CHAPTER VI A SHOT IN THE NIGHT
The storm, which had so successfully defeated Curlie Carson in his effortto follow the outlaw of the air, was but a narrow finger reaching outfrom the vast, wind-blown ice pack that is the Arctic Sea. It did notextend as far to the west as the spot on Great Slave Lake on which thecabin occupied by Joyce Mills and her father was located. So it happenedthat even while Curlie raced the storm for his very life, Joyce satcomfortably by the great barrel of a stove that radiated heat aplenty anddreamed of other days when she, with her friends, Johnny Thompson andCurlie Carson and the young detective, Drew Lane, were engaged in deedsof adventure.
"I only wish Drew were here now!" she sighed. "He would help me solvethis mystery of the stolen films."
That the films were to prove of inestimable value in the task of huntingout rich mineral-bearing ore, she did not for a moment doubt. Only thatevening as he sat poring over the pictures of some rocks laid bare bywind and rain, her father had told her with the greatest enthusiasm thathe had on that very day successfully located the spot marked on thepictures and that it gave every promise of being a lead to richore-bearing rock.
"Only think!" he had exclaimed. "When I was a young man, when we wentover the Yukon Trail, we carried all we would need for two years, on ourbacks and on sleds. And no dogs, mind you! Not a dog!
"And when we arrived in the North all that vast, uncharted wilderness wasbefore us. We had not a single lead. Little wonder that we returned aftertwo years of terrible privation, empty-handed and heavy-hearted.
"And now look!" He patted the pictures lovingly. "The airplanes give usthese. We have only to study them and follow their indications.
"Not alone that, but the airplane carries us a thousand miles far aboveimpassable trails and leaves us with picks, shovels, and food inabundance to work out our own salvation. Is it not all very wonderful?"
Ah, yes, it was wonderful. Yet this conscientious girl, as she sat by thefire thinking things through, was distinctly unhappy.
"If only we had come into possession of the pictures in an honorablemanner!" she thought, with a sigh.
"Why don't I confide in one of father's partners?" she asked herself."But which one?"
That indeed was the question. Going at it in blind fashion, as she must,she would with the usual bad luck of such a venture, ask advice of thevery one who had stolen the films.
"And he would only lead me away on a false scent," she told herself. "No,no! I shall say nothing. Watchful waiting, that's the thing." With thatshe sprang to her feet. She felt in need of a touch of the cold nightair. Its tingle sent her blood racing. Beneath the stars she could thinkclearly.
She had ever been a person of action, had this slim, dark-haired girl. Incollege it had been basketball, tennis and hockey. Here she was limitedto following-the dog team and taking long walks by herself. Drawing onher parka and seizing a stout stick, she marched away into the moonlight.
"How still it is!" she said to herself. "And how wonderful! The moon andthe stars seem near. God seems near. It is good to be alone with Him."
So, sometimes communing with herself and sometimes with the stars, shewandered farther than she intended.
She had rounded a clump of spruce trees when suddenly the silence wasbroken by a terrific snort, and a great dark bulk came charging down uponher from the hill above.
Now her gymnasium training, together with the cool nerve inherited fromher father, stood her in good stead. Leaping to a tree, she seized thelowest branch and swung herself up.
Not a second too soon. The irate monster passed directly beneath her.
As he passed, she fancied she smelled fire, shot from his nostrils. "Whatcreature in these wilds could be like that?" she asked herself. "He's nota bear, nor a moose. He's too large for any other creature."
Here, surely, was a conundrum. It was not long in solving. As thecreature turned about for one more vain charge she saw him clearly in themoonlight.
"A buffalo!" she exclaimed. "A buffalo in this frozen land! How--howimpossible!" That he was indeed a buffalo and a very real one, the beastproceeded to demonstrate by pawing and bellowing beneath her tree.
"He'll keep me here all night. I'll freeze!" she thought, half indespair. "This morning it was forty below, and to-night it is just ascold."
At last, taking a stronger grip on her nerves, she climbed a littlehigher, selected a stout branch and settled down upon it to think thingsthrough.
She was, she knew, more than a mile from camp. No amount of calling wouldbring aid. In time her father would miss her and there would be a search.But in the North people remain up at all hours. Her friends might notthink of retiring for three hours. Her time was her own. They would notthink it strange that she was not there.
"In the meantime I shall freeze," she told herself. In spite of her bestefforts at self-control, a touch of the tragic crept into her voice.Already her feet, clad only in wool stockings and moose-hide moccasins,were beginning to feel uncomfortable.
"Stop feeling after a while." She shuddered. "Then they will be frozen.
"Moccasin Telegraph," she murmured. "If Johnny had told me his secretperhaps I could now flash a message to our camp."
In the meantime the buffalo, having ceased roaring and pawing, hadsettled down to what promised to be a long wait. With head hanging low,he appeared to fall fast asleep.
"Shamming," she whispered.
But was he? Everyone knows that four-footed creatures often sleepstanding up.
Joyce was not a person of great patience. She was all for action.
"I won't freeze!" she declared stoutly. "I'll jump down and try toout-dodge him. I'll take to the trees."
Having resolved on this, she studied possible landing spots. In the endshe chose, one might think, the most perilous of all.
"I'll climb up a little higher, and then I'll drop square on his back.He'll be so startled he'll run away."
No sooner resolved than done. From a perch ten feet above, she suddenlydescended upon the buffalo's back.
The result exceeded her expectations. The great beast lurched forward, itseemed, the very second she landed. She was pitched backward and landedfull length in the snow.
Her landing place was soft, a bank of snow blown in among the branches ofa fallen tree. She was not injured. The breath had been knocked from her;that was all. And this was fortunate. It gave her time to think.
Having thought, she lay quite still. She was, she believed, quite coveredwith snow. The buffalo, who was snorting and bellowing in an alarmingfashion, would find her only by stepping on her.
"The branches will keep him back. I am safe." She whispered, scarcelydaring to breathe.
A moment passed; another and another. Still the snorting and roaringcontinued.
Then a curious thing happened. A rifle shot rang out in the night. Thebuffalo went crashing away through the bush. Then followed a silence.
"A rifle," she whispered to herself. "There is no rifle in our camp."
She was delivered from one peril, only to be threatened by another. Shewas far from camp, and there were strangers about.
Five minutes more she lay there. Then, feeling the drowsy sleep of theNorth coming upon her, she cast aside the snow, to leap to her feet andgo speeding away toward the camp.
Ten minutes later she burst into camp, exclaiming:
"A buffalo treed me! I jumped on his back. A stranger shot at him."
Such a speech called for an explanation. It was given over a hot cup ofchocolate.
"Oh, yes, there are buffaloes up here," Jim drawled in the middle of thetalk. "Right smart of 'em. Woods-buffaloes, they are. There's a preservedown south of here. Feller at Fort Chipewyan told me about 'em. He waswhat they call a buffalo ranger. They're protected, these buffaloes. Youcan't shoot 'em. Probably this one was a cranky old boy who couldn'tstand his relatives."
"He couldn't stand me, either," Joyce laughed. "Here's hoping I ne
ver seehim again."
Vain hope!
"But the man? The rifle?"
"Probably some Indian," replied her father. "We'll look into that in themorning."
They did not. A short, fierce wind-storm that night blotted out allevidence of the girl's adventure.