Roy J. Snell

“ He felt himself lifted high in air to fall among rolls of canvas and piles of tent poles, heard the crash of breaking timbers, the scream of grinding ironwork, and above it all the roar of frightened animals—tigers, lions, panthers, tossed, still in their cages, to be buried beneath the wreckage, or hurled free to tumble down the embankment. In this dream Johnny crawled from beneath the canvas to find himself staring into the red and gleaming eye of some great cat that was stalking him as its prey. He struggled to draw his clasp knife from his pocket, and in that mad struggle awoke. ”

“ A MYSTERIOUS ADVENTURE
There are people who cannot sleep during a storm. It sets their nerves a-tingle, sets wild racing thoughts crowding through their minds and leaves them sleeplessly alert. It is as if a thousand wild witches rode on every mad rush of the wind, their shrill voices screaming in each blast, their fingers rattling at every windowpane and their breath puffing at the flickering light.
Mark Pence could not sleep during that storm. Rocking every schooner, yacht and yawl on its cradle of trestlework, it went racing out over the lake, carrying every movable object with it. ”

“ Life was not half bad after all.
Half an hour later he was experiencing such thrills as only the deep, deep sea could bring. Some five hundred feet beneath the surface of the sea he sat doubled up in his place, staring at an ever changing panorama. A rocky wall, not twenty feet from him, stood up like a sky-scraper, straight and tall. Here and there it was broken by fissures and caves. Everywhere it was festooned with sea vegetation—seaweed, kelp, anemones. All these, with coral that rose like Gothic architecture, were entrancing.
Dave was by his side—not to admire, but to record. ”

“ The race after the monkey was nothing to this mad race with the storm. Now creeping along a rocky ledge, now clinging to a stout vine and dropping down, down, down, now racing over a wild hog’s trail, now leaping a fallen tree to tear through a clump of brambles with the rumble and roar of the storm ever increasing they made their way forward, until, with a sudden breathless whoop, Johnny stopped at the edge of a wild cocoanut jungle to stare at the silent, blue-black sea. ”

“ Nevertheless, the air of mystery hung about him like a dark cloud. He could not sleep. And not being able to sleep, he meditated.
He had already begun the eternal round of thoughts that will revolve through a fellow's brain at night, when he heard a sound—the soft crush of a skin boot in the snow it seemed. He listened and thought he heard it again, this time more distinctly, as if the person were approaching his igloo. A chill crept up and down his spine. ”

“ As if loath to disturb the perfect silence of a night, dawn lingers in the tropical jungle. Off somewhere in the distance a wild parrot screams; nearer at hand a long tailed tropical black-bird begins for the thousandth time to practice the song he will never learn. Swinging from limb to limb, a monkey chatters at a snake. Faint and from far away, like a young puppy calling for his breakfast, an alligator barks. Trunks of trees, gray bulks of cabins, green clusters of ferns take shape and then, with a sudden burst of light, day arrives. ”

“ Marian's heart stopped beating as she felt the downward rush of the avalanche of ice. The next instant she felt it crumble like an egg-shell. It had broken at the point where they lay. With a warning cry of terror she sprang to her feet and pitched forward.
The cry was too late. As she rose unsteadily to her knees, she saw a dark brown bulk topple at the edge of the cake, then roll like a log into the dark pool of water which appeared where the cake had parted. That object was Lucile. Dead or alive? Marian could not tell. But whether dead or alive she had fallen into the stinging Arctic brine. ”

“ A THEFT IN THE NIGHT
There is no feeling of desolation so complete as that which sweeps over one who is utterly alone in a great city at night. The desert, the Arctic wilderness, the heart of the forest, the boundless sea, all these have their terrors, but for downright desolation give me the heart of a strange city at night.
Hardly had Lucile covered two blocks on her journey from the book shop when this feeling of utter loneliness engulfed her like a bank of fog. ”

“ For a time there was silence in the wireless cabin, such a silence as one experiences in the midst of a rising storm. The flap of ropes, the creak of yard-arms, the rush of waves which were already washing the deck, the chug-chug-chug of the prow of the brave little craft as she leaped from wave-crest to wave-crest; all this made such music as an orchestra might, had every man musician of them gone mad. And this was the "silence" Curlie did not for a long time break. ”

“ Florence said to herself as, undecided whether to pause for rest or to wander aimlessly on, she paused beside a great flat rock, “it does seem that there is a way to win if only we knew it.”
Just as if in answer to her worrying problem, the fog lifted, revealing before her in startling clearness the natural gateway that led to the horseshoe valley at the head of Laurel Branch.
“The gate,” she breathed. “The gateway to that mysterious valley where strange people live without visiting the outside world, the valley from which men do not return!” Her heart was all a-tremble. ”

