Roy J. Snell

“ Ten minutes passed into eternity as they sat there in silence, encircled by the dark mysteries of night and brooded over by the hush of a wilderness.
Johnny’s mind was never idle. It was busy now. He was asking himself questions. Who was this girl, so ruddy and strong? And who was her grandfather? Had they always lived thus in the wilds, supporting themselves with bow and arrow alone? His fancy pictured them so; yet reason told him it could not be true. Why were they afraid? Afraid of being discovered? Whom did they fear? ”

“ As Faye drifted rapidly downstream, now threatened by floating fragments of ice, and now caught and whirled around by mad swirls of racing water, she expected every moment to reach the end of life. So long, however, as the faithful Tico swam at her side she could not give up hope. So, with the moon painting a mocking golden path to shore and all the starry reflections dancing about her, she drifted on. ”

“ Much sooner than Johnny expected, the hunchback awoke. Perhaps the pangs of hunger were making themselves felt. Be that as it may, the night was not half gone when, each armed with a stout bow and a quiver of arrows, they stole out into the vivid moonlight.
“Night hunting,” Johnny thought. “Wonder what sort of game will be afoot at such an hour? Have to be large. Can’t see well enough for snowshoe rabbit or ptarmigan.” ”

“ As they broke camp that day, Faye found herself wondering about many things. Would they come up with Timmie? Did he carry on his sled the strange collection of green gold antiques? Was he truly attempting to run away with the gold? If so, why? And what of Johnny, her good pal of the long trail? They had experienced many adventures together. Would their trails ever cross again? She could not quite believe him dead.
“Adventures,” she thought. “How little enjoyment one gets from an adventure when he has no one to share it!” ”

“ This was a race, a hurdle race for a precious prize.
“If only they stall the boat. If only they turn back,” he panted as, gripping the bough of a spruce tree, he fairly hurled himself to the next tree. Down, down, down. Now a rocky ledge, now a glistening bank of snow, now a clump of trees, over, under, through he went until at last, ragged, torn, bleeding, he reached level land and in time the river’s brink. ”

“ Several nights later, with only a shelter of poles covered by boughs, Johnny slept again in his blankets before the fire. His was the sleep of one whose burdens are heavy, whose trails have been long, but whose heart is light.
“The canoe is fit,” was the last word of Gordon Duncan before they went to rest. “Fit as a fiddle. To-morrow the river takes us on the way.”
“But remember,” said his granddaughter, “that there are rapids in the river.”
“There are never rapids in any life till we reach them,” said the rugged old Scot. “And when we do reach them we can but do our part. ”

“ Johnny looked at her in silence. His mind was in a whirl. Here was an old man and a girl who but a few days before, as if guilty of some crime, were hiding in the brush. Yet, at this moment they were planning a long and dangerous journey far out on the tundra in the hope of saving the lives of a few half savage people.
“Queer folks,” he told himself.
“So here we are,” the girl went on after a moment’s silence. “In an hour we shall be on our way. Before us is the wilderness, after that a river, the land of little sticks and the silent, white tundra. We carry only our precious bows and arrows. ”

“ As they neared this narrow stretch of water the caribou would find themselves cut off by native drivers and imaginary natives built of stone piles and deerskins. They would then take to a deeper, broader stretch of water which would force them to swim. At the far bank, in ambush the hunters would wait with drawn bows.
“If we succeed,” Johnny thought. “If we do.” He had visions of a long journey over hard packed snow with meat aplenty on Tico’s sled, and after that a long, long rest in a cabin somewhere on at the back of beyond. ”

“ Gordon Duncan came toiling up the hill. Seeing the halo of sunset glory that had been cast about them, he said;
“It is truly wonderful. Who could believe that less than two hundred miles from this spot men, women and little children may be starving? There are men who will tell you that nature is God. A cruel God indeed who could furnish us such beauty and offer to them only death.” ”

“ It was equipped with rude bunks, a hand hewn table and chairs and a massive stone fireplace.
“This,” said Gordon Duncan, a note of deep, silent joy creeping into his voice, “is the very place we were to leave the canoe and strike away across the tundra. Truly we have been guided by a great good God.”
“God, and Tico,” whispered the girl as she sank down upon a chair. There was no suggestion of irreverence in her tone.
“Aye, and the dog,” said the old Scot. “I doubt not that many times the great Creator finds a dog’s course more easy to direct than that of a human.” ”

