The Golden Snare Part 10

And for an hour after that he lay awake, thinking of Celie and of the great happiness that had come into his life all in one day. During that hour he made the plans of a lifetime. Then he, too, fell into sleep--a restless, uneasy slumber filled with many visions. For a time there had come a lull in the gale, but now it broke over the cabin in increased fury. A hand seemed slapping at the window, threatening to break it, and a volley of wind and snow shot suddenly down the chimney, forcing open the stove door, so that a shaft of ruddy light cut like a red knife through the dense gloom of the cabin. In varying ways the sounds played a part in Philip's dreams. In all those dreams, and segments of dreams, the girl was present. It was strange that in all of them she should be his wife. And it was strange that the big woods and the deep snows played no part in them. He was back home. And Celie was with him.

Once they went for wildflowers and were caught in a thunderstorm, and ran to an old and disused barn in the center of a field for shelter. He could feel Celie trembling against him, and he was stroking her hair as the thunder crashed over them and the lightning filled her eyes with fear. After that there came to him a vision of early autumn nights when they went corn-roasting, with other young people. He had always been afflicted with a slight nasal trouble, and smoke irritated him. It set him sneezing, and kept him dodging about the fire, and Celie was laughing as the smoke persisted in following him about, like a young scamp of a boy bent on tormenting him. The smoke was unusually persistent on this particular night, until at last the laughter went out of the girl's face, and she ran into his arms and covered his eyes with her soft hands. Restlessly he tossed in his bunk, and buried his face in the blanket that answered for a pillow. The smoke reached him; even there, and he sneezed chokingly. In that instant Celie's face disappeared. He sneezed again--and awoke.

In that moment his dazed senses adjusted themselves. The cabin was full of smoke. It partly blinded him, but through it he could see tongues of fire shooting toward the ceiling. He heard then the crackling of burning pitch--a dull and consuming roar, and with a stifled cry he leaped from his bunk and stood on his feet. Dazed by the smoke and flame, he saw that there was not the hundredth part of a second to lose. Shouting Celie's name he ran to her door, where the fire was already beginning to shut him out. His first cry had awakened her and she was facing the lurid glow of the flame as he rushed in. Almost before she could comprehend what was happening he had wrapped one of the heavy bear skins about her and had swept her into his arms. With her face crushed against his breast he lowered his head and dashed back into the fiery holocaust of the outer room. The cabin, with its pitch-filled logs, was like a box made of tinder, and a score of men could not have beat out the fire that was raging now. The wind beating from the west had kept it from reaching the door opening into the corral, but the pitch was hissing and smoking at the threshold as Philip plunged through the blinding pall and fumbled for the latch.

Not ten seconds too soon did he stagger with his burden out into the night. As the wind drove in through the open door the flames seemed to burst in a sudden explosion and the cabin was a seething snarl of flame. It burst through the window and out of the chimney and Philip's path to the open gate was illumined by a fiery glow. Not until he had pa.s.sed beyond the stockade to the edge of the forest did he stop and look back. Over their heads the wind wailed and moaned in the spruce tops, but even above that sound came the roar of the fire. Against his breast Philip heard a sobbing cry, and suddenly he held the girl closer, and crushed his face down against hers, fighting to keep back the horror that was gripping at his heart. Even as he felt her arms creeping up out of the bearskin and clinging about his neck he felt upon him like a weight of lead the hopelessness of a despair as black as the night itself. The cabin was now a pillar of flame, and in it was everything that had made life possible for them. Food, shelter, clothing--all were gone. In this moment he did not think of himself, but of the girl he held in his arms, and he strained her closer and kissed her lips and her eyes and her tumbled hair there in the storm-swept darkness, telling her what he knew was now a lie--that she was safe, that nothing could harm her. Against him he felt the tremble and throb of her soft body, and it was this that filled him with the horror of the thing--the terror of the thought that her one garment was a bearskin. He had felt, a moment before, the chill touch of a naked little foot.

And yet he kept saying, with his face against hers:

"It's all right, little sweetheart. We'll come out all right--we sure will!"

