CHAPTER XXI

THE MYSTERY

Alex and Ike had to be told of the loss of food and also that Bill and Jud were likely lurking in the neighborhood. No mention was made to them, however, of the discoveries Case had made.

It was a gloomy little group after Clay had finished his tale. A winter in the Arctic was to be dreaded at its best, but with little food on hand and no potatoes, it was a horrible thing to meet. It was Clay who tried to enthuse a little cheerfulness into the grim situation. "We've got to face it, boys," he said, "and it's going to be hard to do, but we are going to make bad matters worse if we just sit and brood on it. I believe that we are going to come out of this all right. The main thing to do is to keep cheerful and keep busy. Let's go on with our trading just as if nothing had happened, except that we will not only buy furs, but also meat whenever we get the chance. Perhaps we may be able to get a few potatoes at the Catholic Mission. They may have laid enough in to spare us a few. Alex, you and Ike had better, in the morning, overhaul all the stores and see just what we have left and how best to portion it off so as to make it last. Case and I have a little job on of our own to attend to. We will tell you about it later on. Now let's turn in and go to sleep, each one determining that he is never going to worry over anything until it actually happens to him. Half the time the things we fear never happen. Long brooding over fears makes a coward and I believe even the Lord himself despises a coward. Good night, you fellows. I'm going to sleep."

He and Case were early astir in the morning and stole out of the cabin softly so as not to awaken the sleepers. It was still dark, but the stars were shining like glimmering lanterns hung far above their heads and the black mass of the towering mountain rose dimly from its white carpeted base to serve them as a mighty guide post pointing out their way. By the time the two boys rounded the mountain's base and entered the cove beyond, the dim twilight had driven the darkness to flight and they easily found the little cabin nestling up against the mountain side. Theirs was a gruesome task and they went to work at it with reluctant hands. The ground was too firmly frozen to dig a grave so they did the best they could. They carried the gruesome object up to the foot of a big wide-spread spruce and laid it down. Then they covered it with a thick layer of fragrant spruce boughs; upon this mound they leaned up some loose planks and around the whole built up a mound of stones to protect the one beneath from hunger-maddened wolves. This task done they skirted the edge of the cove, looking for any trace of other human habitation along its shore. Both had felt that their enemies might be camped in this very cove but their search pretty well convinced them that this was not so likely. "There's no telling where they may be now," Case said. "To look for them in this great, desolate frozen country would be like looking for a needle in a hay stack. They may be camped within a mile of us, or, again, they may be hundreds of miles away by now. Our trouble is that we do not know just when the stuff was taken and we can find no tracks that tell which way the thieves went. Better give it up. We have got a lot to do before the real winter sets in. We ought to start in tomorrow and begin our trading in earnest. We want a lot more furs and most of all we need meat, all we can get of it. It will keep all winter. We may not be fit to work later on," he concluded significantly.

"You're right," Clay agreed reluctantly. "We will start out tomorrow for the next village. But all the same," he added, "I have a feeling that those fellows are near us now just waiting for a good chance to get at Ike. One of us two must always stay behind. Two are enough to go with the team anyway. The other two, with Captain Joe on watch, had ought to take care of themselves and the boat all right. Well, we can do nothing more here. We had better get back to the _Rambler_ before the boys get too curious and come hunting us up."

They found a hot breakfast awaiting them and the boys finished the computing of the _Rambler's_ stores, a process which Ike with pencil and paper in hand, was enjoying hugely.

"This committee finds," he announced, "that if we all eats like Alex here there is plenty of food for two months yet. If we eats only enough to live on there be food for four months, maybe. If we feed the dogs Indian fashion, just a little at a time, you understand, there will be quite a lot of salmon left for us. That is all, I think, gentlemen, except the dogs. But Alex here says he will shoot any one who touches Buck and I do the same for Captain Joe, for he helps save my life one time, you understand."

Clay laughed. "Why, we are not near so bad off as I expected," he said, brightly. "Almost anything can happen in two months. I've got a hunch boys, that everything is going to turn out all right. Let's keep on full rations for two weeks more, then we can cut down gradually if we see we need to. We had better give the dogs their double rations while they are working and cut it down to the usual feed when they are idle. Now let's put the stores back where they belong and wash up the dishes and then go out and cut up firewood. This fine weather is not going to last forever. There are going to be days when no one will hanker to go out in the cold and chop wood. Better get up a good pile now when we have the time." The boys knocked off work at sunset, and after they had finished their evening meal, Clay brought out from his locker a pack of cards, a checker board, and a chess board with its queens and pawns. "Lucky I thought to bring these," he said. "They will help to pass the time. Let's have a game and then turn in, for Case and Ike will have to get an early start in the morning." The boys made merry over the game that followed, but deep down in each young heart was the creeping dread of that scourge of the Northland, scurvy. Clay expressed it when he said, thoughtlessly, "We had ought to save those few potatoes for Christmas. We want to have a special feast Christmas day."

Case and Ike were gone for three days, but they came back with a pack of fine furs and over a half of a frozen moose.

The next trip, made by Clay and Alex, was more daring. They were gone ten days and brought back all the meat the sled could carry. But their faces were grave. At Holy Cross there was not a potato--which had been their real object in making the trip. Forty were helpless with the disease and more coming down every day with it. Indians who had come down from Dawson lately, reported that their weight in gold dust was being offered for potatoes with no takers. From St. Michael's came like reports. At Nome there were plenty, but no one could cross the heaving seas of ice floes that separate it from St. Michael's.

