The Purple Flame Part 16

Wonderful!"

Just at that moment there entered her mind a startling thought.

Scarberry's camp, too, was equipped with a radio-phone. Probably he, too, at this very moment, was smiling at the prospect of selling six hundred of his deer. He wanted to sell. Of course he did. Everyone did. He would make the drive. Certainly he would.

"And then," she breathed, pressing her hands to her fluttering heart, "then it will be a race; a race between two reindeer herd; a race over hundreds of miles of wilderness for a grand prize. What a glorious adventure!"

"If only Marian were here," she sighed again. "The message announcing the plans may come while she is gone. Then-"

She sat in a study for a long time. Finally she whispered to herself:

"If the message comes while she is gone; if the opportunity is sure to be lost unless the herd starts as soon as the message comes, I wonder if I'd dare to start on the race with the herd, with Terogloona and without Marian and Attatak. I wonder if I would?"

For a long time she sat staring at the fire. Perhaps she was attempting to read the answer in the flames.

At last, with cheeks a trifle flushed, she sprang to her feet, did three or four leaps across the floor, and throwing off her clothing, crept between the deer-skins in the strange little sleeping compartment.

CHAPTER XXI FADING HOPES

Just at dawn of a wonderfully crisp morning, Marian found herself following her reindeer over a trail that had recently been travelled by a dog team. She was just approaching the Trading Station where the questions that haunted her tired brain would be answered.

Since leaving the cabin in the forest above the rapids, she and Attatak had travelled almost day and night. A half hour for a hasty lunch here and there, an hour or two for sleep and for permitting the deer to feed; that was all they had allowed themselves.

An hour earlier, Marian had felt that she could not travel another mile.

Then they had come upon the trail of the dog team, and realizing that they were nearing their goal, her blood had quickened like a marathon racer's at the end of his long race. No longer feeling fatigue, she urged her weary reindeer forward. Contrary to her usually cautious nature, she even cast discretion to the winds and drove her deer straight toward the settlement. That there were dogs which might attack her deer she knew right well. That they were not of the species that attacked deer, or that they were chained, was her hope.

So, with her heart throbbing, she rounded a sudden turn to find herself within sight of a group of low-lying cabins that at one time had been a small town.

Now, as her aged host had said, it was a town in name only. She knew this at a glance. One look at the chimneys told her the place was all but deserted.

"No smoke," she murmured.

"Yes, one smoke," Attatak said, pointing.

It was true. From one long cabin there curled a white wreath of smoke.

For a moment Marian hesitated. No dogs had come out to bark, yet they might be there.

"You stay with the deer," she said to Attatak. "Tether them strongly to the sleds. If dogs come, beat them off."

She was away like an arrow. Straight to that cabin of the one smoke she hurried. She caught her breath as she saw a splendid team of dogs standing at the door. Someone was going on a trip. The sled was loaded for the journey. Was it the Agent's sled? Had she arrived in time?

She did not have long to wait before knowing. She had come within ten feet of the cabin when a tall, deep-chested man opened the door and stepped out. She caught her breath. Instantly she knew him. It was the Agent.

He, in turn, recognized her, and with cap in hand and astonishment showing in his eyes, he advanced to meet her.

"You here!" he exclaimed. "Why Marian Norton, you belong in Nome."

"Once I did," she smiled, "but now I belong on the tundra with our herd.

It is the herd that has brought me here. May I speak to you about it?"

"Certainly you may. But you look tired and hungry. The Trader has a piping Mulligan stew on the stove. It will do you good. Come inside."

An Indian boy, who made his home with the Trader, was dispatched to relieve Attatak of her watch, and Marian sat down to enjoy a delicious repast.

There are some disappointments that come to us so gradually that, though the matters they effect are of the utmost importance, we are not greatly shocked when at last their full meaning is unfolded to us. It was so with Marian. She had dared and endured much to reach this spot. She had arrived at the critical moment. An hour later the Agent would have been gone. The Agent was her friend. Ready to do anything he could to help her, he would gladly have gone back with her to a.s.sist in defending her rights. But duty called him over another trail. He had no one, absolutely no one to send from this post to execute his orders.

"Of course," he said after hearing her story, "I can give you a note to that outlaw, Scarberry, but he'd pay no attention to it."

"He'd tear it up and throw it in my face," a.s.serted Marian stoutly.

"I'll tell you what I'll do," said the Agent, rising and walking the floor. "There is Ben Neighbor over at the foot of Sugar Loaf Mountain.

His cabin is only three days travel from your camp. He's a good man, and a brave one. He is a Deputy Marshal. If I give you a note to him, he will serve you as well as I could."

"Would we need take a different trail home?"

"Why? Which way did you come?"

Marian described their course. The Agent whistled. "It's a wonder you didn't perish!"

"Here," he said, "is a rough map of the country. I will mark out the course to Ben's cabin. You'll find it a much safer way."

"Oh, all right," she said slowly. "Thanks. That's surely the best way."

She was thinking of the treasure left at the cabin. She had hoped to return by that route and claim it. Now that hope was gone.

CHAPTER XXII A FRUITLESS JOURNEY

It was night; such a night as only the Arctic knows. Cold stars, gleaming like bits of burnished silver in the sky, shone down upon vast stretches of glistening snow. Out of that whiteness one object loomed, black as ink against the whiteness of its background.

Weary with five days of constant travel, Marian found herself approaching this black bulk. She pushed doggedly forward, expecting at every moment to catch a lightning-like zig-zag flash of purple flame shooting up the side of it.

The black bulk was the old dredge in Sinrock River. She had pa.s.sed that way twice before. Each time she had hoped to find there a haven of rest, and each time she had been frightened away by the flash of the purple flame. Those mysterious people had left this spot at one time. Had they returned? Was the dredge now a place of danger, or a haven for weary travellers? The answer to this question was only to be found by marching boldly up to the dredge.

This called for courage. Born with a brave soul, Marian was equal to any emergency. Sheer weariness and lack of sleep added to this a touch of daring.

Without pausing, she drove straight up to the door. Rea.s.sured by the snow banked up against it, she hastily scooped away the bank with her snow-shoe, and having shoved the door open, boldly entered.

It was a cheerless place, black and empty. The wind whistled through the cracks where the planks had rotted away. Yet it was a shelter. Pa.s.sing through another door, she found herself in an inner room that housed the boiler of the engine that had furnished power to the dredge. The boiler, a great red drum of rust, stood directly in front of her.

"Here's where we camp," she said to Attatak. "We can build a fire in the fire-box of the boiler and broil some steak. That will be splendid!"