CHAPTER XVI

His first impulse, after those few appalling seconds following their escape from the fire, was to save something from the cabin. Still talking to Celie he dropped on his knees and tucked her up warmly in the bearskin, with her back to a tree. He thanked G.o.d that it was a big skin and that it enveloped her completely. Leaving her there he ran back through the gate. He no longer feared the wolves. If they had not already escaped into the forest he knew they would not attack him in that hot glare of the one thing above all others they feared--fire. For a s.p.a.ce thought of the Eskimos, and the probability of the fire bringing them from wherever they had sought shelter from the storm, was secondary to the alarming necessity which faced him. Because of his restlessness and his desire to be ready for any emergency he had not undressed when he threw himself on his bunk that night, but he was without a coat or cap. And Celie! He cried out aloud in his anguish when he stopped just outside the deadline of the furnace of flame that was once the cabin, and standing there with clenched hands he cursed himself for the carelessness that had brought her face to face with a peril deadlier than the menace of the Eskimos or Bram Johnson's wolves.

He alone was responsible. His indiscretion in overfilling the stove had caused the fire, and in that other moment--when he might have s.n.a.t.c.hed up more than the bearskin--his mind had failed to act.

In the short s.p.a.ce he stood there helplessly in the red heat of the fire the desperateness of the situation seared itself like the hot flame itself in his brain. As prisoners in Bram's cabin, guarded by the wolves and attacked by the Eskimos, they still had shelter, food, clothing--a chance to live, at least the chance to fight. And now--

He put a hand to his bare head and faced the direction of the storm.

With the dying away of the wind snow had begun to fall, and with this snow he knew there would come a rising temperature. It was probably twenty degrees below zero, and unless the wind went down completely his ears would freeze in an hour or two. Then he thought of the thick German socks he wore. One of them would do for a cap. His mind worked swiftly after that. There was, after all, a tremendous thrill in the thought of fighting the odds against him, and in the thought of the girl waiting for him in the bearskin, her life depending upon him utterly now. Without him she could not move from the tree where he had left her unless her naked feet buried themselves in the snow. If something happened to him--she would die. Her helplessness filled him suddenly with a wild exultation, the joy of absolute possession that leapt for an instant or two above his fears. She was something more--now--than the woman he loved. She was a little child, to be carried in his arms, to be sheltered from the wind and the cold until the last drop of blood had ceased to flow in his veins. His was the mighty privilege now to mother her until the end came for them both--or some miracle saved them. The last barrier was gone from between them.

That he had met her only yesterday was an unimportant incident now. The world had changed, life had changed, a long time had pa.s.sed. She belonged to him as utterly as the stars belonged to the skies. In his arms she would find life--or death.

He was braced for the fight. His mind, riding over its first fears, began to shape itself for action even as he turned back toward the edge of the forest. Until then he had not thought of the other cabin--the cabin which Bram and he had pa.s.sed on their way in from the Barren. His heart rose up suddenly in his throat and he wanted to shout. That cabin was their salvation! It was not more than eight or ten miles away, and he was positive that he could find it.

He ran swiftly through the increasing circle of light made by the burning logs. If the Eskimos had not gone far some one of them would surely see the red glow of the fire, and discovery now meant death. In the edge of the trees, where the shadows were deep, he paused and looked back. His hand fumbled where the left-pocket of his coat would have been, and as he listened to the crackling of the flames and stared into the heart of the red glow there smote him with sudden and sickening force a realization of their deadliest peril. In that twisting inferno of burning pitch was his coat, and in the left-hand pocket of that coat WERE HIS MATCHES!

Fire! Out there in the open a seething, twisting ma.s.s of it, taunting him with its power, mocking him as pitiless as the mirage mocks a thirst-crazed creature of the desert. In an hour or two it would be gone. He might keep up its embers for a time--until the Eskimos, or starvation, or still greater storm put an end to it. The effort, in any event, would be futile in the end. Their one chance lay in finding the other cabin, and reaching it quickly. When it came to the point of absolute necessity he could at least try to make fire as he had seen an Indian make it once, though at the time he had regarded the achievement as a miracle born of unnumbered generations of practice.