“ Was he not much closer to her than any other living thing? Even as she watched, the monkey drew nearer, leaping from ledge to ledge, climbing higher and higher.
Without in the least understanding what it all meant, Mazie found her heart in her mouth as the dauntless little creature, leaping from a window sill, caught a stone ledge with but one hand, balanced there for a second as if about to fall, and then threw himself with a fine show of skill to another and wider ledge where he might pause an instant for breath. ”

“ But one dark night, when the wind was banging at the steel-framed windows of the plant, and rain beat upon the skylights in great torrents, adventure came stalking his way in the form of a crouching, skulking human who made his way, all oblivious of Johnny hidden by the shadow of a forge, to a dark corner of the forge-room, where he rattled about in a pile of imperfect forgings. ”

“ Only the moon in all its glory tinted the blue ice-piles with wavering ghost colors. The wind for once was still. Not a bird appeared in the sky, not an animal met the gaze of their binoculars as they peered below. It was as if the whole Northern realm had become suddenly silent at the magnificent spectacle of three men sailing alone over spaces never yet traveled by man, and where dangers lurked at every turn.
The plane, too, was surprising its driver. It answered his least touch on the lever controls. The engines were working perfectly. ”

“ There is a certain joy to be had from a journey on foot through a tropical jungle. There is a glimmer of green, a fresh damp odor of decay, faint and pleasing as musk, and there always comes from the bushes and trees a suggestion of low, joyous music, made, perhaps by bees and birds, but nevertheless it is there, an indescribable music. Johnny had enjoyed all this until he had begun to feel the need of food and refreshment. ”

“ From the mountainside there came the whisper of spruce trees. Torn, twisted, and tangled by storms, those trees stood there like horrible dwarfs whispering of love and life, of hatred and death. Once Jeanne, moved by who knows what impulse, went tip-toeing from her place to press her nose against the glass and peer into that darkness. Then, as if all the gnarled trees had been shaking fists at her, she sprang back to her place close to Danby Force. ”

“ Trailing a reindeer herd over hills and tundra; camping now in a clump of willows by the glistening ice of a stream, now beneath some shelving rock, and now on the open wind-swept tundra itself. Eating about an open fire, while the smoke curled from the top of the dome of the tepee-like igloo, they reveled in the strange wildness of it all. Here were a people who paid no rent, no taxes, owned no land, yet lived always in abundance. ”

“ Johnny saw all this. With a gasp of terror he all but dropped the fox. Then, scarcely knowing what he did, he thrust the fox as if he were his mother’s fur scarf, into the moose-hide bag, drew the strings tight, then shot away toward the spot from which his cousin had vanished.
As Lawrence shot beneath the ice, life seemed near its end. Yet there had never been a time when life had seemed so real and so joyous as now. ”

“ For the moment Florence could not be roused from her dreamy stupor. Never had she worked so hard as on these days of the great Fair. Never had life seemed so full of joy. Jeanne was with her once more; a whole half year the French girl had been in her native land. Now she was back. There was, too, a spirit of glorious madness about this great exhibition, that somehow entered into her very soul. Cars packed with screaming visitors rocketing across the sky, airplanes drumming and dipping, speed boats thundering down the lagoon; speed, light, joy—who could resist it all? ”

“ The battle Red Rodgers waged after leaving the cabin at the edge of the narrow clearing on that mysterious island was something quite outside his past experience. True, he was not unacquainted with struggle and peril. More than once in the vast steel mill he had watched hot sheet steel, caught by a defective roller, curl itself into a serpent of fire, and had dodged in the nick of time. On the gridiron, with mad crowds screaming, with forms leaping at him from right and left, he had over and over battled his way to victory.
Now he faced neither man-made steel nor man himself, but nature. ”

“ Life is like that. There must be shadows. Without shadows we could not be conscious of light. But when the lights are too bright, the shadows too deep, then all is wrong.
“Your bright lights of life at the Opera House, the sable coats, the silks and jewels, they are a form of life. But there the lights are too strong. They blind the eyes, hide the true beauty that may be beneath it all. ”

“ When it was music for her dance Petite Jeanne, bare-footed, bare-armed, with eyes shining, sprang into motion with such abandon as made her seem a crimson cardinal, a butterfly, a mere flying nothing.
How Swen would throw back his blonde mane and laugh! How Dan Baker shook his old head and sighed with joy!
“Our play!” he would murmur. “Our play. How can it fail? With such an angel of light even Heaven would be a complete success.” ”

