The Magnetic North Part 15

"The Boy? Down river."

"Sure he didn't go over the divide?"

O'Flynn was sure. He'd just been down to the water-hole, and in the faint light he'd seen the Boy far down on the river-trail "leppin" like a hare in the direction of the Roosian mission."

"Goin' to meet ... a ... Nicholas?"

"Reckon so," said the Colonel, a bit ruffled. "Don't believe he'll run like a hare very far with his feet all blistered."

"Did you know he'd discovered a fossil elephant?"

"No."

"Well, he has. I must light out, too, and have a look at it."

"Do; it'll be a cheerful sort of House-Warming with one of you off scouring the country for more blisters and chilblains, and another huntin' antediluvian elephants." The Colonel spoke with uncommon irascibility. The great feast-day had certainly not dawned propitiously.

When breakfast was done Mac left the Big Cabin without a word; but, instead of going over the divide across the treeless snow-waste to the little frozen river, where, turned up to the pale northern dawn, were lying the bones of a beast that had trampled tropic forests, in that other dawn of the Prime, the naturalist, turning his back on _Elephas primigenius,_ followed in the track of the Boy down the great river towards Ikogimeut.

On the low left bank of the Yukon a little camp. On one side, a big rock hooded with snow. At right angles, drawn up one on top of the other, two sleds covered with reindeer-skins held down by stones. In the corner formed by the angle of rocks and sleds, a small A-tent, very stained and old. Burning before it on a hearth of greenwood, a little fire struggling with a veering wind.

Mac had seen from far off the faint blue banners of smoke blowing now right, now left, then tossed aloft in the pallid sunshine. He looked about sharply for the Boy, as he had been doing this two hours. There was the Jesuit bending over the fire, bettering the precarious position of a saucepan that insisted on sitting lop-sided, looking down into the heart of coals. Nicholas was holding up the tent-flap.

"h.e.l.lo! How do!" he sang out, recognising Mac. The priest glanced up and nodded pleasantly. Two Indians, squatting on the other side of the fire, scrambled away as the shifting wind brought a cloud of stifling smoke into their faces. "Where's the Boy?" demanded Mac, arresting the stampede.

Nicholas's dog-driver stared, winked, and wiped his weeping, smoke-reddened eyes.

"Is he in there?" Mac looked towards the tent.

Andrew nodded between coughs.

"What's he doing in there? Call him out," ordered Mac.

"He no walk."

Mac's hard face took on a look of cast-iron tragedy.

The wind, veering round again, had brought the last words to the priest on the other side of the fire.

"Oh, it'll be all right by-and-by," he said cheerfully.

"But knocking up like that just for blisters?"

"Blisters? No; cold and general weakness. That's why we delayed--"

Without waiting to hear more Mac strode over to the tent, and as he went in, Nicholas came out. No sign of the Boy--n.o.body, nothing. What?

Down in the corner a small, yellow face lying in a nest of fur. Bright, dark eyes stared roundly, and as Mac glowered astonished at the apparition, a mouth full of gleaming teeth opened, smiling, to say in a very small voice:

"Farva!"

Astonished as Mac was, disappointed and relieved all at once, there was something arresting in the appeal.

"I'm not your father," he said stiffly. "Who're you? Hey? You speak English?"

The child stared at him fixedly, but suddenly, for no reason on earth, it smiled again. Mac stood looking down at it, seeming lost in thought.

Presently the small object stirred, struggled about feebly under the encompa.s.sing furs, and, freeing itself, held out its arms. The mites of hands fluttered at his sleeve and made ineffectual clutches.

"What do you want?" To his own vast astonishment Mac lifted the little thing out of its warm nest. It was woefully thin, and seemed, even to his inexperience, to be insufficiently clothed, though the beaded moccasins on its tiny feet were new and good.