He heard the glad note of welcome in Celie's throat when he returned to her. She spoke his name. It seemed to him that there was no note of fear in her voice, but just gladness that he had come back to her in that pit of darkness. He bent down and tucked her snugly in the big bear-skin before he took her up in his arms again. He held her so that her face was snuggled close against his neck, and he kissed her soft mouth again, and whispered to her as he began picking his way through the forest. His voice, whispering, made her understand that they must make no sound. She was tightly imprisoned in the skin, but all at once he felt one of her hands work its way out of the warmth of it and lay against his cheek. It did not move away from his face. Out of her soul and body there pa.s.sed through that contact of her hand the confession that made him equal to fighting the world. For many minutes after that neither of them spoke. The moan of the wind was growing less and less in the treetops, and once Philip saw a pale break where the clouds had split asunder in the sky. The storm was at an end--and it was almost dawn. In a quarter of an hour the shot like snow of the blizzard had changed to big soft flakes that dropped straight out of the clouds in a white deluge. By the time day came their trail would be completely hidden from the eyes of the Eskimos. Because of that Philip traveled as swiftly as the darkness and the roughness of the forest would allow him. As nearly as he could judge he kept due east. For a considerable time he did not feel the weight of the precious burden in his arms. He believed that they were at least half a mile from the burned cabin before he paused to rest. Even then he spoke to Celie in a low voice.

He had stopped where the trunk of a fallen tree lay as high as his waist, and on this he seated the girl, holding her there in the crook of his arm. With his other hand he fumbled to see if the bearskin protected her fully, and in the investigation his hand came in contact again with one of her bare feet. Celie gave a little jump. Then she laughed, and he made sure that the foot was snug and warm before he went on.

Twice in the nest half mile he stopped. The third time, a full mile from the cabin, was in a dense growth of spruce through the tops of which snow and wind did not penetrate. Here he made a nest of spruce-boughs for Celie, and they waited for the day. In the black interval that precedes Arctic dawn they listened for sounds that might come to them. Just once came the wailing howl of one of Bram's wolves, and twice Philip fancied that he heard the distant cry of a human voice. The second time Celie's fingers tightened about his own to tell him that she, too, had heard.

A little later, leaving Celie alone, Philip went back to the edge of the spruce thicket and examined closely their trail where it had crossed a bit of open. It was not half an hour old, yet the deluge of snow had almost obliterated the signs of their pa.s.sing. His one hope was that the snowfall would continue for another hour. By that time there would not be a visible track of man or beast, except in the heart of the thickets. But he knew that he was not dealing with white men or Indians now. The Eskimos were night-trackers and night-hunters. For five months out of every twelve their existence depended upon their ability to stalk and kill in darkness. If they had returned to the burning cabin it was possible, even probable, that they were close on their heels now.

For a second time he found himself a stout club. He waited, listening, and straining his eyes to penetrate the thick gloom; and then, as his own heart-beats came to him audibly, he felt creeping over him a slow and irresistible foreboding--a premonition of something impending, of a great danger close at hand. His muscles grew tense, and he clutched the club, ready for action.

CHAPTER XVII

It seemed to Philip, as he stood with the club ready in his hand, that the world had ceased to breathe in its antic.i.p.ation of the thing for which he was waiting--and listening. The wind had dropped dead. There was not a rustle in the tree-tops, not a sound to break the stillness.

The silence, so close after storm, was an Arctic phenomenon which did not astonish him, and yet the effect of it was almost painfully gripping. Minor sounds began to impress themselves on his senses--the soft murmur of the falling snow, his own breath, the pounding of his heart. He tried to throw off the strange feeling that oppressed him, but it was impossible. Out there in the darkness he would have sworn that there were eyes and ears strained as his own were strained. And the darkness was lifting. Shadows began to disentangle themselves from the gray chaos. Trees and bushes took form, and over his head the last heavy windrows of clouds shouldered their way out of the sky.

