  Next day they marched straight away over the white expanse. A fog, hanging low over the tundra, hid all but a narrow circle from view. They traveled by the compass and the ancient map Johnny had found in the cabin by the river. That it was a long chance the boy admitted to himself. What if the map were wrong? Few maps of this country are accurate. “Can’t turn back now,” he told himself. “Have to take a chance. Take a chance.” As he repeated the words, to his surprise he found that he was beginning to hate them. All his life, so it seemed as he looked back upon it, he had been taking chances. And what had he gotten out of it? Precious little. He thought of the cozy cottage the girl had described to him so often. “That’s the life,” he told himself. “And yet they left it for this. They took a chance. And here they are.” For the hundredth time he wondered why. The land became more rolling as they advanced. The tundra was left behind. This the boy took for a good sign. “Coming to the mountains,” he told himself. But were they? As night fell the fog thickened. “Going to be dark as a dungeon,” Gordon Duncan mumbled. “Tough luck. No wood for a fire. No place to camp.” What he said was true. For the first time Johnny felt regret for the course they had taken. All about them was rolling ground. Snow blanketed all. Cropping out here and there were bunches of last year’s grass, but these poor wisps of wind-shrouded straw would provide neither fire nor bed. When darkness had fully come, they yielded to the inevitable. Having scooped away the snow as best they could from a narrow patch of turf, they spread out their blankets, sat upon them while they ate a cold and cheerless supper; then with Tico in their midst, huddling together as best they could, they prepared to defy the damp chill of a late winter night in the Arctic. It must have been some time past midnight that Johnny, wakened by a low growl from Tico, sat up to peer into the inky darkness and listen. What he heard caused his blood to run cold. A faint chopping sound drifted in from the dark. Now coming from the right, the left, before him, behind, it seemed all about him at once. Putting out a hand, he shook the shoulder of Gordon Duncan. “Listen! Wolves!” he said in a tone that was low and deep. “What is it?” the girl asked, sitting up. “Listen! Wolves!” Johnny repeated. At once, above the chop-chop of the distant enemy, he heard the girl’s teeth chatter. “Get out the bows and arrows,” said Gordon Duncan. “If only we had a fire.” “If we only had!” the girl echoed. “But we’ll do for ’em!” the old man declared stoutly. “Here! There! Stop him!” The girl sprang to her feet. She was too late. Tico had leaped away into that darkness and fog. A moment of suspense, then from out that shadow-land came sounds of a terrific encounter. With a cry of dismay the girl leaped to her feet and would have gone to the aid of her faithful friend. But Gordon Duncan pulled her back. “No! No! child!” he exclaimed. “It won’t do. We must stay together. It’s our only chance.” “There are many,” he rumbled on. “More than I have ever known before. They do not as a rule travel in packs, these white phantoms of the Arctic. They go about in families. But when caribou are passing they are sometimes thrown together in packs. This is the time when they are most dangerous.” “Listen!” Faye caught her breath as the growl and howl of Tico was blended with the yip-yip of wolves. “They’ll kill him. What can we do?” She gripped Johnny’s arm until it hurt. Fortunately this question did not need answering. Fierce as the battle in the dark was, it ended quite suddenly. A moment later the dog came limping back. One shoulder was terribly torn. His strength was completely gone. Torn and bloody as he was, the girl gathered him in her arms to wrap him in a blanket and lay him down beside her. “Brave old boy!” she murmured. For a half hour after that they sat there back to back waiting, listening, staring into the dark, but seeing nothing. Then a sudden gust of wind sweeping in from the great unknown before them rolled the fog away, to leave them gasping at the size and ferocious appearance of the gray-white creatures that surrounded them, a grim, silent circle. As if this were the sign for an advance, the wolves rose each in his place and began a slow advance. “Now!” said Gordon Duncan. “When I give the word, shoot the one before you, and for the good of all, don’t miss. It may mean death.” Poised each on a knee, back to back, they set their bows and nocked their arrows, then waited breathless for the old Scot’s