speaking and for a long time was silent. When he spoke again his tones were mellow with kindness and a strange joy.
"I am seldom lonely now. The woods and waters are full of interesting secrets. Travellers, like you, come this way now and again. I try to be prepared to serve them; to be their friend."
"May-may I ask one question?" Marian suggested timidly.
"As many as you like."
"How did you know I was at the door last night when you were playing? You did not see me. You couldn"t have heard me."
"That," he smiled, "is a question I should like to ask someone myself; someone much wiser than I am. I knew you were there. I had been feeling your presence for more than an hour before you came. I knew I had an audience. I was playing for them. How did I know? I cannot tell. It has often been so before. Perhaps all human presence can be felt by some specially endowed persons. It may be that in the throngs of great cities the message of soul to soul is lost, just as a radio message is lost in a jumble of many messages sent at once.
"But then," he laughed, "why speculate? Life"s too short. Some things we must accept as they are. What"s more important to you is that your sleds are beyond the rapids. When breakfast is over, you can strap your sleeping bags on your deer and I will guide you over the trail around the rapids to the point where I left your sleds."
A look of consternation flashed over Marian"s face. She was thinking of the ancient dishes and how fragile they were. "I have some fragile articles in the sleeping bags," she said. "They-they might break!"
"Break?" He wore a puzzled look.
For a second she hesitated; then, rea.s.sured by the kindly face of the gentle old man, decided to tell him the story of their adventure in the cave. Then she launched into the story with all the eagerness of a discoverer.
"I see," he said, when she had finished the story. "I know just how you feel. However, there is now only one safe thing to do. Leave these treasures with me. If the rapids are frozen over when the time comes for the return trip, you can pa.s.s here and get them. You"ll always be welcome. Better leave an address to which they may be sent in case you should not pa.s.s this way. The rapids freeze over every winter. I will surely be able to get them off on the first river boat. They can be sent to any spot in the world. To attempt to pack them over on your deer would mean certain destruction."
Reluctant as Marian was to leave the treasure behind, she saw the wisdom of his advice. So, feeling a perfect confidence in him, she decided to leave her treasure in his care. Then she gave him her address at Nome, with instructions for shipping should she fail to return this way.
"One thing more I wanted to ask you," she said. "How many men are there at the Station?"
"One man; the trader. He stays there the year "round."
"One man!" she exclaimed.
"One is all. Time was when there were twenty. Prospectors, traders, Indians, trappers. Two years ago forest fires destroyed the timber. The game sought other feeding grounds and the trappers, traders and Indians went with them. Gold doesn"t seem to exist in the streams hereabouts, so the prospectors have left, too. Now one man keeps the post; sort of holding on, I guess, just to see if the old days won"t return."
"Do you suppose he could-could leave for a week or two?" Marian faltered.
"Guess not. Company wouldn"t permit it."
"Then-then-" Marian set her lips tight. She would not worry this kind old man with her troubles. The fact remained, however, that if there was but one man at the Station, and he could not leave, there was no one who could be delegated by the Government Agent to go back with her to help fight her battles against Scarberry.
Suddenly, as she thought of the weary miles they had travelled, of the hardships they had endured, and of the probability that they would, after all, fail in fulfilling their mission, she felt very weak and as one who has suddenly grown old.
CHAPTER XX A MESSAGE FROM THE AIR
A cup of perfect coffee, followed by a dash into the bracing Arctic morning, completely revived Marian"s spirits. Casting one longing look backward at the mysterious treasure of ancient dishes and old ivory, throwing doubt and discouragement to the winds, with energy and courage she set herself to face the problems of the day.
The pa.s.sing of the rapids by the overland trail was all that their host had promised. Struggling over rocky, snow-packed slopes; slipping, sliding, buffeted by strong winds, beaten back by swinging overhanging branches of ancient spruce and firs, they made their way pantingly forward until at last, with a little cry of joy, Marian saw their own sleds in the trail ahead.
"That"s over," she breathed. "How thankful I am that we did not attempt to make it with the sleds, or with our treasure on the backs of the deer.
There would not have been left a fragment of our dishes as big as a dime.
As for the sleds, well it simply couldn"t be done."
"_No-me_," sighed Attatak.
"I wonder how he could have brought them by the rapids?" Marian mused as she examined the sleds. There were flakes of ice frozen to the runners.
She could only guess at the method he had used, only dimly picture the struggle it must have taken. Even as she attempted to picture the night battle, a great wave of admiration and trust swept over her.
"The treasure is safer in his hands than in ours," she told herself.
"But, after it has left his hands?" questioned her doubting self.
"Oh well," she sighed at last, "what must be, will be. The important thing after all is to reach the station before the Agent has started on his way."
Again her brow clouded. What if there was no one to go back with her?
To dispel this doubt, she hastened to hitch her deer to her sled. Soon they were racing away over the trail, causing the last miles of their long journey to melt away like ice in the river before a spring thaw.
In the meantime a third startling revelation had come to Patsy. First she had discovered that at least one of the persons connected with the strange purple flame was a girl. Next she had found the red trail of blood that apparently was made by one of Marian"s slain deer, and which led to the door of their tent. The third discovery had nothing to do with the first two, nor with the purple flame. It was of a totally different nature, and was most encouraging.
"If only Marian were here!" she said to herself as she paced the floor after receiving the important message.
This message came to her over the radiophone. It was not meant particularly for her, nor for Marian. It was just news; not much more than a rumor, at that. Yet such news as it was, if only it were true!
Faint and far away, it came drifting in upon the air from some powerful sending station. Perhaps that station was Fairbanks, Dawson or Nome. She missed that part of the message.
Only this much came to her that night as she sat at their compact, powerful receiving set, beguiling the lonesome hours by catching s.n.a.t.c.hes of messages from near and far:
"Rumor has it that the Canadian Government plans the purchase of reindeer to be given to her Eskimo people on the north coast of the Arctic. Five or six hundred will be purchased as an experiment, if the plan carries.
It seems probable that the deer purchased will be procured in Alaska. It is thought possible to drive herds across the intervening s.p.a.ce and over the line from Alaska, and that in this way they may be purchased by the Canadian Agent on Canadian soil. A call for such herds may be issued later over the radio, as it is well known that many owners of herds have their camps equipped with radio-phones."
There the message ended. It had left Patsy in a fever of excitement.
Marian and her father wished to sell the herd. It was absolutely necessary to sell it if Marian"s hopes of continuing her education were not to be blasted. There was no market now for a herd in Alaska. In the future, as pastures grew scarcer, and as herds increased in numbers, there would be still less opportunity for a sale.
"What a wonderful opportunity!" Patsy exclaimed. "To sell the whole herd to a Government that would pay fair prices and cash! And what a glorious adventure! To drive a reindeer herd over hundreds of miles of rivers, forests, tundra, hills and mountains; to camp each night in some spot where perhaps no man has been before; surely that would be wonderful!