Still, as the twilight of dawn took the place of night, he did not move, except to draw himself a little closer into the shelter of the scrub spruce behind which he had hidden himself. He wondered if Celie would be frightened at his absence. But he could not compel himself to go on--or back. SOMETHING WAS COMING! He was as positive of it as he was of the fact that night was giving place to day. Yet he could see nothing--hear nothing. It was light enough now for him to see movement fifty yards away, and he kept his eyes fastened on the little open across which their trail had come. If Olaf Anderson the Swede had been there he might have told him of another night like this, and another vigil. For Olaf had learned that the Eskimos, like the wolves, trail two by two and four by four, and that--again like the wolves--they pursue not ON the trail but with the trail between them.

But it was the trail that Philip watched; and as he kept his vigil--that inexplicable mental undercurrent telling him that his enemies were coming--his mind went back sharply to the girl a hundred yards behind him. The acuteness of the situation sent question after question rushing through his mind, even as he gripped his club, For her he was about to fight. For her he was ready to kill, and not afraid to die. He loved her. And yet--she was a mystery. He had held her in his arms, had felt her heart beating against his breast, had kissed her lips and her eyes and her hair, and her response had been to place herself utterly within the shelter of his arms. She had given herself to him and he was possessed of the strength of one about to fight for his own. And with that strength the questions pounded again in his head. Who was she? And for what reason were mysterious enemies coming after her through the gray dawn?

In that moment he heard a sound. His heart stood suddenly still. He held his breath. It was a sound almost indistinguishable from the whisper of the air and the trees and yet it smote upon his senses like the detonation of a thunder-clap. It was more of a PRESENCE than a sound. The trail was clear. He could see to the far side of the open now, and there was no movement. He turned his head--slowly and without movement of his body, and in that instant a gasp rose to his lips, and died there. Scarcely a dozen paces from him stood a poised and hooded figure, a squat, fire-eyed apparition that looked more like monster than man in that first glance. Something acted within him that was swifter than reason--a sub-conscious instinct that works for self-preservation like the flash of powder in a pan. It was this sub-conscious self that received the first photographic impression--the strange poise of the hooded creature, the uplifted arm, the cold, streaky gleam of something in the dawn-light, and in response to that impression Philip's physical self crumpled down in the snow as a javelin hissed through the s.p.a.ce where his head and shoulders had been.

So infinitesimal was the s.p.a.ce of time between the throwing of the javelin and Philip's movement that the Eskimo believed he had transfixed his victim. A scream of triumph rose in his throat. It was the Kogmollock sakootwow--the blood-cry, a single shriek that split the air for a mile. It died in another sort of cry. From where he had dropped Philip was up like a shot. His club swung through the air and before the amazed hooded creature could dart either to one side or the other it had fallen with crushing force. That one blow must have smashed his shoulder to a pulp. As the body lurched downward another blow caught the hooded head squarely and the beginning of a second cry ended in a sickening grunt. The force of the blow carried Philip half off his feet, and before he could recover himself two other figures had rushed upon him from out of the gloom. Their cries as they came at him were like the cries of beasts. Philip had no time to use his club. From his unbalanced position he flung himself upward and at the nearest of his enemies, saving himself from the upraised javelin by clinching. His fist shot out and caught the Eskimo squarely in the mouth. He struck again--and the javelin dropped from the Kogmollock's hand. In that moment, every vein in his body pounding with the rage and excitement of battle, Philip let out a yell. The end of it was stifled by a pair of furry arms. His head snapped back--and he was down.

