  “I hear them! They are coming! Oh, Grandfather! Johnny Thompson! They are coming! The caribou are coming!” As on that other occasion, the girl’s words were uttered in a low whisper, yet so tense were her feelings that her whispered words left in Johnny Thompson’s mind the impression of a sharp, shrill cry. At once the boy’s mind was in a whirl. Had she heard them? Were they truly coming? Faye Duncan’s ears were keen as a fox’s. Her imagination also was keen. Had imagination deceived her? He had heard nothing. “If they are coming, they may not pass this way.” This he whispered to the girl. “We must not hope too much.” “No, we must not,” she answered quietly. “But I did hear it distinctly, the crack-crack of their hoofs! The wind brought in the sound. It’s died down now. I can hear it no longer. But,” she whispered tensely, “they must come! They must!” To this Johnny agreed. Three days had passed since they arrived at the Eskimo camp. In that time, enheartened and strengthened by the white man’s caribou meat, the Eskimo had killed with bow and arrow five rabbits, three foxes and eight ptarmigan. But what were these among so many? The caribou meat was gone. Rabbit, fox, ptarmigan, all were gone, and starvation stared both Eskimos and whites in the face. As the caribou had delayed their coming, there had been grumbling among the Eskimos. An aged witch doctor had said that the presence of the white men in the village had offended the spirits of all dead caribou and that they had told the living caribou to go north over some other route. “We shall all starve,” the Eskimo had said, shaking with fear of the future. “If only they were not such children!” the old Scot had said to Johnny. “If they had more courage and determination they might live a long time on small game. But, having become accustomed to living upon game taken by the rifle, they see only death ahead when no ammunition is to be had.” In the midst of all this waiting and doubting an Eskimo had come running in from a long hunt in the distant hills. He had seen a band of caribou. They were coming. “How many?” Johnny had asked eagerly. “Desra! Desra!” (plenty! plenty!) The man had spread his arms wide. At once all was noise and confusion. It had been with the greatest difficulty that Gordon Duncan had silenced their noisy chatter and had organized the hunt that was to mean life or death to the whole band. Women and children were sent away into the hills. One band of men was stationed at the right of the lakes. These were to rush in at the proper time and urge the caribou on. A second group was concealed in a clump of willows close to the narrow neck of water which the caribou would expect to cross. These, at the proper time, would turn them to another course and force them to a swimming passage. Carefully concealed in a second clump of willows on the opposite bank were the true hunters. Seven Eskimos, the older men who retained some skill with bow and arrow, were here. So too were the three whites. “It’s not going to be easy,” Johnny told himself, “especially for the girl. We will be wading deep in stinging water. And these natives have been able to provide us with no waterproof skin garments for our protection. The sea Eskimos could have given us hip boots of sealskin.” With this thought he was led to wonder that a people who had dwelt for so long a time upon the border of the sea should have come inland to live. “It’s not so strange, after all,” he told himself. “It is so in other lands. In Borneo there are the sea dwellers and the mountain tribes. In Siberia are the Reindeer Chukchees and the Sea Hunting Chukchees. It seems—” His thoughts were broken off by a sharp whispered, “There! There! Don’t you hear them?” Johnny listened and, as he held his breath, above the dry rustle of dead willow leaves, he did catch the unmistakable crash and rattle of an oncoming army of caribou. “God grant that they may not turn back!” said Gordon Duncan as he whispered a fervent prayer to his God that He might prove that day that He, the great Father, and not the spirit of some dead animal, directed the flight of wild birds and the courses of the herds of all wild creatures. Johnny thought again of the chilling water where a film of thin ice was forming, and shuddered. Knowing that their wait might be long, he had spent much time in preparing a comfortable place of concealment. He had cut armfuls of slender willow shoots to which the dry leaves still clung. From these he had made a soft cushioned resting place. About this he had built a tight wall of leafed branches. This wall kept out the wind. Here, huddled close together, they were comfortable indeed. Compared to this, the very thought of the sweeping north wind and the cold black water sent a chill to his very marrow. “Perhaps,” he whispered hesitatingly, “perhaps it might be that you’d do well to stay here.” He was speaking to the girl. “Stay here?” The girl’s tone showed surprise. “It—it’s going to be hard out there, and—and a bit dangerous. There are enough native hunters. We have supplied them with weapons.” “I—” The girl hesitated. There can be no doubt but that there was an angry retort upon her lips. She, after all, was but human, and the moments that had just passed had been tense ones. One look at Johnny’s honest, earnest face, and the remark died unuttered. “I would not be worthy of my Scotch ancestry,” she said after a moment of silence, “nor of my grandfather, if