“ Sitting astride the log, Marion wrapped Patience’s warm dry cape about the child. Hardly a moment had elapsed before her crying ceased.
Of all the strange experiences that had come to Marion, this was the most weird. To have escaped from hounds and kidnappers with a child, to have come gliding down here in such a strange manner, to find herself sitting astride a huge log surrounded by black, rushing waters, and gliding steadily forward to an unknown destination, this was adventure of the most stirring kind. But Marion found little enough time for such reflections. ”

“ Rosemary stepped across the cement runway with a buoyant tread. “Life,” she thought with a happy tilt of her head, “is just wonderful! It is perfection itself.”
Rosemary loved perfection. And where may one find perfection of high degree if not in a great metropolitan airport? Those giant silver birds of the air, their motors drumming in perfect unison, wheeling into position for flight—how perfect! The touch of genius, the brain and brawn of the world’s greatest has gone into their making. ”

“ And as Drew Lane’s voice came to him in a slow and steady murmur Johnny felt a kindred spirit laying hold of his very soul. More than once, too, he felt an all but irresistible impulse to leap to his feet and dash from the room, for a steady, indistinct but unmistakable still small voice was saying to him: “This man goes into many dangers. If you travel with him he will lead you into great peril. Once you have followed you cannot turn back. Such is the spirit of youth, faith, romance, and love for the human race. Test the steel of your soul well. ”

“ To be snatched from the silence of the jungle to the sudden strain of action is like being dragged from the deep dark of midnight to the glaring light of day. For a second Johnny stood petrified. Then, born as he was for action, and trained for it, too, he sprang forward. The shoulder straps of his pack were thrown off and the pack struck the trail with a thump. Then, like an ancient warrior, Johnny lifted the light rifle and prepared to stand his ground. ”

“ Then, as his bow sang taut a red-eyed fury, a giant of that wilderness, a bull moose, plunged head on, straight at him as he crouched for a shot.
A bull moose, interrupted in his display of anger, is a terrible creature to behold. As the boy looked into his bloodshot eyes, as he took in at once his huge head, his broad spiked antlers, his powerful neck, he wondered about his chances for life, and in the flash of a second knew as never before what a glorious possession life was. ”

“ No one knew this better than Curlie Carson. He was not a stranger to other cities. Chicago, New York City he knew. Belize, in British Honduras, had seen him on her streets. Paris he loved for her beauty. Yet none of these thrilled him more than did Edmonton. On his days off, between flights, nothing suited him quite so well as sitting in the narrow lobby of his own hotel, the old Prince George, listening to the scraps of conversation that drifted unbidden to his ears. For, while not an outpost, Edmonton is the gateway to a thousand outposts. All the vast Northwest lies beyond it. ”

“ Nothing can be more delightful than a sail in a Carib boat on the Caribbean Sea. To lie on deck and sense the lifting glide of the prow, to feel the cool breeze on your face, to see the water go rippling by, that is joy indeed. Pant would have enjoyed it to the full had not his mind been vexed by many questions. Would he reach Belize in time or would the steamer be gone? Was the chicle sack of the green thread still on the sailing boat of the night before, or had the marauders carried it away? ”

“ Catching his breath, Pant unbuckled his harness. Johnny and the Professor followed his example. The next second, with a strange, land-like breath of air sweeping up to them, they passed over the very fringe-tops of the palms. One moment later they were standing up in their craft, which gently rose and fell with the water. Without a word they solemnly shook hands.
There are moments in the life of every person when he feels himself so closely welded to the life of some other one that only death can separate them. Johnny felt that such a time had arrived in his life. ”

“ That this was to be rather a fast dawn, Johnny was not long in discovering. But it was fascinating. To pass from inky blackness to dark, deep blue, on into colors that resembled a sunrise, and then to the eternal blue of a bright, tropical day, was an experience not soon to be forgotten. From time to time as they rose, strange denizens of the sea seemed to peer at them. Once a shark shot past, and just before they reached the top, a great turtle swam awkwardly away.
Came the bump—bump of their steel ball as, lifted by the great crane, it landed on the deck. ”

“ At length, with patience exhausted, she climbed the highest ice-pile and gazed away to the north. The first glance brought forth a cry of dismay. A narrow lane of dark water, stretching from east to west, extended as far as eye could see in each direction. It lay not a quarter of a mile from the spot where she stood.
"He's across and can never recross to us," she moaned in despair. "No creature could brave that undercurrent and live. And there is no other way." ”

“ There is something in the sharp tang of the Arctic air, in the honest weariness of a long day of tramping, in the invigorating freshness of everything about one, that makes for perfect repose. In spite of the problems that faced them, regardless of the mystery that haunted this chamber of nature, hour after hour, to the very tune of the whirling storm, the girls slept the calm and peaceful sleep of those who bear ill will toward no one. ”