“ Being young and strong, possessed of a healthy body and a vigorous mind, he did not trouble about the future for long, but springing out into the storm, began dragging in dry brush and logs.
“Ah, now the storm may laugh and the wind crack her cheeks!” exclaimed the Scot as he attacked the branches with an axe he had found in the corner.
Bacon, fritters and coffee might seem a meager feast. But to those who had lived for days on caribou steak, rabbits, partridge and squirrel, it was indeed a rich repast. Even Tico enjoyed it beyond his power to express. ”

“ Gordon Duncan said solemnly. “At times we find ourselves in the midst of terrible trouble, storms of life. We may have companions in these troubles, or they may be hidden away, our own secret troubles. In any case, it is quite wonderful to feel that about us, standing shoulder to shoulder with us, are friends ready at an instant’s notice to reach out a helping hand.
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“Much of the meaning of life is just here.” His tone became more thoughtful. “Life, after all, is a storm and in a way the worst of storms, for many of us haven’t the faintest notion whither we are bound. ”

“ This bear, they explained, had been slain with a bow and arrow. They produced the arrow as proof. And they explained further with many a strange exclamation that the man who shot the arrow was the most powerful giant that ever lived. No Eskimo, no Indian, no white man they had ever known pulled a bow with such a force and power. They felt quite sure he must be some strange spirit being, not human at all.
“It is Johnny’s arrow,” said Faye at once. “But he was possessed of no such strength. Who could have shot the arrow?”
She suggested the aged recluse, but Gordon Duncan shook his head. ”

“ In a park where bears were protected and tame, Johnny had often amused himself by watching the actions of mother bears and their cubs.
“He seems a great hunter of bears,” Johnny told himself. “No doubt, living as he does in such isolation, he knows more about bears than human beings. But am I to be his cub weeks on end?”
He pictured himself living in the wilderness with this curious wanderer, dressing in skins, hunting with bow and arrow, fishing with crude nets, living the life of a savage. ”

“ Late that afternoon, in a boat that might have been made by some primitive man three thousand years before, they glided from the shore and away through the water that ran above the surface of six foot ice which, soon enough, would rise and go booming and crowding and grinding toward the sea.
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Faye’s heart missed a beat as she took her place in the prow. They were facing grave dangers. Would this be her last ride?
And yet it was to be a race, a race between a raft and a skin boat on a turbulent river. Races are always thrilling. ”

“ The low swish and sigh of the pines suggested a cold wind from the north with a possible blizzard. To be alone in such a storm, with but a single arrow—
As if reading the boy’s thought, the old man spoke. “We can offer you little protection and no bed, but you are welcome to a place before our fire.”
“I—I’ve got blankets.” Johnny’s tone was eager as he sprang to his feet. The smile he had seen on the girl’s face returned. He believed that she too was pleased.
“Be a great pal,” he told himself. “Strong as a man. And how she can shoot!”
To Gordon Duncan he said, “I’ll go for my blankets.” ”

“ It often happens as one travels along life’s pathway that he comes of a sudden to that which is to change the very nature of his being. But does he know it? More often than otherwise he does not. It was even so now. As the wandering trio came over the crest of a ridge and began to descend into a valley down a narrow run that led them back to the river, they saw before them a scraggy pine of unusual height. ”

“ With a paddle twice the size and strength of the white man’s canoe paddle, the hunchback drove the dugout forward in the rushing waters at a terrific pace.
It was Johnny who first heard the roar of the bursting ice jamb. They were nearly two miles away, but it filled his breast with a wild terror. That his friends rode the torrent before him he knew. What had happened to them? What was about to befall him?
The current was swift. It bore them on rapidly. When the fog dropped down upon them he realized that safety lay in seeking out shelter in some quiet eddy close to the bank. ”

“ Exactly a quarter of an hour, measured by Gordon Duncan’s large and ancient timepiece, elapsed before the natives on the island announced by a wild burst of shouting that they were ready for Gordon Duncan and Faye to haul away on the line of homespun yarn.
Faye found her heart beating wildly as she seized the slender line that spanned the rushing water. Well enough she knew that should this line fail them, a half score of lives must be lost.
“And life,” she told herself as her lips moved in silent prayer, “life is such a precious heritage.” ”

