The j.a.p merely shrugged his shoulders.
"I have a way of doing what I am told not to, you should--" Johnny was about to say, "you should know that," but checked himself in time.
"Better not go," warned Hanada as he turned away.
After an early noon lunch Johnny strolled up the hill top. He wanted to get a view of the Strait. On particularly clear days, Cape Prince of Wales on the American side of Behring Strait can be seen from East Cape in Siberia. This day was clear, and, as Johnny climbed, he saw more and more of the peak as it lay across the Strait, above the white ice floes.
With trembling fingers he drew a one dollar bill from his pocket and spread it on his knee.
"There it is," he whispered. "There"s the place where you came from, little old one-spot. And I am going to take you back there. The Wandering Jew once stood here and saw his sweetheart in a mirage on the other side. He was afraid to cross. But he only had a sweetheart to call him. We"ve got that and a lot more. We"ve got a country calling us, the brightest, the best country on the map. And we dare try to go back. Once that dark line of water disappears we"ll be going."
Then questions began to crowd his brain. Would Hanada attempt the Strait at this time? What was his game anyway? Was he a member of the j.a.panese secret service detailed to follow the Russian, or was he traveling of his own accord? Except by special arrangement j.a.panese might not come to America. Was Hanada sneaking back this way? It did not seem like him.
Perhaps he would not cross at all.
Johnny"s eyes once more swept the broad expanse of drifting ice. Then his gaze became riveted on one spot. The band of black water had narrowed to a ribbon. This meant an onsh.o.r.e wind. Soon they would be able to cross from the solid sh.o.r.e ice to the drifting floe. Surely there could be no better time to cross the Strait. With the air clear and wind light, the crossing might be made in safety.
Even as he looked, Johnny saw a man leap the gap. Curiosity caused him to watch this man, whom he had taken for a Chukche hunter. Now he appeared, now disappeared, only to reappear again round an ice pile. But he behaved strangely for a hunter. Turning neither to right nor left, except to dodge ice piles, he forged straight ahead, as if guided by a compa.s.s. Soon it became apparent that he was starting on the trip across the Strait. Chukches did not attempt this journey. They had not sufficient incentive. Could it be the Russian? Johnny decided he must hurry down and tell Hanada. But, even as he rose, he saw a second person leap across the gap in the ice. This one at once started to trail the first man. There could be no mistaking that youthful springing step. It was Hanada in pursuit.
With cold perspiration springing out on his forehead, Johnny sat weakly down. He was being left behind, left behind by his friend, his cla.s.smate, the man who above all men he had thought could be depended upon. How could he interpret this?
For a time Johnny sat in gloomy silence, trying to form an answer to the problem; trying also to map out a program of his own.
Suddenly he sprang to his feet. He had remembered that there was some sort of party down in the village, which he had been invited not to attend, and he had meant to go. Perhaps it was not too late if he hurried. He raced down the hill and straight to the igloo he had been warned against entering. A strapping young buck was standing guard at the flaps.
"No go," he said as Johnny approached.
"Go," answered Johnny.
"No go," said the native, his voice rising.
"Go," retorted Johnny quietly.
He moved to pa.s.s the native. The latter put his hand out, and the next instant felt himself whirled about and shot spinning down the short steep slope which led from the igloo entrance. Johnny"s good right arm had done that.
As the American lad pushed back the flaps of the igloo and entered he stared for one brief second. Then he let out a howl and lunged forward.
Before him, in the center of the igloo stood the old man who had been so peacefully smoking his pipe two hours before. He was now standing on a box which raised him some three feet from the floor. About his neck was a skin rope. The rope, a strong one, was fastened securely to the cross poles of the igloo. A younger man had been about to kick the box away.
This same younger man suddenly felt the jar of something hard. It struck his chin. After that he felt nothing.
The fight was on. There were a dozen natives in the room. A brawny buck with a livid scar on his right cheek lunged at Johnny. He speedily joined his friend in oblivion. A third man leaped upon Johnny"s back.
Johnny went over like a bucking pony. Finally landing feet first upon the other"s abdomen, he left him to groan for breath. A little fellow sprang at him. Johnny opened his hand and slapped him nearly through the skin wall. They came; they went; until at last, very much surprised and quite satisfied, they allowed Johnny to cut the skin rope and help his old blind friend down.
A boy poked his head in at the flap. He had been a whaler and could speak English. He surveyed the room in silence for a moment, taking in each prostrate native.
"Now you have spoiled it," he told Johnny with a smile.
"I should say myself that I"d messed things up a bit," Johnny admitted, "but tell me what it"s all about. What did the poor old cuss do?"
"Do?" the boy looked puzzled. "That one do?"
"Sure. What did they want to hang him for? He was too old and feeble to do anything very terrible; besides he"s blind."
"Oh," said the boy smiling again. "He done not anything. Too old, that why. No work. All time eat. Better dead. That way think all my people.
All time that way."
Johnny looked at him in astonishment, then he said slowly:
"I guess I get you. In this commune, this tribe of yours, everyone does the best he can for the gang. When he is too old to work, fish or hunt, the best thing he can do is die, so you hang him. Am I right?"
"Sure a thing," replied the boy. "That"s just it."
Johnny shot back:
"No enjoying a ripe old age in this commune business?"
"No. Oh, no."
"Then I"m off this commune stuff forever," exclaimed Johnny. "The old order of things like we got back in the States is good enough for me.
And, I guess it"s not so old after all. It"s about the newest thing there is. This commune business belongs back in the stone age when primitive tribes were all the organizations there were."
He had addressed this speech to no one in particular. He now turned to the boy, a black frown on his brow.
"See here," he said sharply, "this man, no die, See? Live. See? All time live, see? No kill. You tell those guys that. Tell them I mebby come back one winter, one summer. Come back. Old man dead. I kill three of them. See?"
Johnny took out his automatic and played with it longingly.
"Tell them if they don"t act as if they mean to do what I say, I"ll shoot them now, three of them."
The boy interpreted this speech. Some of the men turned pale beneath their brown skins; some shifted uneasily. They all answered quickly.
"They say, all right," the boy explained solemnly. "Say that one, if had known you so very much like old man, no want-a hang that one."
"All right." Johnny smiled as he bowed himself out.
It was the first near-hanging he had ever attended and he hoped it would be the last. But as he came out into the clear afternoon air he drank in three full breaths, then said, slowly:
"Communism! Bah!"
Hardly had he said this than he began to realize that he had a move coming and a speedy one. He was in the real, the original, the only genuine No Man"s Land in the world. He was under the protection of no flag. The only law in force here was the law of the tribe. He had violated that law, defied it. He actually, for the moment, had set himself up as a dictator.
"Gee!" he muttered. "Wish I had time to be their king!"
But he didn"t have time, for in the first place, all the pangs of past homesick days were returning to urge him across the Strait. In the second place the mystery of the Russian and Hanada"s relation to him was calling for that action. And, in the third place, much as he might enjoy being king of the Chukches, he was quite sure he would never be offered that job. There would be reactions from this day"s business. The council of headmen would be called. Johnny would be discussed. He had committed an act of diplomatic indiscretion. He might be asked to leave these sh.o.r.es; and then again an executioner might be appointed for him, and a walrus lance thrust through his back.
Yes, he would move. But first he must see the j.a.p girl and ask about her plans. It would not do to desert her. Hurrying down the snow path, he came upon her at the entrance to her igloo.
Together they entered, and, sitting cross-legged on the deer skins by the seal oil lamp, they discussed their futures.