“ Time marched on, as time has a way of doing. A week passed, another and yet another. Each night of opera found Jeanne, still masquerading as Pierre, at her post among the boxes. Never forgetting that a priceless necklace had been stolen from those boxes and that she had run away, ever conscious of the searching eyes of Jaeger and of the inscrutable shadow that was the lady in black, Jeanne performed her tasks as one who walks beneath a shadow that in a moment may be turned into impenetrable darkness. ”

“ For Jeanne it was a vast carnival, a place to enjoy one’s self, a thing of beauty and a joy forever.
Now as she tripped along at Florence’s side she whispered: “See! Are not those steel towers mysterious? They are like fingers pointing to the stars we do not see because the clouds hide them. And the little rocket cars waiting there—they seem ready not just to carry you over to the island of enchantment, but on and on through the sky to the moon, to Venus, to Mars. ”

“ The sights that strike your eye are scarcely less impressive. Great streamers of confetti, red, white, blue, yellow and green tissue ribbons hanging from wires, from plaster-of-paris domes, from windows, from electric lights, from every spot where a sparrow might rest his wings; bushels of bits of paper flying through the air like a highly tinted snow storm; and the amusements—here a car rushing through space, there the whirling invitation of an airplane, and there again the slow and stately Ferris wheel. ”

“ There is no place in all the world where a thunderstorm seems more terrible than in the deserted streets in the heart of a great city at night. Echoing and re-echoing between the towering walls of buildings, the thunder seems to be speaking to the universe. Flashing from a thousand windows to ten thousand others, the lightning seems to be searching the haunts and homes of men. ”

“ Now, shadowy objects shot past them, and Dave uttered a prayer that they might not mix with the propeller—seal, walrus or white whale, whatever they might be. In his mind, at such times, he had visions of floating beneath the Arctic pack, powerless to go ahead or backward and as powerless to break through the ice to freedom.
Wonderful changing lights were ever filtering through ice and water to them, and, at times, as they drove slowly forward, the lights and shadows seemed to have a motion of their own, a restless shifting, like the play of sunlight and shadow beneath the trees. ”

“ Once stout oars were in their hands, however, all was changed. To feel the rise and fall of the boat, to skim the crests of waves, to catch the rhythmic rowing that, like a song in the night, seemed to lift them and bear them down—this was life. ”

“ THE ARROW OF FIRE
CHAPTER I
THE SQUAD CALL
It was midnight. The waters of Lake Michigan were like glass, smooth glass, miles of it, blue-black. There was no moon. The stars burned queer bright holes in the blue-black glass. The long, low craft that glided through the water caused scarce a ripple.
At the prow of this Great Lakes’ freighter stood Johnny Thompson. He was gazing at the skyline of his own beloved city. Three years had passed since last he had caught the rumble of that great metropolis and had seen her lights gleaming out into the night. ”

“ Through the many cracks the morning sun shall peep at us as we awake. The rain shall fall gently upon our roof, the breeze shall play with my hair as I sit in our little castle of bamboo. The jaguar may look in upon us at night and the little wild pigs go grunting about our cabin. My good friend Kirk, and my new friend Pant, we will live like savages and life will be sweet for, after all, what is so romantic as a little home in the midst of a vast wilderness? ”

“ Have you ever stepped out into a night so dark that you could scarcely see your hand before you, and have you, after taking a few steps from your own doorstep, tried to imagine that you were alone in the dark in lands that were strange to you? If you have, then you can imagine the feeling of Florence as she moved forward into the unknown. Scarcely had the second hand on her watch ticked round three times than she found it necessary to follow the child by sound rather than by sight. Such is the darkness that at times fills rockbound mountain valleys. ”

“ At dawn, as a matchless sunrise painted the east red and gold, there appeared above Pant’s raft on the broad river a black line, a line not of drift logs, but dugouts, dories and pit-pans. Each craft was loaded with men, and as the sun sent its rays shooting across them they waved their hands and let forth a bloodcurdling shout. In each uplifted hand there gleamed a long bladed machete.
“They come!” said Tivoli in response to Pant’s call. “Let them come. See that all the men are wakened quickly.” ”

“ Seeking a dark corner, she closed her eyes. Allowing her head to drop forward, she stood like one in prayer. Did she pray, or did she but surrender her soul and body to the forces of nature all about her? Who can say but that these two are the same, or at least that their effect is the same? However that may be, it was a changed Jeanne who, three minutes later, took up her post of duty in the boxes, for hers was the air of a sentry. Her movements were firm and steady, the look upon her face as calm as the reflection of the moon upon a still pool at midnight. ”