The Heart of Unaga Part 32

"And this fire? Where did it come from?" he demanded, with a seriousness he by no means felt.

Oolak met his gaze with a look of appeal.

"The earth all fire," he said. "The hills, the valleys, the trees. All same. Him fire everywhere. Oh, yes. It run so as water. It fill 'em up all things--everywhere. An' it burn all up. Not boss Steve an' Julyman.

Oh, no."

Steve meditated awhile. Oolak needed an interpretation of his dream, or, anyway, must listen to the voice of comfort. He understood this as he gazed upon the partially crippled body of the man who was still a giant on the trail.

The pa.s.sing of years had touched Steve lightly enough. Time might almost have stood still altogether. A few grey hairs about the temples. A thinning of his dark hair perhaps. Then the lines of his face had perhaps deepened. But in the fourteen years that had elapsed since his return to Unaga the raw muscle and the powerful frame of his youthful body had only gained in ma.s.s and left him the more capable of withstanding the demands which his life on the merciless plateau made upon his endurance.

Julyman, too, was much the Julyman of bygone years. The only change in him was that opportunity had robbed him of many of those lapses he had been wont to indulge in. But he was still no nearer the glory of a halo.

Oolak alone displayed the wear and tear of the life that was theirs. His body was slightly askew from the disaster of the return from the first visit to Unaga, and one leg was shorter than the other. But the effect of these things was only in appearance. His vigour of body remained unimpaired. His silence was even more profound. And his mastery of the trail dogs left him a source of endless admiration to his companions.

Steve dipped some tea into a pannikin.

"Oolak had a nightmare, I guess," he said, feeling that a gentle ridicule could do no harm.

Julyman grinned his relief that the white man saw nothing serious in that which all Indians regard as the voice of the spirits haunting their world.

"Oolak eat plenty, much," he observed slyly.

Steve helped himself to meat from the pan and dipped some beans from the camp kettle beside the fire.

"Dreams are d.a.m.n-fool things, anyway," he said. Then he laughed, "Guess we've dreamed dreams these fourteen years. And we're still sitting around waiting for things to happen."

Despite his concern Oolak tore at the meat with his sharp teeth, and ate with noisy satisfaction.

"Him all fire. Burn up all things. Oh, yes. Bimeby we find him," he said doggedly.

Steve was in the act of drinking. He paused, his pannikin remaining poised.

"You guess----"

"Him fire," said Oolak, wiping the grease from his lips on the sleeve of his furs. "Him big fires. Oolak know. Him not eat plenty. Him see this thing. The spirits show him so he know all time."

Steve gulped his tea down, and set the pannikin on the ground.

"That's crazy," he declared. "It's not spirits who show Oolak. It's as Julyman says. He eats plenty. So he dreams fool things that don't mean a thing. Oolak doesn't need to believe the spirits are busy around him when he sleeps."

He laughed in the face of the unsmiling Oolak. But his laugh was cut short by the Indian's stolid response.

"Boss white man know all things plenty," he said, with the patient calm of a mind made up. "He big man. Oh, yes. Him bigger as all Indian man.

Sure. But he not know the voice of the spirits that speak much with Indian man. Oolak know him. So. An' the father of Oolak. Oh, yes. So we find this fire sometime. We find him. This fire of the world. The spirits tell Oolak, so him not afraid nothing."

Julyman set a pannikin down with a clatter. He raised a brown hand pointing. He was pointing at Oolak, and his eyes were wide with inspiration.

"He dream of Unaga--him fire of Unaga! So!"

Steve started. In a moment, at the challenge of Julyman, his mind had bridged a gulf of fourteen years. He was gazing upon a scene he had almost forgotten. A strange, magnificent scene in the heart of a white world where snow and ice held nature's wonderful creation buried deep in its crystal dungeons. The distant, towering spire rising sheer above a surrounding of lofty mountains. The pillar of ruddy smoke and mist piercing deep into the heart of a cloud belt lit with the vivid reflection of blazing volcanic fires. The splendour of it had been awesome, terrific. He remembered it now.

All thought of ridicule had died within him. For the inspiration of Julyman had stirred his own inspiration beyond all reason. In a moment his mind was a surge of teeming thought, with Unaga--the fires of Unaga--the centre of a vivid, reckless imagination.

For fourteen years a wealth of dogged effort had been expended in an acc.u.mulation of failure, as he had admitted to Lorson Harris only a few weeks back in Seal Bay. The whole purpose of his life on Unaga had been denied him. Where he had sought and striven for Marcel, he had only partially made good. The promised fortune was ama.s.sing only slowly, painfully, while the child had grown to manhood with a rapidity that far outstripped it. The source of the elusive Adresol had remained hidden.

