The Blue Envelope Part 28

CHAPTER XIX

MYSTERIES EXPLAINED

There was little time left to the girls for wondering after the fire against the boarded-up house had been extinguished, for the entire throng burst in upon them. This time, apparently as eager to welcome them as they had been a few minutes before to destroy them, they rushed up to grasp their hands and mumble:

"Me-con-a-muck! Il-e-con-a-muck!"

Soon they all filed out again, two of them bearing the boy with the crushed foot.

Only one remained. He was a young Eskimo with a clean-cut intelligent face. Lucile, by his posture, recognized the one who had championed their cause from the first.

"Perhaps you wonder much?" he began. "Perhaps you ask how is this?

Sit down. I will say it to you."

The very sound of their own tongue, badly managed though it might be, was music to the two worn out and nerve-wrecked girls. They sat down on the sleeping-bag to listen, while the yellow light of the seal-oil lamp flickered across the dark, expressive face of the Eskimo.

He bent over and drew imaginary circles on the floor, one small and one large, just as the boy had done with charcoal.

"Here," he smiled, "one island. Here one. This island one house.

Here--"

"Where is this island?" broke in Lucile, too eager to know their position on the sh.o.r.e of the Arctic to hear him through.

"Yes," he smiled, "this island is here, very small. This one is here, very large." Again the imaginary circles were drawn.

Lucile smiled and was silent.

"This one large island," the native went on, "this one plenty Eskimo.

Come to visit some Eskimo. Some live here, these Eskimo.

"Pretty soon come big ice-floe. Wanna cross, these people. Can't.

Wanna cross, one boy. Try cross. Broke foot. You see. Come house.

Fell down. Think die, that boy. Wanna come in. Pretty soon, open door, white women, you. See white women; scared, that boy, too much scared. Wanna run, that boy. Can't. Pretty soon see white woman good, kind, that one boy. Plenty fix up foot. Plenty eat, that boy.

Wanna stay.

"Pretty soon come plenty wind; plenty ice. Wanna cross ice all time, those Eskimo. Now can cross. Cross plenty Eskimo, plenty dog-team.

Come this island, one little island. See?"

"Where is this island?" Lucile broke in again.

"Yes," the speaker smiled frankly, "one big island, one little island.

Wanna cross people. All cross people."

Again Lucile was silent.

"Pretty soon," he resumed, "see light in Alongmeet's (white man's) house. Wanna know who come island. Look. See two white face in window; two white women. Then pretty much scared. One witch-doctor, old man, hair all so," he rubbed up his hair. "Say that witch-doctor, 'No come white women this island; too much ice, no come. Spirits come; that's all.' Say that one witch-doctor, 'Must kill white woman spirits; must burn house. Wanna burn house quick.'

"I say, 'No burn; no spirits mebbe. White women mebbe.'

"He say, that witch-doctor, he say, 'No white woman, white spirit, that's all.' All people say, 'Spirit! Spirit! Burn! Burn!' All wanna burn.

"Me, I wanna stop burn. No can do. Wanna burn. Bring wood, bring oil, all that Eskimo. Pretty soon fire. Wanna come in mine. No can do.

"By and by come that one boy, rush outa cabin; wanna tell no burn house. No spirit; white woman, that's all. No burn. He say, that boy, 'No burn. See white woman eat fish. Spirits no eat fish.'

"Then all the people say quick, 'No burn! No burn!' So no burn. See?

That's all."

The Eskimo smiled frankly, as he mopped the perspiration from his brow.

"They wanted to burn us because they thought we were spirits," Lucile said slowly; then suddenly, "What do they call this island?"

"This? This one island?" The Eskimo pointed to the floor.

"Yes." The girls learned forward eagerly.

"This one white man call 'Little Diomede.'"

The two girls stared at one another for a moment. Then they laughed.

In the laugh there was both surprise and great joy. They were surprised that in all the drifting of their ice-floe they had been carried about in a circle, and at last landed only twenty-two miles across-ocean from their home, on Little Diomede Island, the halfway station between the mainland of America and Russia.

"We live at Cape Prince of Wales," said Lucile. "How can we go home?"

The Eskimo merely shrugged his shoulders and smiled.

"Whose is this house?" asked Marian.

"Government," the Eskimo replied. "Schoolhouse one time. Not now.

Not many children. I--I teach 'em a little, mine. Teach 'em in native house, mine."

So there the mystery was solved. They were in a schoolhouse built by the United States Government, but which was not now being used. The natives, always very superst.i.tious, having seen their faces through the window, and not believing it possible that any white persons could come to the island at such a time, had, at the suggestion of the old witch-doctor, resolved to burn the house in the hopes of driving the spirits away. When the lame boy had limped into their midst, and had told how his wound had been dressed by these white women, and how he had seen them eat fish, which no spirit can do, according to the superst.i.tion of the Eskimo, they had been quite ready to put out the fire and welcome the strangers, all the more so since the girls had been kind to one in distress.

Phi's experience in the village of the island upon which he had been cast was more happy than he could have dreamed of. It turned out that the native who had attacked him was the only drunken person on the island. That it was an island, the Big Diomede, he was immediately informed by a young native who had learned English on a whaler.

So it turned out that the two parties, Lucile and Marian and Phi and Rover, had been carried about on the ice-floe for three days at last to be landed on twin islands.

Phi's first thought was for the safety of his former traveling companions. When he learned that nothing had been seen of them on the Big Diomede, without pausing to rest he pushed on across the now solidly frozen ma.s.s of ice which silenced the two miles of ocean which, in summer, sweeps between the two islands.

It was night when he arrived, the night of the strange witch-doctor's seance. This had all come to an end. The schoolhouse was dark--the girls were asleep. From a prowling native he learned that the girls were there and safe, then he turned in for a long sleep.

Next day, much to the surprise and delight of the girls, he walked in upon them as they were at breakfast.

When the story of all their strange adventures had been told Phi drew from his pocket a much soiled blue envelope.

Phi first told how he had finally come into possession of the letter, then he went on: