The Magnetic North Part 24

"I should just pretty nearly think I would."

"You dance heap good. b.u.t.tons no all done." He put four little ivory crows into the Boy's hands. They were rudely but cleverly carved, with eyes outlined in ink, and supplied under the breast with a neat inward-cut shank.

"Mighty fine!" The Boy examined them by the strange glow that brightened in the sky.

"You keep."

"Oh no, can't do that."

"_Yes!_" Nicholas spoke peremptorily. "Yukon men have big feast, must bring present. Me no got reindeer, me got b.u.t.ton." He grinned.

"Goo'-bye." And the last of the guests went his way.

It was only habit that kept the Colonel toasting by the fire before he turned in, for the cabin was as warm to-night as the South in mid-summer.

_"Gra.s.shoppah sett'n on a swee' p'tater vine,"_

The Boy droned sleepily as he untied the leathern thongs that kept up his muckluck legs--

_"Swee' p'tater vine, swee' p'ta--"_

"All those othahs"--the Colonel waved a hand in the direction of Pymeut--"I think we dreamed 'em, Boy. You and me playing the Big Game with Fohtune. Foolishness! Klond.y.k.e? Yoh crazy. Tell me the river's hard as iron and the snow's up to the windah? Don' b'lieve a wo'd of it. We're on some plantation, Boy, down South, in the n.i.g.g.ah quawtaws."

The Boy was turning back the covers, and balancing a moment on the side of the bunk.

_"Sett'n on a swee' p'tater vine, swee' p'ta--"_

"Great Caesar's ghost!" He jumped up, and stood staring down at the sleeping Kaviak.

"Ah--a--didn't you know? He's been left behind for a few days."

"Yes, I can see he's left behind. No, Colonel, I reckon we're in the Arctic regions all right when it comes to catchin' Esquimers in your bed!"

He pulled the furs over Kaviak and himself, and curled down to sleep.

CHAPTER V

THE SHAMaN.

"For my part, I have ever believed and do now know, that there are witches."--_Religio Medici._

The Boy had hoped to go to Pymeut the next day, but his feet refused to carry him. Mac took a diagram and special directions, and went after the rest of elephas, conveying the few clumsy relics home, bit by bit, with a devotion worthy of a pious pilgrim.

For three days the Boy growled and played games with Kaviak, going about at first chiefly on hands and knees.

On the fifth day after the Blow-Out, "You comin' long to Pymeut this mornin'?" he asked the Colonel.

"What's the rush?"

"_Rush!_ Good Lord! it's 'most a week since they were here. And it's stopped snowin', and hasn't thought of sleetin' yet or anything else rambunksious. Come on, Colonel."

But Father Wills had shown the Colonel the piece of dirty paper the Indian had brought on the night of the Blow-Out.

"_Trouble threatened. Pymeuts think old chief dying not of consumption, but of a devil. They've sent a dogteam to bring the Shaman down over the ice. Come quickly.--_PAUL."

"Reckon we'd better hold our horses till we hear from Holy Cross."

"Hear what?"

The Colonel didn't answer, but the Boy didn't wait to listen. He swallowed his coffee scalding hot, rolled up some food and stuff for trading, in a light reindeer skin blanket, lashed it packwise on his back, shouldered his gun, and made off before the Trio came in to breakfast.

The first sign that he was nearing a settlement, was the appearance of what looked like sections of rude wicker fencing, set up here and there in the river and frozen fast in the ice. High on the bank lay one of the long cornucopia-shaped basket fish-traps, and presently he caught sight of something in the bleak Arctic landscape that made his heart jump, something that to Florida eyes looked familiar.

"Why, if it doesn't make me think of John Fox's cabin on Cypress Creek!" he said to himself, formulating an impression that had vaguely haunted him on the Lower River in September; wondering if the Yukon flooded like the Caloosahatchee, and if the water could reach as far up as all that.

He stopped to have a good look at this first one of the Pymeut caches, for this modest edifice, like a Noah's Ark on four legs, was not a habitation, but a storehouse, and was perched so high, not for fear of floods, but for fear of dogs and mice. This was manifest from the fact that there were fish-racks and even ighloos much nearer the river.

The Boy stopped and hesitated; it was a sore temptation to climb up and see what they had in that cache. There was an inviting plank all ready, with sticks nailed on it transversely to prevent the feet from slipping. But the Boy stopped at the rude ladder's foot, deciding that this particular mark of interest on the part of a stranger might be misinterpreted. It would, perhaps, be prudent to find Nicholas first of all. But where was Nicholas?--where was anybody?

The scattered, half-buried huts were more like earth-mounds, snow-encrusted, some with drift-logs propped against the front face looking riverwards.

While he was cogitating how to effect an entrance to one of these, or to make his presence known, he saw, to his relief, the back of a solitary Indian going in the direction of an ighloo farther up the river.

"Hi, hi!" he shouted, and as the figure turned he made signs. It stopped.

"How-do?" the Boy called out when he got nearer. "You talk English?"

The native laughed. A flash of fine teeth and sparkling eyes lit up a young, good-looking face. This boy seemed promising.

"How d'ye do? You know Nicholas?"

"Yes."

The laugh was even gayer. It seemed to be a capital joke to know Nicholas.

"Where is he?"

The figure turned and pointed, and then: "Come. I show you."

This was a more highly educated person than Nicholas, thought the visitor, remarking the use of the nominative scorned of the Prince.

They walked on to the biggest of the underground dwellings.