The Purple Flame Part 23

"Is there no other way?" asked Patsy.

"Must do!" said Terogloona as he turned to the task of putting all in readiness.

Two o'clock in the afternoon of the following day found them engaged in a terrific battle with the blizzard that ever raged up the mountain pa.s.s which they must cross.

"'Try not the pa.s.s, The old man said, The storm is lowering overhead,'"

Patsy chanted bravely as, with snow encrusted head and with cheeks that must be rubbed incessantly to prevent them from freezing, she struggled forward.

A moment later, as a fiercer shock seemed about to lift her from her feet and hurl her down the mountain side, Marian heard her fairly shriek into the teeth of the gale:

"Excelsior! Excelsior!"

Many hard battles had Marian fought out on the tundra, but nothing had ever equalled this. The snow, seeming never to stop, shot past them, or in a wild whirling eddy dashed into their faces. The wind tore at them.

Now it came in rude gusts, and now poured down some narrow pa.s.s with all the force of the waterfall. Only by bending low and leaping into it could they make progress.

The herd plunged stumblingly forward in a broad line. The dogs, incessantly at their heels, urged them forward. Terogloona, and even the brave Attatak, did all in their power to keep the herd moving.

"If they stop; oh, if they do!" panted Marian. "If they refuse to go on we are lost! If only we reach the summit I am sure we will be safe. It must be calm on the other side."

Now Gold, the master collie, completely exhausted and blinded by the snow, came slinking back to his mistress. Marian rubbed the snow from the eyes of the faithful dog and, patting his side, bade him go back into the fight. Tears came to her eyes as the dog bravely returned to his task.

The time came at last when all three dogs seemed done in; when the deer all but stopped; when it seemed impossible that they might be kept moving another five minutes. Then it was that the indomitable Marian sank down upon her sled in the depths of despair.

"Look! Look!" cried Patsy, who had turned about to rub the frost from her cheeks. "Wolves! A whole pack of them!"

Marian wheeled about for one look; then, digging into her pack, drew forth her rifle.

"We'll die fighting!" she murmured as she took steady aim at the foremost member of the pack that came tearing up the trail.

She was about to press the trigger when Patsy gave her arm a sudden pull.

"Wait!" she cried. "Wait! Those are not wolves. They're dogs; great big, wonderful dogs!"

CHAPTER XXVII THE END OF THE TRAIL

Troops of conflicting hopes and fears waged battle in Marian's brain when she realized that the pack approaching them on the run up the trail in the teeth of the storm were not wolves, but dogs. There are two types of dogs in Alaska; one, more wolf than dog, is the native wolf dog. This type, once he is loosed, leaps at the throat of the first reindeer he sees. A pack of these dogs, in such a crisis as the girls were now facing, would not only destroy many of the feebly struggling, worn-out and helpless younger deer, but beyond doubt would drive the remainder of the herd into such a wild panic as would lose them to their owners forever.

Were the dogs of this or the other type-white men's dogs, who treat the reindeer as they might cattle or sheep, and merely bark at them and drive them forward? If they were white men's dogs they might save the day; for the barking of such a pack, as fresh for the struggle they appeared to be, would doubtless drive the exhausted deer to renewed efforts and carry them on over the top.

With bated breath and trembling heart Marian watched their approach. Once hope fell as she thought she caught the sharp ki-yi of a wolf dog. In this she must have been mistaken, for as they came closer she saw that they were magnificent s.h.a.ggy-coated fellows, with an unmistakable collie strain in their blood.

"Oh!" she cried, "'the chariots of the Lord, and the hors.e.m.e.n thereof.'"

It was a strange expression, but fitted the occasion so well that Patsy felt her heart give a great leap of joy.

Indeed the steeds of the Arctic, if not the hors.e.m.e.n, had come to their aid in a time of great need, and, pa.s.sing them with a wild leap, the dogs burst upon the deer with a rush and roar that sent them forward by leaps and bounds.

Staggering forward, the girls followed as best they could. Now they were a thousand yards from the summit, now five hundred, now three, now two.

And now the first deer were disappearing over the top. Enheartened by this, the others crowded forward until with one final rush they all pa.s.sed over the top and started down on the other side.

Just as the girls reached the crest and were peering over the summit, a shrill whistle smote their ears. It sounded again, and yet again. There was a movement just before them. Then the snow-covered pack of dogs rushed pel-mel past them on the back trail down hill.

"Someone whistled to them. They are going back. How wonderfully they must be trained!" exclaimed Patsy.

"They were someone's team," Marian said slowly, as if for the first time realizing they had not really been sent direct from Heaven to save them.

"They're somebody's team. He knew we were in trouble and turned the dogs loose to help us. I wonder who he could have been?"

For the present the question must remain unanswered. The herd had gone on before them. It was all important that they join them. So, having straightened out the draw-straps to their sleds, they began making their way down the hard packed and uncertain descent.

It was not long before they came upon the herd feeding on a little mountain plateau. Terogloona was already busy making camp, and Attatak thawing out food over a fire of tiny scrub fir trees.

"Isn't it wonderful to think that the great struggle is over?" whispered Marian, contentedly, as they lounged on their sleeping bags an hour later. "This is really the worst of it, I hope. Fort Jarvis can't be more than four days away now, over a smoother down trail."

"If only we are in time!" sighed Patsy.

"We must be. Oh, we must!" exclaimed Marian pa.s.sionately. "Surely it would be too much to struggle as we have, and then lose!"

Before Marian fell asleep she set her mind to meet any outcome of their adventure. She thought of the wonderful opportunities the sale of the herd would bring to her father and herself. Near some splendid school they must rent a bungalow. There she would keep house for him and go to school. In her mind she saw the wonderful roses that bloomed around their door-step, and pictured the glorious sunsets they would view from their back door.

"Perhaps, too," she told herself, "Patsy could live with us for a year or two and attend my school."

When she had pictured all this, she saw in her mind that the race had been lost; that Scarberry had sold his herd to the Canadian officials; that she was to turn the heads of her leading reindeer toward the home tundra.

With great difficulty at first, but with ever increasing enthusiasm, in her imagination she drove the herd all the way back to enter once more upon the wild, free, life of the herder.

"It really does not matter," she told herself; "it's really only for father. He is so lonely down there all by himself."

In her heart of hearts she knew that it did matter, mattered a very great deal indeed. Brave girl that she was, she only prepared her mind for the shock that would come if the race were really lost.

Four days later the two girls found themselves approaching a small village of log cabins and long, low-lying buildings. This was Fort Jarvis. They had made the remainder of the journey in safety. Leaving their herd some ten miles from the Fort, where the deer would be safe, they had tramped in on snowshoes.

Marian found her heart fluttering painfully as her feet fell in the hard-packed village path. Had Scarberry been there? Was the race lost?

Had the man of the purple flame been there? Had he anything to do with the deal?

Twice they asked directions of pa.s.sing Indians. At last they knocked at a door. The door swung open and they found themselves inside a long, low room. At a table close to an open fire sat a man in uniform. He rose and bowed as they came toward him.

"You-you are the agent for the Canadian Government?" Marian faltered, addressing the man in uniform.

The man nodded his head and smiled a little welcome.

"You wish to buy a reindeer herd?" Marian asked the question point-blank.

"I believe," the man answered quietly, "that I have already agreed to purchase one-"