"Why, you're only about as big as a minute," he said gruffly. "What's the matter--sick?" It suddenly struck him as very extraordinary that he should have taken up the child, and how extremely embarra.s.sing it would be if anyone came in and caught him. Clutching the small morsel awkwardly, he fumbled with the furs preparatory to getting rid, without delay, of the unusual burden. While he was straightening the things, Father Wills appeared at the flap, smoking saucepan in hand. The instant the cold air struck the child it began to cough.

"Oh, you mustn't do that!" said the priest to Mac with unexpected severity. "Kaviak must lie in bed and keep warm." Down on the floor went the saucepan. The child was caught away from the surprised Mac, and the furs so closely gathered round the small shrunken body that there was once more nothing visible but the wistful yellow face and gleaming eyes, still turned searchingly on its most recent acquaintance.

But the priest, without so much as a glance at the new-comer, proceeded to feed Kaviak out of the saucepan, blowing vigorously at each spoonful before administering.

"He's pretty hungry," commented Mac. "Where'd you find him?"

"In a little village up on the Kuskoquim. Kaviak's an Esquimaux from Norton Sound, aren't you, Kaviak?" But the child was wholly absorbed, it seemed, in swallowing and staring at Mac. "His family came up there from the coast in a bidarra only last summer--all dead now. Everybody else in the village--and there isn't but a handful--all ailing and all hungry. I was tramping across an igloo there a couple of days ago, and I heard a strange little m.u.f.fled sound, more like a snared rabbit than anything else. But the Indian with me said no, everybody who had lived there was dead, and he was for hurrying on. They're superst.i.tious, you know, about a place where people have died. But I crawled in, and found this little thing lying in a bundle of rags with its hands bound and dried gra.s.s stuffed in its mouth. It was too weak to stir or do more than occasionally to make that m.u.f.fled noise that I'd heard coming up through the smoke-hole."

"What you goin' to do with him?"

"Well, I hardly know. The Sisters will look after him for a while, if I get him there alive."

"Why shouldn't you?"

Kaviak supplied the answer straightway by choking and falling into an appalling fit of coughing.

"I've got some stuff that'll be good for that," said Mac, thinking of his medicine-chest. "I'll give you some when we get back to camp."

The priest nodded, taking Mac's unheard of civility as a matter of course.

"The ice is very rough; the jolting makes him cough awfully."

The Jesuit had fastened his eyes on Mac's woollen m.u.f.fler, which had been loosened during the ministering to Kaviak and had dropped on the ground. "Do you need that scarf?" he asked, as though he suspected Mac of wearing it for show. "Because if you didn't you could wrap it round Kaviak while I help the men strike camp." And without waiting to see how his suggestion was received, he caught up the saucepan, lifted the flap, and vanished.

"Farva," remarked Kaviak, fixing melancholy eyes on Mac.

"I ain't your father," muttered the gentleman so addressed. He picked up his scarf and hung it round his own neck.

"Farva!" insisted Kaviak. They looked at each other.

"You cold? That it, hey?" Mac knelt down and pulled away the furs. "G.o.d bless me! you only got this one rag on? G.o.d bless me!" He pulled off his m.u.f.fler and wound the child in it mummy-wise, round and round, muttering the while in a surly way. When it was half done he stopped--thought profoundly with a furrow cutting deep into his square forehead between the straight brows. Slowly he pulled his gloves out of his pocket, and turned out from each beaver gauntlet an inner mitten of knitted wool. "Here," he said, and put both little moccasined feet into one of the capacious mittens. Much pleased with his ingenuity, he went on winding the long scarf until the yellow little Esquimaux bore a certain whimsical resemblance to one of the adorable Delia Robbia infants. But Mac's sinewy hands were exerting a greater pressure than he realized. The morsel made a remonstrant squeaking, and squirmed feebly.

"Oh, oh! Too tight? Beg your pardon," said Mac hastily, as though not only English, but punctilious manners were understanded of Kaviak. He relaxed the woollen bandage till the morsel lay contented again within its folds.

Nicholas came in for Kaviak, and for the furs, that he might pack them both in the Father's sled. Already the true son of the Church was undoing the ropes that lashed firm the canvas of the tent.