Triple Spies Part 4

"A deer!" he muttered. "A wild reindeer! What luck!"

It was true. The wolf had doubtless been stalking him. Creeping stealthily forward, foot by foot, Johnny was at last within easy range of the creature. His automatic cracked twice in quick succession and a moment later he was exulting over two hundred pounds of fresh meat, food for many days.

Twenty hours later, Johnny found himself sitting sleepily on the edge of one of the deer sleds. The reindeer, unhitched and tethered, were digging beneath the snow for moss. The storm had subsided and once more they had journeyed far. The j.a.p girl was buried deep beneath the furs on the other sled.

Johnny was puzzling his brain at this time over one thing. They had followed a half covered, ancient trail due north for two days. Then a fresh track had joined the old one. It was the track of a man with dog team and sled. This they had followed due north again, and two hours ago, while the deer were resting and feeding, Johnny had detected the j.a.p girl in the act of measuring the footprints of the man who drove the dog team.

She had appeared troubled and embarra.s.sed when she knew that he had seen what she was doing. Notwithstanding the fact that there had been no sign of guilt or treachery in her frank brown eyes, Johnny had been perplexed. What secret was she hiding from him? What did she know, or seek to know, about this man whose trail had joined theirs at an angle?

Could it be? No, Johnny dismissed the thought which came to his mind.

He had dismissed all his perplexities, and was about to abandon himself to three winks of sleep, when something on the horizon attracted his attention. A mere dot at first, it grew rapidly larger.

"Dog team or reindeer on our trail," he thought. "I wonder."

From beneath his parka he drew his long blue automatic. After examining its clip, he laid it down on the sled with two other clips beside it.

Then he drew the two knives also from his belt; the one he had secured at the time of the street fight in Vladivostok, the other had belonged to the Chukche who had attacked him. For the twentieth time he noted that they were exactly alike, blade forging, hilt carving, and all. And again, this realization set him to speculating. How had this brace of knives got so widely separated? How had this one found its way to the heart of a Chukche tribe? Why had the Chukches attempted to murder the j.a.panese girl and himself? Had it been with the hope of securing wealth from their simple luggage, or had they been bribed to do it? Once more his brain was in a whirl.

But there was business at hand. The black spot had developed into a reindeer, driven by a man. How many were following this man Johnny could not tell.

CHAPTER IV

A NARROW ESCAPE

As Johnny stood awaiting the arrival of the stranger, many wild misgivings raced through his mind. What if this man was but the forerunner of the whole Chukche tribe? Then indeed, for himself and the j.a.panese girl things were at an end.

The newcomer was armed with a rifle. Johnny would stand little show with him in a duel, good as his automatic was.

But the man came on with a jaunty swing that somehow was rea.s.suring. Who could he be? As he came close, he dropped his rifle on his sled and approached with empty hands.

"I am Iyok-ok," he said in good English, at the same time thrusting out his hand. "I was an American soldier, an Eskimo. Now I am going back to my home at Cape Prince of Wales."

"You got your discharge easily," smiled Johnny.

"Not so easy, but I got it."

"Well, anyway, stranger," said Johnny gripping the other's hand, "I can give you welcome, comrade. We are traveling the same way."

The Eskimo looked at Johnny's regulation army shoes as he said the word comrade, but made no comment.

"Know anything about travel in such a country?" asked Johnny.

"Most things you need to know."

"Then you sure are welcome," Johnny declared. Then, as he looked at the Eskimo closely there came to him a feeling that they had met before but where and when he could not recall. He did not mention the fact, but merely motioned the stranger to a seat on the sled while he dug into his pack for a morsel of good cheer.

Many days later, Johnny lay sprawled upon a double thickness of long haired deer skins. He was reading a book. Two seal oil lamps sputtered in the igloo, but these were for heat, not for light. Johnny got his light in the form of a raggedly round patch of sunlight which fell straight down from the top where the poles of the igloo met.

Johnny was very comfortable physically, but not entirely at ease mentally. He had been puzzled by something that had happened five minutes before. Moreover, he was half angry at his enforced idleness here.

Yet he was very comfortable. The igloo was a permanent one. Erected at the base of a cliff, covered over with walrus skin, lined with deer skin, and floored with planks hewn from driftwood logs, it was perfect for a dwelling of its kind. It stood in a hunting village on the Siberian sh.o.r.e of Behring Sea. The j.a.p girl, Johnny and Iyok-ok had traveled thus far in safety.

Yes, they had come a long distance, many hundreds of miles. As Johnny thought of it now, he put his book aside (a dry, old novel, left here by some American seaman) and dreamed those days all through again.

Wonderful days had followed the addition of Iyok-ok to their party. From that hour they had wanted nothing of food or shelter. Reared as he apparently had been in such wilds as these, the native skillfully had sought out the best of game, the driest, most sheltered of camping spots, in fact, had done everything that tended to make life easy in such a land.