whispered command. To Johnny it seemed that he caught the glint of a gray beast’s eye before the whisper came: “Now!” Five seconds of suspense for steadied nerves, then Johnny’s arrow sped. Before him a gray streak reared in air to fall sprawling and clawing at nothing. The arrow had gone clean through him, then glanced away over the snow. “What luck for her and for the old man?” he asked himself. There was no time for looking. In this warfare there was no frightening din. The wolves who had escaped the biting arrows came straight on. A particularly ferocious creature came stealing upon the boy. Now he was ten paces away, now five, now three. A spring and— Again his bow twanged low. A second arrow found its mark. But now, before he could turn, before he could as much as realize his danger, a gray streak launched itself upon him. Down he went. Snapping teeth and tearing claws, and after that a shock. He was beneath a combat, not a part of it. One frenzied effort and he was free. A glance told him much. The wolf had leaped upon him. Maimed as he was, Tico had come to his aid. The brave dog was down now, the wolf at his throat. Lacking better weapons, the boy seized the wolf by the throat and gripped him hard. Trained as they were for every form of combat, the grip of the boy’s hands was like steel. The struggle that followed was a terrific one. Not daring to release his hold, yet fearing every instant that he would be frightfully torn by the beast’s claws, Johnny hung on like grim death. Of a sudden the sight that appeared before him drove him to desperation. As the girl sprang back, a wolf leaped for her throat. They went down together. Quite forgetting self he released his hold on the first wolf to seize the axe that in the struggle had been thrown from their kit, and with a single blow dispatched the beast that threatened Faye Duncan’s life. And through it all, like the ancient warrior he was, Gordon Duncan remained in his place calmly nocking arrows and sending them crashing into the ribs of his enemies. “There are more,” Johnny panted, helping the girl to her feet. “More,” she panted, “More!” But what was this? Just when the tide seemed set against them there came a strange roaring sound from the distance. This resembled more than any other the call of a wild beast, a challenge to battle. Pausing, the gray streaks appeared to listen. Then, one by one, they went trotting away into the night. Hardly a moment had elapsed before there came a sharp yip of pain, another and yet another. A moment of silence, then the night was made hideous by the noise of battle. “Wha—what can it be?” The girl’s words came in stifled whispers. “Can’t tell,” said Johnny. “Get your bows and arrows,” commanded Gordon Duncan. “They may be back upon us at any moment.” “And—and that other monstrous thing!” Faye Duncan’s nerves were shattered. “Five out there.” Gordon Duncan’s voice was calm. He was pointing in the direction his arrows had sped. Johnny was feeling a little ashamed of his record when his eyes fell upon the wolf that had attacked Tico. He was dead, strangled. “Not so bad,” he thought as he once more gripped his bow and sought out an arrow. There was, as it turned out, no need for further worry. As they sat there shivering, gripping bows with hands benumbed with cold, they listened to the distant tumult rise, then fade away into the night. “All over,” Johnny said at last, rising to ease his stiffened limbs. “Who—what could it have been?” The girl gripped his hand hard as he assisted her to rise. “That,” said Johnny, “as far as I can tell was the great banshee.” “But look,” he said suddenly. “Over there not a quarter of a mile away is a small forest.” What he had said was true. Had they marched but a quarter of a mile farther they might have slept warm by a roaring fire which would have served to keep the wolves away. Needless to say, they were not long in packing up and moving to this place of greater safety and comfort. A half hour later, seated before a fire that fairly blistered their cheeks, the boy and girl, conversing in awed whispers, discussed the strange happenings of the night. In the meantime, rolled in his blankets, and quite as if nothing had happened, Gordon Duncan slept the sleep of the just. “Heart, did you say?” Johnny nodded toward the sleeping one. “Did you say his heart was bad? Mine was in my throat all the time.” “So was mine. But he—he’s different. He—he’s a Bruce,” the girl whispered back. “His ancestry goes back to the famous Bruce of old Scotland.” |
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