Johnny Longbow

“ He began hugging the shore.
So intent were they upon reaching a place of safety that they failed to note a picture framed in fog that for ten seconds flashed into view, then was lost forever.
[299]
Without knowing why they did so, both Faye Duncan and her grandfather stood upon the bank as they passed. It was Faye’s keen eyes that caught sight of the racing dugout.
“Look!” she cried, quite beside herself. “Johnny, Johnny Longbow and the great banshee!” She was quite beside herself with excitement.
“Calm yourself,” said Gordon Duncan. “You must be dreaming. A bad dream. I see nothing.” ”

“ Dry leaves and green willows make a hot fire.
Before this fire, turning round and round like a top, was the girl, while on willow branches, close as she dared have them, were her steaming garments.
[257] Johnny Longbow saw the light of that fire against the sky, but a hill lay between him and the river. He believed the reflection to be a display of Northern Lights.
They were hunting, he and the hunchback, when he saw that light. A moment after he saw it the hunchback showed him that which set his blood racing and drove all thoughts of the light out of his head. ”

“ Later he wakened and prowled as a wolf would have prowled. He did not come too near the party of three, for all through the long hours, as the girl slept curled up in her blankets, the old man and the young man took turns at making fire and guarding camp.
Toward dawn as Johnny sat half asleep by the fire, the girl, waking from refreshing slumber, sat up blinking at the fire to talk softly of a vine clad cottage where squirrels came to eat from one’s hand, where daffodils cast their fragrance to the air in the springtime, and old fashioned roses bloomed in summer. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 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!” ”

“ 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.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Had she done so, she must surely have recognized at once the footprints of her lost pal and the “great banshee.”
But, looking at the drawn face of her aged sire and realizing what long miles must still lie before him, she permitted him to have his way without a word.
All day the dogs followed the faint trail left by the fleeing Timmie and his wolfhounds. That night they camped beneath a sheltering cliff that lay at the foot of a heavily timbered hill. At the crest of that hill was a cabin, and in that cabin Johnny Longbow slept. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ The thought gave Johnny a start. Even today in this wild out-of-the-way corner of the world, Indians were not to be trusted too far. In a fit of anger, in a moment of greed, they might kill. And who would be the wiser?
[191]
“We can’t camp here,” Johnny said as a cold wind, sweeping across the perpetual snow of the mountain side chilled him to the bone. “Have to go on down. May find a sheltering ledge.” He slung his pack over his shoulder, then motioned the older man to guide them on.
“The way is down,” Gordon Duncan said huskily. “That’s all I know. Young man, your foot is surer than mine. ”

“ All the splendid color left Faye Duncan’s cheeks as she bent over his prostrate form and began struggling with the buttons of his mackinaw and shirt.
[60]
“It’s his heart,” she said. “There’s nothing much we can do. He’ll come round presently. But some day—”
She did not finish, but the wrinkles that came in her brow told all.
“But what does it mean?” said Johnny pointing to the hilt of a hunting knife that protruded a short two inches from the trunk of the pine. “Must have been there twenty years. A few years more and it would have been completely buried.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Once more Johnny put his shoulder to the sled. Gordon Duncan and Faye also seized the strap and together they went racing away down the slight incline that led to the village.
No sadder sight had this trio known than that which met their eyes as they peered within the first low, circular tent. Sprawled upon deer skins, sitting bent over as in a stupor, or lying prone like dead men, nine Eskimos greeted their entrance with not so much as a mumbled word or a stare.
“Dead,” was Johnny’s mental comment as he felt the girl’s impulsive grip on his arm.
“No,” he said aloud, “they’re not dead ”

“ They might meet on the ridge above.
Since he was ready first, Johnny had struck out alone up the slope. He had heard nothing, seen nothing of the girl all day.
Little game had come his way. Once a ptarmigan had gone fluttering out from a clump of blueberries. He had lost himself at once in tall brush. A great white owl hooted at him. He had bagged him at once, not for food, but because of his broad feathers. He must make more arrows. There was an abundance of wood. Gordon Duncan had offered him steel points. He must provide his own feathers. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Yet in this wilderness there was no laughter save the boisterous roar of an Arctic stream. There were no homes save those of the muskrat, the beaver and the white owl. The nearest cabin was fifty miles or more back. An all but impassable forest of scrub spruce, fir and pine lay between. There was time for but a flash back before Johnny found himself fighting for his life against the torrent that was dragging him over rocks and sunken logs, splashing, ducking, pulling at him and threatening every moment to make an end of him. ”

“ Perhaps Gordon Duncan knew all. Johnny and Faye knew little enough. Yet, with the tender feeling of youth for an old man who was perhaps on his last long journey, his final joyous adventure, they had followed his lead. Now here they stood.
“There’s a great river yonder,” said Johnny, lifting his field glasses to his eyes. “Wouldn’t be surprised if it were the headwaters of the Yukon.”
“But look!” he exclaimed. “There’s something moving down there. Here, tell me what it is. It seems to be marooned on that little island in midstream. Water’s overflowing the ice. Water must be rising. ”

“ In the past many a white man, many a member of your force, has owed his life to these simple people. Is it not so? Then we owe them their lives in return.”
It was evident to Johnny that the Corporal knew something of Gordon Duncan’s state of health, for at a look from Faye he said no more.
A half hour later they were seated round a rough board table graced by such a feast as only a Scotch girl accustomed to the wilds could have spread before them. ”

“ Next morning as they sat munching corn bread and strips of caribou broiled on the coals, Gordon Duncan put down his coffee cup and turned to Johnny.
“Young man,” he began, “in the home of my childhood on the crags of the Scottish Highlands, the word stranger spelled welcome. Here we have no home worthy of the name. Even this we are leaving for the unknown that lies just beyond. ”

“ A strange spectacle, a dog, an old man, a young man and a girl moving over an endless expanse of white, doing a forced march to escape from those whom they had come to save. They were following an entirely new course, one which Johnny believed would bring them to their journey’s end, Timmie’s cabin and green gold.
“Forgive them, child. Forgive them,” the old Scot said as he read the look of unhappiness on his granddaughter’s face. “Learn to pray the prayer of one much more worthy than we, ‘Father, forgive them; they know not what they do.’ Some day a missionary will come to them. ”

“ He discovered little enough. In the scrub forest he found no mark of the white man’s axe. Had he chanced to go down the other slope he would have seen plenty, as you well know. For two days, the while preparing his raft, the aged recluse had camped at the far end of that slope.
After a two-hour ramble, Johnny returned to the cabin. In one pocket was a double handful of last year’s blueberries. In one hand he carried two grouse which had fallen before his bow.
“These,” he told himself, “will make a more appetizing meal than greasy bear meat.” ”