Triple Spies Part 11

The girl made a rather pitiful figure as she sat there in the glow of the yellow light. Much of her splendid "pep" seemed to have oozed away.

As Johnny questioned her, she answered quite frankly. No, she would not attempt to cross the Strait on the ice. It would be quite dangerous, and, beside, she had promised to stay. She did not say the promise had been made to Hanada but Johnny guessed that. Evidently they had thought the Russian might return. She told her American friend that she was afraid that her mission in the far north had met with failure. She would not tell what that mission was, but admitted this much: she had once been very rich, or her family had. Her father had been a merchant living in one of the inland cities of Russia. The war had come and then the revolution. The revolutionists had taken all that her father owned.

He had died from worry and exposure, and she had been left alone. Her occupation at present was, well, just what he saw. She shrugged her shoulders and said no more.

Johnny with his natural generosity tried to press his roll of American money upon her. She refused to accept it, but gave him a rare smile. She had money enough for her immediate need and a diamond or two. Perhaps when the Strait opened up she would come by gasoline schooner to America.

Her mention of diamonds made Johnny jump. He instantly thought of the diamonds in his pocket. Could it be that her father had converted his wealth into diamonds and then had been robbed by the Radical revolutionist? He was on the point of showing the diamonds to her when discretion won the upper hand. He thought once more of the cruel revenges meted out by these Radicals. Should he give the diamonds to one to whom they did not belong, the penalty would be swift and sure.

Johnny did, however, press into her hand a card with his name and a certain address in Chicago written upon it and he did urge her to come there should she visit America.

He had hardly left the igloo when a startling question came to his mind.

Why had the Russian gone away without further attempt to recover the treasure now in Johnny's possession? He had indeed twice searched the American's igloo in his absence and once had made an unsuccessful attack upon his person. He had gained nothing. The diamonds were still safe in Johnny's pocket. What could cause the man to abandon them? Here, indeed, must be one of the big men of the cult, perhaps the master of them all.

With this thought came another, which left Johnny cold. The cult had spies and avengers everywhere. They were numerous in the United States.

They could afford to wait. Johnny could be trusted to cross the Strait soon. There would be time enough then. His every move would be watched, and when the time was ripe there would be a battle for the treasure.

That night, by the light of the glorious Arctic moon Johnny found his way across the solid sh.o.r.e ice and climbed upon the drifting floes, which were even now shifting and slowly piling. He was on his way to America. Perhaps he was the first American to walk from the old world to his native land. Certainly, he had never attempted thirty-five miles of travel which was fraught with so many perils.

CHAPTER X

THE j.a.p GIRL IN PERIL

Hardly had Johnny made his way across the sh.o.r.e ice and begun his dangerous journey when things of a startling nature began to happen to the j.a.p girl.

She was seated in her igloo sewing a garment of eider duck skins, when three rough-looking Chukches entered and, without ceremony, told her by signs that she must accompany them.

She was conducted to the largest igloo in the village. This she found crowded with natives, mostly men. She was led to the center of the floor, which was vacant, the natives being ranged round the sides of the place.

Instantly her eyes searched the frowning faces about her for a clue to this move. She soon found it. In the throng, she recognized five of the reindeer Chukches, members of that band which had attempted to murder Johnny Thompson and herself.

Their presence startled her. That they would make their way this far north, when their reindeer had been sent back by paid messengers some days before, had certainly seemed very improbable both to Johnny and to the girl.

Evidently the Chukches were very revengeful in spirit or very faithful in the performance of murders they had covenanted to commit. At any rate, here they were. And the girl did not deceive herself, this was a council chamber. She did not doubt for a moment that her sentence would be death. Her only question was, could there be a way of escape? The wall was lined with dusky forms this time. The entrance was closely guarded. Only one possibility offered; above her head, some five feet, a strong rawhide rope crossed from pole to pole of the igloo. Directly above this was the smoke hole. She had once entered one of these when an igloo was drifted over with snow.

The solemn parley of the council soon began. Like a lawyer presenting his case, the headman of the reindeer tribe stood before them all and with many gestures told his story. At intervals in his speech two men stepped forward for examination. The jaw of one of them was very stiff and three of his teeth were gone. As to the other, his face was still tied up in bandages of tanned deer skin. His jaw was said to be broken.

The j.a.p girl, in spite of her peril, smiled. Johnny had done his work well.

There followed long harangues by other members of the reindeer tribe.

The last speech was made by the headman of East Cape. It was the longest of all.

At length a native boy turned to the j.a.p girl and spoke to her in English.

"They say, that one; they say all; you die. What you say?"

"I say want--a--die," she replied smiling.

This answer, when interpreted, brought forth many a grunt of surprise.

"They say, that one! they say all," the boy went on, "how you want--a die? Shoot? Stab?"