That was the team's last trip. For news of the boy traders, who paid so liberally for what they bought, spread from village to village and they did not have to seek trade. It came to them. Hardly a day passed without seeing at the _Rambler's_ door a sled load of meat or furs. The boys erected a scaffolding near the _Rambler_ up above the reach of the dogs and it was soon full of frozen meat, while the packs of furs in the _Rambler_ were fast filling up the cabin to the point of inconvenience. All the traders brought stories of the ravages of the scurvy in the villages they had come from the secret dread in the boys' hearts grew.

One morning, after two days of steady snow, they awoke to find the earth deeply covered with white. Their thermometer hung outside, registering sixty degrees below zero, while over river and land was the quietness of death.

The Great White Silence, about which they had heard so much, had come. It seemed almost evil to speak aloud in the breathlessness of this death-like quietness. As the days passed, it bore down on the lads' souls until they sat silent for hours at a time. But deeper than the fear of the White Silence was that deeper menace hanging over them and daily growing closer.

"What's the use of our trying to hide it?" Case demanded one morning. "We have all got it, I guess, and each one is trying to keep it from the others. Open up your mouth, Clay," Clay silently obeyed. His gums, palate, and tongue were black and swollen. "Humph," got it hard," Case grunted. "Abe, you next." The lad obeyed, and showed a mouth pink and clean as a baby's. "You're all right," Case announced. "Now for you, Alex." "Worse than Clay's," Case said, frankly. "Ike, step up and let me see your tongue. Why, you have only got the first symptoms," he said, "just a touch of white on your gums and palate." His own condition he did not need to state. His blackened, swollen lips told the tale. By some whim of nature, the disease had chosen the strongest for its first victims, and, having chosen, it proceeded with hideous rapidity. Within a week Clay, Alex and Case were helpless in their bunks. Ike was also breaking down, not from the disease, which seemed to take but slight hold of him, but from the groans and sufferings of his chums which he was powerless to relieve. Weary and sick at heart, one morning he left Abe in charge of the sufferers and skirting the edge of the ice with aimless steps, rounded the base of the mountain. Here he stopped with a look of interest. A curl of smoke was filtering up from a thick clump of cottonwoods. He stared at it thoughtfully for a minute, then wheeling suddenly, hastened back to the boat from which, presently, emerged Abe clothed in parka and snow shoes and bearing something white, tightly clenched in one small hand, as he skimmed over the crusted snow.

Black night had fallen when the Yukon Kid caught sight of the _Rambler's_ lights glimmering in the cove. They meant warmth, light, food and a bed for the night for him, and he spurred his weary dogs on to a fresh burst of speed which soon landed them in the lee of the _Rambler_. Hastily unhitching, he flung a fish from his pack to each of the hungry animals. Then clambering aboard, he flung open the cabin door with boisterous words of greeting on his lips, but they died unspoken as his keen eyes swept the little room, taking in everything in one glance, the three muttering boys in their bunks, and the little Esquimau busy making up raw potatoes into juicy pulp. The lad's face was marked by tears as he looked at the Kid.

"Plenty sick?" asked the Kid, pointing to the muttering lads.

"Yes. Heap scurvy."

The Kid glanced at the vacant bunk.

"Fadder dead?"

"No dead," said the boy. "Get potatoes this afternoon. Big men come. He and fadder trade. Fadder gets potatoes. Big man get fadder. All in paper there," pointing to a folded note beside the heap of potatoes.

The Kid grabbed it up and opening it with ruthless hands, read:

"Dear boys:--I hope these potatoes help you all to get well quick. I gets them off them two loafers, Jud and Bill. I sent Abe as messenger to them this morning and Bill he comes over and talks it over with me, and we trade. A bushel of potatoes for me. I think he's a robber, you understand. I don't think he brings more than three pecks of the potatoes. I goes back with him. I expect I no see you any more, so good-bye boys. I'm sorry I make you so much trouble. With love, Ike."

"I wants my share of the furs to go to Rebecca, you understand. Abe, he shall have the news stand. Tell him lots of love from fadder. Ike."

"If you don't let them dealers in Seattle rob you, you should get $10,000 at least for them furs. Ike."

The Kid's eyes raced over this farewell will and testament.

"You know where they take fadder?" he demanded of the mourning lad.

Abe nodded.

"Then get on your snow shoes and come with me," the Kid commanded.

In a minute they were on the trail, the little Esquimau lad leading. A scant half mile of rapid traveling carried them into the cove and in sight of the gleaming light of the fire amongst the cottonwoods. Now they advanced more cautiously, trying to stop the creak of their snow shoes on the sugar-like snow. Luckily those around the campfire were too busy with their own affairs to notice the stealthy approach. Close to the fire lay Ike tightly bound while beside him knelt the evil-faced Bill applying a smoking iron to the lad's bare feet. A sickening odor of burnt skin was filling the air, while the torturer was snarling: "Tell, you brat, or I'll burn you to the bone."

The Yukon Kid raised his heavy revolver and took steady aim, but something was quicker than he. A giant form leaped out from the cottonwoods upon the kneeling man. He was lifted up like a feather and dashed with the snap of breaking bones against a near-by tree.

"The b'ar. He's killed Bill," roared Jud's mighty voice, as he leaped forward with drawn knife. The bear met him half-way with extended arms. Once the upraised knife was buried in the bear's white side, then man and beast, locked in a mighty struggling embrace. The Kid watched them, fascinated, as they struggled back and forth. Only a minute the struggle lasted, then something in the man snapped sickeningly and he hung limply in the bear's embrace, then swaying from side to side, the bear let go his burden to the ground and slipped slowly down beside it, his paws plucking feebly at the knife sticking in his side. When the Kid reached the two, both bear and man were dead.

Bill lay where he had been flung, his evil heart stilled forever. Ike, still lying by the fire, was in a dead faint.

Silently the Kid picked up the lad and turned back for the _Rambler_.

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