Nature, and the Sleeper Indians, had refused him their secret.

For fourteen years the winter trail had been faced under the direst perils. And in all that time never once had the memory of the Spire of Unaga come to inspire him. He had pursued his endless search along the lines which the learning of the dead chemist had laid down. He had sought to trap the secret of the Sleeper men by every means in his power. But always and everywhere he had run upon the blank wall of failure.

Now--now, at a time when he had learned in Seal Bay disquieting news suggesting jeopardy for his whole enterprise, a flash of imagination had stirred in him an inspiration, which, against all reason, had changed the whole outlook of the future.

Unaga! Could it be? Was that the secret hiding-place of Nature? Could he make it? How far? Where? Somewhere within the boundaries of the Arctic ice? Maybe. He could not tell. The Spire was for all to see. Somewhere beyond. Somewhere lost in the grey world of the North. A lure to--what?

A hundred miles. Two. Three. Four. No, he could not estimate. He did not know. All he knew was that it was there, a fiery pillar, the simple sight of which set the heart of the Indian quaking. Was it there that the secret of the Adresol plant lay hidden? Was it there that the st.u.r.dy Sleepers dared the summer trail for their priceless treasure? What monstrous conditions had produced it? What amazing anachronism had Nature created in the far-off Arctic world?

And the terror of that journey in the dead of winter. It was a journey into the unknown, unguessed heart of a world's desolation. Was it possible? Was it within human powers of endurance? If the land of fire were the nursery whence the Sleepers drew their supplies of Adresol they made the journey. But it was in summer. Winter? Was it possible?

Yes. It was possible. It must be made possible. If it were not, if the effort were too great he could always pay the price. Marcel had grown to manhood. Fourteen years of failure had elapsed since the taking of his great decision. Here was a prospect. Here was a chance. Had he not in the past fourteen years taken every chance? Well, it was no time to shrink before the fiery heart of Unaga.

The men devoured their food. Steve had no desire to talk of his new-born inspiration. Bald words would never convince these primitive creatures.

They looked to him for leadership. It was for him to dictate. It was for them to follow. To discuss the project he contemplated would weaken his authority.

So he smoked on in silence, with a tumult of thought pa.s.sing behind the steady eyes gazing so deeply into the heart of the fire.

CHAPTER III

MANHOOD

An-ina watched them pa.s.s out of the store together, her dark eyes following them until they vanished beyond the range of the doorway. Her regard for both was intense. The untamed Indian heart knew no reservations. She had no thought for anything in the world but these two men, and that which pertained to their well-being.

The depth of her devotion was unfathomable. Only its quality varied with each. For the one it was the devotion of the wife. For the other it was the devotion of the mother.

She made no comparison between them. How could she? Each in his way was perfect in her eyes. Young Marcel's superb manhood had no greater claim upon her woman's admiration than had the st.u.r.dy set of Steve's broad shoulders. The boy's sunny smile, and often humorous eyes, were no greater source of delight to her than the steady, honest purpose which was in every line of the older man's strong face. Age and temperament were far enough apart, but, to An-ina, they were children of a great mother heart.

At the lean-to store-house, built against the stockade wall, designed by the dead chemist to hold the bulk of Adresol he had hoped some day to discover and which had never yet been called upon to fulfil its original purpose, Steve came to a halt. The melting snow lay heavy upon the sloping thatch of the roof, which was battened secure by heavy logs. It was banked against the door. It was laden upon the sills of the one long window. Steve kicked it clear of the door and took down the fastenings which secured it. He pa.s.sed within, with Marcel close upon his heels.

"We're going to need it, boy--after all," Steve said, with a note in his voice and a light in his eyes that rarely found place in either. He laughed shortly. "Yes. I think so."

"You think so?"

There was a quick glance of responsive eagerness in Marcel's eyes. Well enough he knew the store had been built for one purpose only. He had long since dubbed it "The Poison House." Steve's words meant----

It had a long low interior, with a heavily raftered roof, and an earthen floor. It was a shadowed, empty tunnel that was only half lit, and gloomily seemed to merit the name Marcel had chosen for it. At the far end stood a small unused baling machine, and beside it a set of iron scales. And on the bench, set up under the windows, stood a few oddments of appliances of a scientific nature. For the rest it was pathetically empty. It was altogether a tragic expression of the failure of the living as well as the dead.

Steve laughed again. It was the same short laugh.

"Maybe I'm crazy," he said. "If I'm not, and there's two cents of luck waiting around on us, why, we'll need this old store-house after all.

Yes, and I guess we'll need those poison masks your father made and figgered to need sometime. The whole thing leaves me guessing and wondering at the sort of fool man I am not to see what's been looking me in the face for the last fourteen years."