CHAPTER XVII THE GIANT HUNCHBACK
Before she fell asleep that night Faye found herself wondering about manythings. Why had her grandfather brought her so far into the whitewilderness? Why had he not told her of the earlier chapters of his life?Who was the man of mystery, her grandfather's friend of other days? Whatwas the treasure he had babbled of in his sleep? Above all, her mind wastroubled by the strange disappearance of Johnny Longbow. Had theavalanche swallowed him up? Had he slipped from some ice encrusted ledge?Had he fallen into the hands of unfriendly whites or Indians?
In the midst of all these puzzlings she fell into troubled sleep to dreamof bleak mountains, rushing floods and wild Arctic storms.
Day was breaking when on awakening she struggled to an upright positionto gaze wildly about her.
Realizing at last where she was, she took a moment for recalling thatwhich had befallen them on the previous day, then sprang into action.
After a hasty toilet she kindled a fire and put coffee on to boil.
Next she took up Johnny's light field glass, and walking to a point ofvantage, began sweeping the horizon.
She was searching for some sign of their lost companion. The widecircling of her glass continued for a full three minutes. Then of asudden, as her lips parted and her face became tense, the glass remaineddirected at one spot, far off in the river valley.
"Grandfather! Grandfather!" she exclaimed after ten tense seconds, "Wakeup! There are people on that river island. They are marooned! The riveris rising. The floods will reach them and sweep them away unless helpcomes. We must go!"
Gordon Duncan was now on his feet. Seizing the glass, he studied thesituation for a moment, then said quietly:
"You are right. We must help them. At once!"
"But how?" said the girl. "We have no boat."
"God will show us the way."
Three minutes later, disregarding the water boiling for coffee, carryingonly their bow and quiver of arrows apiece, they went racing down themountain side.
The memory of that race will remain long with Faye Duncan. Slipping,sliding, now racing, now gliding and now creeping, they made their waydownward. Now their path was a plateau, now a cliff, and now the bed of aboiling, rushing stream. Now they seemed about to send an avalanchesweeping down. And now, as they attempted to cross a turbulent torrentthey appeared in greater danger than those whom they would rescue.
In the end they won the race, only to find themselves standing at theriver's brink with a hundred yards of rushing water between them andthose whom they would save, and with no apparent means of rendering anyaid.
"Well," said the girl, "what next?"
"What indeed?" said Gordon Duncan, a look of despair coming over hisface.
Had Faye chanced to have wakened from her sound sleep of the previousnight at a time shortly after one in the morning; had the moonlight beenbright enough and her glass strong enough to enable her to see clearlyfor the distance of a mile, she might have witnessed as strange a dramaas ever was played upon the white stage of the North. As it was, only theeye of the All-Seeing One witnessed that which passed at the end of thegreat snow pile created by the avalanche Johnny Longbow's foot hadloosened.
By some strange bit of Providence the boy was not buried by the avalanchethat had carried him down. He was struck on the head by a block of hardpacked snow ice, and rendered unconscious. After that he was pitched andtumbled, knocked, bumped and beaten until his body was a mass of bruises.He was left at last, still unconscious and half dead, at the foot of thenow silent, inanimate avalanche that had been his undoing.
At this hour two figures, approaching from opposite directions, came nearto the unconscious boy. One was a great gaunt brown beast. The other, ashort, squat, powerful figure, might at a moment's notice have puzzled askilled man of science. Was he man or beast? Was he an Indian of thesewilds, or was he some giant ape escaped from captivity?
He wore clothes. This marked him for a man.
Truth was, the creature was a man. Yet so bent and twisted was his body,so bowed his crooked legs, so ugly and distorted his visage that onemight have traveled America from end to end without meeting with anotherbeing such as he.
As his small eyes caught sight of the unconscious boy, they gleamed liketwin stars. Johnny's stout hand still gripped his bow. This strong bowwas a prize in any land. How much more in a wilderness! Not less valuablewas the quiver of arrows that lay nearby. And if he were dead? But then,too often in wild lands it matters little that one is not dead. If hewere to be found helpless, this is enough to excuse robbery.
The curious deformed creature was bending over the boy when of a suddenhis alert ear caught some slight sound, a scraping perhaps, or a sniffingbreath. Looking up quickly, he found himself staring into the burningeyes of a great gaunt bear which had, beyond doubt, been disturbed fromhis hibernating sleep by the thundering avalanche.
Some form of grizzly, a silver-tip perhaps, this bear promised to be aformidable foe. At such a time of half stupor and intense hunger he mustbe doubly dangerous.
The Indian took one step backward. Then he paused. The next instant, withhands that were as powerful as man has known, and fingers as cunning, hewrenched the bow from the unconscious boy's grasp and sent an arrowcrashing into the gaunt beast's side.
For a period of five minutes after that he stood motionless, watching thedying throes of the bear.
Then, with no apparent effort, he lifted the boy to a position of easeacross his deformed shoulders, picked up the bow and arrows, and wentmarching away.