"Shoot." She smiled again, then, "But first I do two thing. I sing. I dance. My people alletime so."

"Ki-ke" (go ahead) came in a chorus when her words had been interpreted.

No people are fonder of rhythmic motion and dreamy chanting than are the natives of the far north. The keen-witted j.a.panese girl had learned this by watching their native dancing. She had once visited an island in the Pacific and had learned while there a weird song and a wild, whirling dance.

Now, as she stood up she kicked from her feet the clumsy deer skin boots and, from beneath her parka extracted gra.s.s slippers light as silk.

Then, standing on tip toe with arms outspread, like a bird about to fly, she bent her supple body forward, backward and to one side. Waving her arms up and down she chanted in a low, monotonous and dreamy tone.

All eyes were upon her. All ears were alert to every note of the chant.

Great was the Chukche who learned some new chant, introduced some unfamiliar dance. Great would he be who remembered this song and dance when this woman was dead.

The tones of the singer became more distinct, her voice rose and fell.

Her feet began to move, slowly at first, then rapidly and yet more rapidly. Now she became an animated voice of stirring chant, a whirling personification of rhythm.

And now, again, the song died away; the motion grew slower and slower, until at last she stood before them motionless and panting.

"Ke-ke! Ke-ke!" (More! More!) they shouted, in their excitement, forgetting that this was a dance of death.

Tearing the deer skin parka from her shoulders and standing before them in her purple pajamas, she began again the motion and the song. Slow, dreamy, fantastic was the dance and with it a chant as weird as the song of the north wind. "Woo-woo-woo." It grew in volume. The motion quickened. Her feet touched the floor as lightly as feathers. Her swaying arms made a circle of purple about her. Then, as she spun round and round, her whole body seemed a purple pillar of fire.

At that instant a strange thing happened. As the natives, their minds completely absorbed by the spell of the dance, watched and listened, they saw the purple pillar rise suddenly toward the ceiling. Nor did it pause, but mounting straight up, with a vaulting whirl disappeared from sight.

Overcome by the hypnotic spell of the dance, the natives sat motionless for a moment. Then the bark of a dog outside broke the spell. With a mad shout: "Pee-le-uk-tuk Pee-le-uk-tuk!" (Gone! Gone!) they rushed to the entrance, trampling upon and hindering one another in their haste.

When Johnny reached the piling ice, on his way across the Strait, he at first gave his entire attention to picking a pathway. Indeed this was quite necessary, for here a great pan of ice, thirty yards square and eight feet thick, glided upon another of the same tremendous proportions to rear into the air and crumble down, a ponderous avalanche of ice cakes and snow. He must leap nimbly from cake to cake. He must take advantage of every rise and fall of the heaving swells which disturbed the great blanket winter had cast upon the bosom of the deep.

All this Johnny knew well. Guided only by the direction taken by the moving cakes, he made his way across this danger zone, and out upon the great floe, which though still drifting slowly northward, did not pile and seemed as motionless as the sh.o.r.e ice itself.

While at the village at East Cape Johnny had made good use of his time.

He had located accurately the position of the Diomede Islands, half way station in the Strait. He had studied the rate of the ice's drift northward. He now was in a position to know, approximately, how far he might go due east and how much he must veer to the south to counteract the drift of the ice. He soon reckoned that he would make three miles an hour over the uneven surface of the floe. He also reckoned that the floe was making one mile per hour due north. He must then, for every mile he traveled going east, do one mile to the south. He did this by going a full hour's travel east, then one-third of an hour south.

So sure was he of his directions that he did not look up until the rocky cliffs of Big Diomede Island loomed almost directly above him.

There was a native village on this island where he hoped to find food and rest and, perhaps, some news of the Russian and Hanada. He located the village at last on a southern slope. This village, as he knew, consisted of igloos of rock. Only poles protruding from the rocks told him of its location.

As he climbed the path to the slope he was surprised to be greeted only by women and children. They seemed particularly unkempt and dirty. At last, at the crest of the hill, he came upon a strange picture. A young native woman tastily dressed was standing before her house, puffing a turkish cigaret. She was a half-breed of the Spanish type, and Johnny could imagine that some Spanish buccaneer, pausing at this desolate island to hide his gold, had become her father.

She asked him into an igloo and made tea for him, talking all the while in broken English. She had learned the language, she told him, from the whalers. She spoke cheerfully and answered his questions frankly. Yes, his two friends had been here. They had gone, perhaps; she did not know.

Yes, he might cross to Cape Prince of Wales in safety she thought. But Johnny had the feeling that her mind was filled with the dread of some impending catastrophe which perhaps he might help avert.

And at last the revelation came. Lighting a fresh cigaret, she leaned back among the deer skins and spoke. "The men of the village," she said, "you have not asked me about them."