Johnny's reveries were cut short and he started suddenly to his feet. A pebble had dropped squarely upon the deer skin spread out before him. It had come through the hole in the peak of the igloo. He glanced quickly up, but saw nothing.

Then he grinned. "Just a case of nerves, I guess. Some kids playing on the cliff. Anyway, I'll investigate," he said to himself.

Throwing back the deerskin flap, he stepped outside. Did he see a boot disappear around the point of the cliff above the igloo? He could not tell. At any rate, there was no use wasting more time on the question.

To see farther around the cliff, one must climb up its rough face, and by that time any mischief maker might have disappeared.

Yet Johnny stood there worried and puzzled. Twice in the last hour pebbles had rattled down upon the igloo, and now one had dropped inside.

An old grievance stirred him: Why were not he and his strange companions on their way? With only four hundred miles to travel to East Cape, with a splendid trail, with reindeer well fed and rested, it seemed folly to linger in this native village. The reindeer Chukches, whose sled deer they had borrowed, might be upon them at any moment, and that, Johnny felt sure, would result in an unpleasant mixup. Yet he had been utterly unable to get the little Oriental girl and Iyok-ok to go on. Why? He could only guess. There were a great many other things he could only guess at. The little Oriental girl's reason for going so far into the wilderness was as much a secret as ever. He could only guess that it had to do with the following of that mysterious driver of a dog team. With unerring precision this man had pushed straight on northward toward East Cape and Behring Strait. And they had followed, not, so far as Johnny was concerned, because they were interested in him, but because he had traveled their way.

At times they had come upon his camp. Located at the edge of some bank or beside some willow clump, where there was shelter from the wind, these camps told little or nothing of the man who had made them.

Everything which might tell tales had been carried on or burned. Once only Johnny had found a sc.r.a.p of paper. Nothing had been written on it.

From it Johnny had learned one thing only: it had originally come from some Russian town, for it had the texture of Russian bond. But this was little news.

Who was this stranger who traveled so far? Johnny had a feeling that he was at the moment hiding in this native village, and that this was the reason his two companions did not wish to proceed. There had grown up between these two, the Eskimo boy and the j.a.panese girl, a strange friends.h.i.+p. At times Johnny had suspicions that this friends.h.i.+p had existed before they had met on the tundra. However that might have been, they seemed now to be working in unison. Only the day before he had happened to overhear them conversing in low tones, and the language, he would have sworn, was neither Eskimo, English, nor Pidgen. Yet he did not question the boy's statement that he was an American Eskimo. Indeed there were times when the flash of his honest smile made Johnny believe that they had met somewhere in America. On his trip to Nome and Fairbanks before the war, Johnny had met many Eskimos, and had boxed and wrestled with some of the best of them.

"Oh, well," he sighed, and stretched himself, "'tain't that I've got a string on 'em, nor them on me. I'll have to wait or go on alone, that's all."

He entered the igloo, and tried again to become interested in his book, but his mind kept returning to the strange friends.h.i.+p which had grown up between the three of them, Iyok-ok, the j.a.p girl and himself. The j.a.p girl had proved a good sport indeed. She might have ridden all the time, but she walked as far in a day as they did. She cooked their meals cheerfully, and laughed over every mishap.

So they had traveled northward. Three happy children in a great white wilderness, they pitched their igloos at night, a small one for the girl, a larger one for the two men, and, burying themselves beneath the deer skins, had slept the dreamless sleep of children, wearied from play.

The j.a.p girl had appeared to be quite content to be going into an unknown wilderness. Only once she had seemed concerned. That was when a long detour had taken them from the track of the unknown traveler, but her cheerfulness had returned once they had come upon his track again.

This had set Johnny speculating once more. Who was this stranger? Was he related to the girl in some way? Was he her friend or her foe? Was he really in this village at this time? If so, why did she not seek him out? If a friend, why did she not join him; and, if an enemy, why not have him killed? Surely, here they were quite beyond the law.

Oh, yes, Johnny might get a dog team and go on up the coast alone, but Johnny liked his two traveling companions too well for that, and besides, Johnny dearly loved mysteries, and here was a whole nest of them. No, Johnny would wait.

The seal oil lamps imparted a drowsy warmth to the igloo. The deer skins were soft and comfortable. Johnny grew sleepy. Throwing the ragged old book in the corner, he stretched out full length on the skins, which lay in the irregular circle of light, and was soon fast asleep.

Just how long he slept he could not tell. When he awoke it was with a feeling of great peril tugging at his heart. His first conscious thought was that the aperture above him had, in some way, been darkened.

Instantly his eyes sought that opening. What he saw there caused his heart to pause and his eyes to bulge.

Directly above him, seemingly poised for a drop, was a vicious looking hook. With a keen point and a barb fully three inches across, with a shaft of half-inch steel which was driven into a pole three inches in diameter and of indefinite length, it could drive right through Johnny's stomach, and pin him to the planks beneath. And, as his startled eyes stared fixedly at it, the thing shot downward.

CHAPTER V

"FRIEND? ENEMY?"