He tramped doggedly on for the better part of the night. Just as dawn wasbreaking he arrived at the door of a long, low, crudely built cabin.Depositing his burden by the door, he went inside.
* * * * * * * *
Faye Duncan and her grandfather watched the movements of the frightenednatives on the little island for some time before anything like asolution of the problem offered itself to their minds.
That these people were natives they did not doubt. Whether they weresavage or half civilized they did not for a moment question. They werehuman. That was enough. If a way offered, they must be saved.
Racing along beside the men were several dogs. Close to the water's edgewere well packed sleds. The constant rising of the water was shown by thefact that twice the sleds had to be drawn back.
"It's a matter of an hour," said Gordon Duncan. "Perhaps not that. What'sto be done?"
Suddenly the girl's face lighted with a gleam of hope. Quickly drawingoff her sweater that had protected her from many an Arctic gale, she dida strange thing. Having cut the end of a sleeve squarely off at the lowerend to break the binding stitches, she began rapidly unraveling it anddropping the yarn in a loose pile upon the ground.
Not understanding at all, her grandfather stood watching in unfeignedastonishment.
When the entire sleeve became a mere coil of yarn on the earth, shelooked away at the rushing flood.
She seemed to measure the distance with her eye. Apparently satisfiedwith the results, she suddenly took up her quiver, selected an arrow,then began tying one end of the yarn tightly about it.
Then Gordon Duncan understood.
"Good girl!" he murmured. "May God grant you success!"
Setting the arrow to her bow, the girl, aiming high, sent the arrow withthe slender line attached speeding across the flood.
That the keen eyed natives on the opposite shore saw and, to an extent,understood, was shown by their sudden grouping beside a long pine thatgrew at the water's brink.
"Fell short," the girl murmured, a note of despair creeping into hervoice.
The distance was greater than she thought. The arrow, having curved tothe flood, dropped with a splash and being caught in the grip of darkwaters, went speeding downstream.
Faye drew the stout yarn line in slowly. It was wet now, heavy. No use tomake another try.
But Gordon Duncan ca
rried in his veins the blood of the mighty Bruce. Hewas engaged in the business of unraveling Faye's other sleeve.
"You're a fine shot, Lass," he rumbled, "but for a burst of power take anarm of old hickory like Gordon Duncan's own."
It was a great deal for the modest old man to say. That it was not toomuch was proven when, a moment later, his arrow, with the last availablecoil of yarn sailing fast and low, lost itself in the branches of thelone pine on the opposite shore. A shout of admiration and triumph camefrom the distant shore.
That the natives knew what was expected of them was soon shown. After amoment of wild scrambling in which dogs were trampled upon and sledsoverturned, they began the business of tying together a long cord oftheir own. And this was of strong rawhide.
"If only the yarn holds," Faye murmured breathlessly.
"Never fear," said the old Scot. "'Twas a present to your mother from aFrench Canadian granny. Homespun from native wool it is. Nae bit o'shoddy there!"
That the curious creature who had sent Johnny's arrows crashing into thegaunt bear's side, and so beyond doubt saved the boy's life, had notcarried him that distance to his own rude cabin without purpose, wasshown the moment he arrived there. What that purpose might be remainedlocked within his own misshapen breast.
Having entered his cabin, he took down first a rude soapstone jar ofwater, and second a skin bottle half filled with some liquid.
After feeling the boy over carefully, possibly for broken bones, he satup with a grunt of apparent satisfaction. He next poured the water overJohnny's neck and bare shoulders. And now, with beady eyes searching forsigns of life, he removed the wooden stopper from the leather bottle andpoured a part of its contents down the boy's throat.
What was this strange liquid? Native medicine, beyond doubt. Carefullyselected leaves, stems, roots and bulbs, boiled over a slow fire perhaps.Who knows? That it was a potent drug one was soon enough to know. Twominutes had not passed before the boy groaned, moved, sat up, staredabout him, then asked in a dazed fashion:
"Where am I?"
Without answering his question, if indeed he understood it at all, thebrawny hunchback lifted him from the earth and, with greatest care,carried him inside to deposit him upon a litter of skins in the corner.
Of a sudden, as Gordon Duncan waited the results of the preparations thatwere going forward on the river island, his eyes wandered to themountainside, and his gaze became transfixed.
"The cabin!" he exclaimed. "Timmie's cabin! And smoke is coming from thechimney! He is still there! Still there!" At once he became greatlyagitated.
"He is a recluse!" he went on rapidly. "A natural recluse, but a good manand a faithful companion. He once saved my life. And to think--" he drewhis hand across his eyes, "to think that this moment of all those longyears I am able to look upon that cabin again!"
He took a step forward as if to scale the mountain. But Faye tugged athis arm.
"The natives," she insisted. "Without our aid they may perish."
"Ah, yes." He became calm. "I must wait. Our duty is always to do thegreatest good to largest numbers. It's God's law. All things in His goodtime."
Turning, he watched with ever increasing anxiety the preparations thatwere going forward on the little island across the waters.