“ It was the voice of an old man grown suddenly strong that sounded in Johnny’s ear. A moment more and Gordon Duncan, with Tico hitched to an improvised sled, stood beside them.
“As for yonder little brown people, God will provide in his own good way,” he said as he led them down the ridge.
That night between the sheltering banks of a narrow gorge, they built a shanty of willow bushes. The beds they slept on after a royal feast of roasted caribou steak were made of rustling willow leaves. ”

“ So Johnny took up the task of trail blazer, and even as his eyes worked out a passage here and a detour there, his mind went back to that day when he first met Faye Duncan, the day on which they killed their first caribou. Woven with his thoughts of that which had happened then were wonders regarding the creatures moving about on the river island, and Gordon Duncan’s purpose in bringing them on this wild chase into the unknown.
An hour later in a sheltered nook they pitched their small tents and built a crackling fire of scrub fir trees. ”

“ A second more, and her broadhead arrow would have flown. But of a sudden the wild creature’s forelegs crumpled beneath him and he fell with a great rattling of horns, to go rolling over and over down a twenty-foot embankment.
Fleet as the wind, the girl leaped clear of her retreat and away down that slope. “He may merely have stumbled, may be up and away.” Little she knew of wild goats, whose feet are surer than any other thing in life. The goat was dead. Johnny’s first arrow had pierced him through and through. ”

“ Gordon Duncan was not yet restored to his full strength. Having found a rocky shelf walled in by nature on three sides, they decided to give the day over to hunting. Gordon Duncan would make camp and prepare a supply of wood. Johnny and the girl would hunt with bow and arrow. The ground seemed suited for the chase. Here and there were treeless spots overgrown with blueberry bushes. Where the wind had swept the snow, frozen berries clung stubbornly to their stems. Ptarmigan might be feeding here. Willow bushes close to the river bank showed fresh markings done by snowshoe rabbits. ”

“ The old Scot dropped his paddle to the bottom of the dugout long enough to turn up the collar of his jacket, then he took up the mechanical swing of his brawny arms that had done so much in the days that had just passed to speed the three adventurers on into the Northland.
“Going to be a bad one!” Johnny threw a fleeting glance at the girl before him. Like her grandfather, she performed wonders. She had kept up the steady, monotonous swing of paddle until Johnny thought she must be working in her sleep. The muscles of her arms had grown hard as a man’s. ”

“ Gordon Duncan thought only of Timmie and his green gold. Faye Duncan lived most for the care and protection of the kindly old man she loved more than her own life. Johnny dreamed strange dreams of gold, fortune, and a dark haired handsome Scotch girl. At times he wondered why they had feared to meet a fellow human being. ”

“ Faye’s escape from her island was less dramatic than that of the Indians she had saved. As she waited, a surprisingly large cake of ice drifted by. Seizing the opportunity, she sprang once more into the chilling waters, swam a few strokes, clambered aboard, drifted close to shore, was caught and dragged to land by the husky natives. Then, followed by the dripping Tico, she raced away to camp. ”

“ Some form of grizzly, a silver-tip perhaps, this bear promised to be a formidable foe. At such a time of half stupor and intense hunger he must be doubly dangerous.
The Indian took one step backward. Then he paused. The next instant, with hands that were as powerful as man has known, and fingers as cunning, he wrenched the bow from the unconscious boy’s grasp and sent an arrow crashing into the gaunt beast’s side. ”

“ It was a great deal for the modest old man to say. That it was not too much was proven when, a moment later, his arrow, with the last available coil of yarn sailing fast and low, lost itself in the branches of the lone pine on the opposite shore. A shout of admiration and triumph came from the distant shore.
That the natives knew what was expected of them was soon shown. After a moment of wild scrambling in which dogs were trampled upon and sleds overturned, they began the business of tying together a long cord of their own. And this was of strong rawhide. ”

“ But who was the man?
“Don’t matter,” he told himself. “Might be anyone, a trapper, a prospector, a lone Indian. But my comrades have gone ahead. How am I to overtake them?”
In his eyes as he tried in vain to catch some glimpse of those who had glided from his field of vision was a glint of despair.
The hunchback, who during all this time had been studying his face, did not appear satisfied.
Selecting larger sticks, he constructed on the ground a larger raft. With infinite pains he built up a new wooden man, four dogs and a sled. ”