The Blue Envelope Part 27

Fearing a trick Phi turned the man over and sat upon his chest, pinning his hands to the ground. But he was unconscious; there was no mistaking that.

"That's queer," perplexedly. "I didn't do anything to him that I know of. Wasn't thrown hard or anything."

He bent over to gather up a handful of snow with which to rub the native's brow, when he caught an old, familiar odor.

Just then the dog came limping up. "Rover, old boy," Phi smiled a queer sort of smile, "we're not beyond the reaches of the civilized white man. This fellow's drunk. Hooch. In other words, moonshine; I smell it on his breath. That's why he was throwing stones at us.

Crazy drunk, that's all. Now he's gone dead on us, like a flivver run out of gas."

The dog smelled of the man and growled.

"Don't like it, do you? Most honest men and dogs don't. Moonshine's no good for anybody. And now, just for that, we're in for something of a task. This fellow'd lie here until he froze stiff as a mastodon tusk if we'd let him, but we can't afford to let him, even if he did pelt us with rocks. We've got to get him on his feet somehow and make him 'walk the dog' till he sweats some of that hooch out of him."

As he looked the man over for a knife which might prove dangerous once he was roused from his stupor. Phi realized that he was not on the mainland of America. This man's costume was quite unlike that of the Diomeders. He wore a shirt of eiderduck skins such as was never seen on the Little Diomede, and his outer garments of short-haired deerskin, instead of being composed of parka and trousers were all of one piece.

"Wherever we are," he said to the dog, "we'll know what's what in an hour or two."

After witnessing the strange actions of the group of natives as they cl.u.s.tered in about the boarded-up house, with wildly beating hearts Lucile and Marian took their places back a little in the shadows, where they could not be seen but could still watch the wild antics of their strange visitors.

"What does it mean?" whispered Marian.

"I can't even guess," Lucile whispered back. "Something terrible though, I am sure."

By this time the entire group were circling the house, and their wild shrill cadent song rose high and loud:

"Ki--yi--yi--um--Ah! Ah! Ah! I--I--I!"

The single dancer tore his hair again and again, and repeated his mad gesticulations.

Only one figure stood back impa.s.sive--not singing and not taking any part in the weird demonstration.

Suddenly, at a sign from the wild-haired leader, all the singing ceased. He uttered a few words apparently of command, then waved his scrawny arms toward the house.

A wild shout rent the air. All the natives, save the impa.s.sive one, sprang to their feet and started toward their village. But now the impa.s.sive one leaped up and tried to check them, to drive them back.

As well attempt to stop a torrent with the open hand. They pushed him aside and hurried on.

The next moment the girls heard a pounding at the door, but dared not open it.

"What does it mean? What _can_ it mean?" They kept asking one another.

Presently the mad group came racing back. Some bore on their shoulders poles and boards hastily torn from their caches. Two others were staggering under a load which appeared to be a sealskin filled with some liquid.

"Seal-oil!" said Lucile. "What--" and then the full meaning of it came to her like a flash. "Marian!" she said in an almost inaudible whisper, "they mean to burn the cabin. That's what the wood and oil are for--to start the fire!"

The words were hardly out of her mouth when Marian gripped her arm.

"Look!" she cried.

A dense black smoke was rolling past the window.

Roused by her cry, the crippled Eskimo boy sprang upon his one well foot and came hopping toward them.

One look at the smoke, at the madly dancing old man, and he hopped for the door. Throwing the pole to the floor, he hopped outside and away.

"He's gone! Deserted us!"

"What does it matter now?" Lucile covered her face with her hands.

"But look!" cried Marian.

The boy had hopped out into the howling, dancing circle. The howling had ceased. He had tumbled to a sitting position on the snow, but was speaking and motioning with his hands. Once he pointed at his bandaged foot. Twice he put his hands to his mouth, as if to mimic eating.

Then he sprang nimbly upon his one foot and would have leaped toward the now raging fire, but the one who had been first impa.s.sive, then had attempted to restrain the mad throng, restrained him, for the others, leaping at the fire, threw it hither and yon, stamping out with their feet the blaze that had already begun eating its way into the building.

It was all over in a minute. Then the two girls sank down upon the floor, dizzy and sick, wondering what it was all about.

Phi found that to rouse the native from his drunken stupor was no easy task. After rubbing the man's forehead with snow, he stood him on his feet and attempted to compel him to walk. Finding this impossible, he worked his arms back and forth, producing artificial respiration.

At last his efforts were rewarded; the man opened his eyes and stared dully up at him. For some time he lay there motionless. Then, with a wild light of terror in his eye, he struggled to his feet and attempted to flee. His wabbly legs would not support him. He tumbled to the earth, only to try it again. Rover ran barking after him.

"Let him alone," smiled Phi. "As long as he is not in danger of harming himself, let him work. He's doing as much as we could do for him. He'll work it out of his system."

In spite of his muddled state the fellow appeared to possess a sense of direction, for the boy soon found that he had come upon a narrow path leading along the cliff at a safe distance from its edge.

As he stumbled forward, the native's falls became less frequent.

"Sobering up," was Phi's mental comment. "We'll soon strike a place where the path leads down the side of the cliff. I wonder if he can make that alone or will he break his neck?"

Suddenly the man disappeared from view.

"That," said Phi to the dog, "means there's a path leading directly down, probably to some village. If it is a village there are natives there--perhaps hundreds of them. They have seen white men at one time or another. They may have been badly treated by them and may be hostile to them. If one were to judge by the action of this fellow he must conclude that they are.

"But that cannot influence our action in any way. If we stay up here and live on birds they'll find us sooner or later. Might as well go down; the quicker the better, too, for this drunken fellow will doubtless give a weird and terrible account of us."

At that he raced along the cliff-top path and the next moment found himself slipping and sliding down a zig-zagging trail which led down the hillside.

He was halfway down before he caught the first glimpse of the village.

Beneath him lay some brown cubes which he knew to be boxlike upper stories to the houses of the natives.

"That settles one thing," he murmured. "They're islanders. The natives of Russia build their homes of poles, deerskin and walrus-skin, tepee fashion; the American natives use logs and sod. Only islanders build them of rocks."

For a moment his courage failed him. He was a boy on an island somewhere in the Arctic, his only companion an old and harmless dog, his only weapon a hunting knife; and he was about to enter a village filled with natives.

"Perhaps," he said slowly, looking down into the trusting eyes of the dog, "we had better wait. They may all be on a grand spree. And if they are it won't be safe. Whatever they may be when they're sober, they'll be dangerous enough when drunk."

But the peaceful quiet of the village, as it lay there some hundreds of feet below, rea.s.sured him.

"Come on, old boy," he said at last, "we'll chance it."