I did not go when the call comes.” After that, for a long time, as the click of hoofs and clash of antlers grew louder, there was silence in the place of hiding. As the girl sat half hidden by willow branches the dry leaves rustled to the time of her wildly beating heart. “There!” Johnny whispered at last. “There! They have taken to the water. Now is the time.” Creeping through the bushes until they were at the brink of the water, they plunged silently in. “Good!” Johnny exclaimed hoarsely, “The Eskimos are doing their part nobly.” It was true. A thin line of hunters, hip deep in the water, stood awaiting the great drove of caribou who had come too far to turn back. A half minute more, and an arrow sped; another and yet another. Came a great splashing and thrashing of waters. In his dying frenzy a caribou beat an Eskimo into the freezing water. The Eskimo, bow in hand, was up in an instant and drawing to shoot again. So went the battle. Drenched to the skin by water thrown upon him by the rushing herd, the vanguard of which had even now reached the bank, the old Scot stood his ground and drew such a bow as never in his life had he drawn before, while back to back with him the girl did her part. Ten minutes of nerve wrecking strain, and all was over. Not, however, until food for many a long moon was supplied for every member of the strange little band. “We-e-l-l,” said the old Scot as a half hour later, dressed in dry fur garments, loaned him by an Eskimo, he sat beside a willow bush fire, “with God’s help we won. And our God must be thanked.” At that he dropped upon his knees and offered up a prayer of thanks to the God who provides all that is good. The Eskimos saw and marveled, though perhaps not one of them all understood. To this remote tribe no missionary had ever come. It was during the feast following the hunt that a surprising and disturbing drama was played out before the great roasting fire of the tribe. A hammer of perfectly good American make lay upon the ground at Johnny’s feet. He sat munching a delicious bit of broiled steak and wondering how that hammer had come all the way to these barren lands, what dog team or boat had brought it, how many fox skins it had cost the Eskimo owner, and what use it had ever been put to in a land where there are neither boards nor nails, when of a sudden he conceived of an immediate use for it. A young Eskimo was attempting to obtain the juicy marrow from the bones of a roast leg of caribou. He was pounding the bone with a round stone. The stone slipped from his grip. The bone did not break. Again he tried without success. “Here, let me have it.” Seizing the bone, Johnny laid it upon a flat rock and crushed it with a single blow of the hammer. But what was this? As Johnny glanced about him, he found a dark frown upon the face of every Eskimo. As he offered the broken bone with its rich marrow exposed to the Eskimo boy, who a moment before had appeared so eager to possess it, he was met with a sudden; “No me! No me!” Then the boy turned and walked away. It was strange. Johnny could not fathom the mystery of the tribe’s actions. From that very moment they stood aloof. The joyous noise and chatter of feasting was at an end. They gathered in little groups, to speak to one another in mumbled gutturals. Soon they went to their tents, leaving only the three whites by the dying embers of the feast fire. “What did I do?” Johnny asked. “Crushed a bone with a hammer, tried to do the boy a kindness, that was all.” “You may never know,” the old Scot’s tone was low and serious. “We’d better be getting away. Morning will do. We’ll sleep. Then we’ll go.” “It’s a queer way to treat us,” Johnny grumbled. “Here we have saved their lives, helped them secure food to tide them over, and at once they turn their backs upon us.” “You must not judge them,” said Duncan slowly. “Let God do that. They are but children. To them every living creature and every dead one too has a spirit. If you offend the spirit of a dead caribou or a musk-ox or wolf, he may do you great harm. There are a hundred things you must do and a hundred others you must not do. You who have lived all your life in the light of civilization know little enough of the torment that comes from being a heathen. But we must sleep if we are to travel to-morrow.” Faye Duncan realized the truth of these last words quite as well as her grandfather did. Yet, for some reason, as she lay among the deerskins with her grandfather breathing in peaceful slumber nearby, she found herself unable to sleep. The day had been an exciting and trying one. The great crisis, in so far as the Eskimos’ needs were concerned, had been reached and passed. She was about to fall asleep when she thought again of Johnny’s strange experience with the young Eskimo and the hammer. At that very moment she caught a slight sound outside the tent. The sound, coming as it did in the silence of the night, was disturbing. Parting the tent flaps, she looked out. The next moment she barely suppressed a scream. The tent in which Johnny slept was not ten feet from their own. Moonlight made all bright as day. At that very moment an Eskimo with a long knife in his hand was lifting the skins at the back of Johnny’s tent. As he turned half about the girl recognized the young Eskimo of the evening, he who had refused to accept the marrow bone crushed by Johnny’s hammer. |
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