CHAPTER XX ADRIFT IN THE NIGHT
The ways of the savage and the highly civilized man are vastly different.One is tempted to believe at times that the savage has the better end ofthe bargain. Civilized man, from the time he enters school at six orseven, until he is able to work no longer because of old age, rises at acertain time each morning, goes at a stated hour to an appointed place,stays a specified number of hours for study or work, then returns to hishome. This program is seldom varied.
The savage has no program. He rises one morning, comes upon the track ofgame, begins a hunt that may lead him far and consume two days and anight. The game at last run down and captured, he eats, then lies down tosleep while the sun goes round the earth and returns to shine again.Waking, he eats again. Then finding that some part of his hunting togrequires attention, he consumes unlimited hours on the task.
It was so with Omnakok, the hunchback. Johnny, lying propped up among thedeer skins, watched him shaving away at the slab of tough wood for twohours before he realized what he was about.
"He's making a bow," he told himself, "a bow, that's it. Wonder what sortof wood it is?"
To this question he could find no answer. Many strange woods were foundhere. Besides, it is known that trade between the strange northern tribesextends over thousands of miles.
"May have come from Russia or Greenland," he told himself.
When his bumps and bruises began to make themselves felt and his eyesgrew heavy he dropped back among the deer skins and, entrusting himselfto the One who notes the sparrow's fall, passed into the land of dreams.
When he awoke, several hours later, the bow was fully fashioned but stillthe hunchback stood bending over it.
"He's backing it with some tissue," the boy told himself. "I know. It'sreindeer sinew. I've heard of that. A bow so backed will never crack."
Then a thought struck him all of a heap.
"He's making that bow for me!" His heart gave a great leap. Perhaps noboy in all the world ever felt such real joy over prospects of a new bow.
That it was intended for him he could not doubt for, though made on thesame lines and in the identical manner of Omnakok's own, it was muchlighter.
"Fifty pounds, perhaps sixty," he told himself. "How well he has judgedmy strength."
Sitting up, he felt his bumps. "Not so bad. Guess I could walk." He stoodup, took a few steps, made a wry face, rubbed his legs, took a few moresteps, then gave vent to a low laugh. He was getting fit; be able totravel soon.
Having placed the damp sinew, well mixed with fish glue, at the back ofthe bow, Omnakok placed the bow before the fire, then dropping into acorner, with legs crossed and long arms hanging down, he fell asleep.
On tiptoe Johnny wandered from corner to corner of the cabin. He had beenright. There was no food. The hunchback had shared his last meal.
"Some old sport," he thought. "Not so bad for a savage."
"When he wakes," he told himself, "my new bow will be dry. Then we willgo for a hunt. Wonder what the game will be like?"
Had he known he surely must have shuddered. Had he known what washappening to his good pal Faye Duncan, he must have rushed from the cabinin a mad desire to reach her side and bring her aid. Knowing none ofthese things, he replenished the fire, then sat down patiently to waitthe next move on the strange checkerboard of life.
Faye Duncan and her grandfather had joined the Indians in a meal ofstewed bear meat. Gordon Duncan had taken his place by the fire for hisevening nap, when Tico, who had been sleeping with nose on paws, suddenlyrose to sniff the air, then to go away into the night.
Her fear of the unknown overcome by curiosity, the girl followed him.They had not gone a hundred paces before they came to a trail in thesnow. Many hours old, even distorted as they were by the melting of thesnow, the footprints were unmistakable.
"The--the great banshee!" the girl whispered under her breath.
As for the dog, he lifted up his voice in a howl which was anunmistakable plaint for a lost friend. Little wonder. The trail had beenmade by the hunchback as he had carried Johnny to his cabin.
Having completed his dirge of the night, Tico, nose to the snow, wenttrotting away.
"He's on the trail of the great banshee!" The girl gripped her breast tostill her heart's wild beating. "Sha--shall I follow? Dare I?"
She answered her own question by again taking up the trail.
A quarter mile farther on, she came to that which made her start andstare. A little to one side of the trail, a dark spot stood out againstthe whiteness of the earth's snow blanket.
"A--a mitten," she said, picking it up. "It, why it--" again she strovein vain to still her heart. "It's Johnny's!"
Who can say what wild thoughts surged through her breast as she stoodthere in the snow beneath the starry heavens, alone in a vast hostilewilderness?
Whatever they may have been, they at last urged her on at redoubledspeed. So, half walking, half running, she came at last to the brink ofthe river. And there catastrophe befell her.
At this point on his long journey the hunchback had descended a slopingbank of snow to travel for a time upon the river's ice which was stillfrozen to the bank. Since his passing, the ice had broken away. Manyyards of his trail had gone floating downstream.
Knowing nothing of this, the girl tried in vain to discover the way hehad gone.
"He can't have taken to the river," she told herself. "Still, there mayhave been a boat. There--"
In leaning over the bank for a better look, she loosened the underminedmass of snow and together they plunged into the racing river.
"It's the end," she told herself in despair as she felt the sting of icywater. "No one can live in such a torrent."
But what was this? Something touched her cheek. It was Tico. Seeing hismistress adrift, he had plunged boldly in, determined to live or die withher.
"Good old Tico!" Her voice choked. "We'll die fighting."
At that she put forth all her strength in an effort to regain the bank.
"But what's the use?" she thought. "It's only a steep bank of snow. Noone could scale it."
With that thought, hoping against hope that something might come her way,a log, a snag, an overhanging tree, she gave herself over to drifting andquiet strokes that kept her afloat.