A thrill of horror shot through him. It was the one unconquerable fighting trick of the Eskimos--that neck hold. Caught from behind there was no escape from it. It was the age-old sasaki-wechikun, or sacrifice-hold, an inheritance that came down from father to son--the Arctic jiu-jitsu by which one Kogmollock holds the victim helpless while a second cuts out his heart. Flat on his back, with his head and shoulders bent under him, Philip lay still for a single instant. He heard the shrill command of the Eskimo over him--an exhortation for the other to hurry up with the knife. And then, even as he heard a grunting reply, his hand came in contact with the pocket which held Celie's little revolver. He drew it quickly, c.o.c.ked it under his back, and twisting his arm until the elbow-joint cracked, he fired. It was a chance shot. The powder-flash burned the murderous, thick-lipped face in the sealskin hood. There was no cry, no sound that Philip heard. But the arms relaxed about his neck. He rolled over and sprang to his feet.

Three or four paces from him was the Eskimo he had struck, crawling toward him on his hands and knees, still dazed by the blows he had received. In the snow Philip saw his club. He picked it up and replaced the revolver in his pocket. A single blow as the groggy Eskimo staggered to his feet and the fight was over.

It had taken perhaps three or four minutes--no longer than that. His enemies lay in three dark and motionless heaps in the snow. Fate had played a strong hand with him. Almost by a miracle he had escaped and at least two of the Eskimos were dead.

He was still watchful, still guarding against a further attack, and suddenly he whirled to face a figure that brought from him a cry of astonishment and alarm. It was Celie. She was standing ten paces from him, and in the wild terror that had brought her to him she had left the bearskin behind. Her naked feet were buried in the snow. Her arms, partly bared, were reaching out to him in the gray Arctic dawn, and then wildly and moaningly there came to him--

"Philip--Philip--"

He sprang to her, a choking cry on his own lips. This, after all, was the last proof--when she had thought that their enemies were killing him SHE HAD COME TO HIM. He was sobbing her name like a boy as he ran back with her in his arms. Almost fiercely he wrapped the bearskin about her again, and then crushed her so closely in his arms that he could hear her gasping faintly for breath. In that wild and glorious moment he listened. A cold and leaden day was breaking over the world and as they listened their hearts throbbing against each other, the same sound came to them both.

It was the sakootwow--the savage, shrieking blood-cry of the Kogmollocks, a scream that demanded an answer of the three hooded creatures who, a few minutes before, had attacked Philip in the edge of the open. The cry came from perhaps a mile away. And then, faintly, it was answered far to the west. For a moment Philip pressed his face down to Celie's. In his heart was a prayer, for he knew that the fight had only begun.

CHAPTER XVIII

That the Eskimos both to the east and the west were more than likely to come their way, converging toward the central cry that was now silent, Philip was sure. In the brief interval in which he had to act he determined to make use of his fallen enemies. This he impressed on Celie's alert mind before he ran back to the scene of the fight. He made no more than a swift observation of the field in these first moments--did not even look for weapons. His thought was entirely of Celie. The smallest of the three forms on the snow was the Kogmollock he had struck down with his club. He dropped on his knees and took off first the sealskin bashlyk, or hood. Then he began stripping the dead man of his other garments. From the fur coat to the caribou-skin moccasins they were comparatively new. With them in his arms he hurried back to the girl.

It was not a time for fine distinctions. The clothes were a G.o.dsend, though they had come from a dead man's back, and an Eskimo's at that.

Celie's eyes shone with joy. It amazed him more than ever to see how unafraid she was in this hour of great danger. She was busy with the clothes almost before his back was turned.

He returned to the Eskimos. The three were dead. It made him shudder--one with a tiny bullet hole squarely between the eyes, and the others crushed by the blows of the club. His hand fondled Celie's little revolver--the pea-shooter he had laughed at. After all it had saved his life. And the club--

He did not examine too closely there. From the man he had struck with his naked fist he outfitted himself with a hood and temiak, or coat. In the temiak there were no pockets, but at the waist of each of the dead men a narwhal skin pouch which answered for all pockets. He tossed the three pouches in a little heap on the snow before he searched for weapons. He found two knives and half a dozen of the murderous little javelins. One of the knives was still clutched in the hand of the Eskimo who was creeping up to disembowel him when Celie's revolver saved him. He took this knife because it was longer and sharper than the other.

On his knees he began to examine the contents of the three pouches. In each was the inevitable roll of babiche, or caribou-skin cord, and a second and smaller waterproof narwhal bag in which were the Kogmollock fire materials. There was no food. This fact was evident proof that the Eskimos were in camp somewhere in the vicinity. He had finished his investigation of the pouches when, looking up from his kneeling posture, he saw Celie approaching.

In spite of the grimness of the situation he could not repress a smile as he rose to greet her. At fifty paces, even with her face toward him, one would easily make the error of mistaking her for an Eskimo, as the sealskin bashlyk was so large that it almost entirely concealed her face except when one was very close to her. Philip's first a.s.sistance was to roll back the front of the hood. Then he pulled her thick braid out from under the coat and loosed the shining glory of her hair until it enveloped her in a wonderful shimmering mantle. Their enemies could not mistake her for a man NOW, even at a hundred yards. If they ran into an ambuscade she would at least be saved from the javelins.

Celie scarcely realized what he was doing. She was staring at the dead men--silent proof of the deadly menace that had threatened them and of the terrific fight Philip must have made. A strange note rose in her throat, and turning toward him suddenly she flung herself into his arms. Her own arms encircled his neck, and for a s.p.a.ce she lay shudderingly against his breast, as if sobbing. How many times he kissed her in those moments Philip could not have told. It must have been a great many. He knew only that her arms were clinging tighter and tighter about his neck, and that she was whispering his name, and that his hands were buried in her soft hair. He forgot time, forgot the possible cost of precious seconds lost. It was a small thing that recalled him to his senses. From out of a spruce top a handful of snow fell on his shoulder. It startled him like the touch of a strange hand, and in another moment he was explaining swiftly to Celie that there were other enemies near and that they must lose no time in flight.

He fastened one of the pouches at his waist, picked up his club, and--on second thought--one of the Kogmollock javelins. He had no very definite idea of how he might use the latter weapon, as it was too slender to be of much avail as a spear at close quarters. At a dozen paces he might possibly throw it with some degree of accuracy. In a Kogmollock's hand it was a deadly weapon at a hundred paces. With the determination to be at his side when the next fight came Celie possessed herself of a second javelin. With her hand in his Philip set out then due north through the forest.

It was in that direction he knew the cabin must lay. After striking the edge of the timber after crossing the Barren Bram Johnson had turned almost directly south, and as he remembered the last lap of the journey Philip was confident that not more than eight or ten miles had separated the two cabins. He regretted now his carelessness in not watching Brain's trail more closely in that last hour or two. His chief hope of finding the cabin was in the discovery of some landmark at the edge of the Barren. He recalled distinctly where they had turned into the forest, and in less than half an hour after that they had come upon the first cabin.

Their immediate necessity was not so much the finding of the cabin as escape from the Eskimos. Within half an hour, perhaps even less, he believed that other eyes would know of the fight at the edge of the open. It was inevitable. If the Kogmollocks on either side of them struck the trail before it reached the open they would very soon run upon the dead, and if they came upon footprints in the snow this side of the open they would back-trail swiftly to learn the source and meaning of the cry of triumph that had not repeated itself. Celie's little feet, clad in moccasins twice too big for her, dragged in the snow in a way that would leave no doubt in the Eskimo mind. As Philip saw the situation there was one chance for them, and only one. They could not escape by means of strategy. They could not hide from their pursuers. Hope depended entirely upon the number of their enemies. If there were only three or four of them left they would not attack in the open. In that event he must watch for ambuscade, and dread the night.

He looked down at Celie, buried in her furry coat and hood and plodding along courageously at his side with her hand in his. This was not a time in which to question him, and she was obeying his guidance with the faith of a child. It was tremendous, he thought--the most wonderful moment that had ever entered into his life. It is this dependence, this sublime faith and confidence in him of the woman he loves that gives to a man the strength of a giant in the face of a great crisis and makes him put up a tiger's fight for her. For such a woman a man must win.

And then Philip noticed how tightly Celie's other hand was gripping the javelin with which she had armed herself. She was ready to fight, too.