The Purple Flame Part 9

This day she was a little late. The herd began pa.s.sing before she had climbed half way up the ridge. She paused to watch them pa.s.s. Then, undecided whether to climb on up the slope or turn back to camp, she stood there until the uncertain light of the low Arctic sun had faded and night had come. Just as she had decided to turn her deer toward home, she caught a purple gleam on the hill directly above her.

"The purple flame!" she exclaimed. "And not a quarter of a mile above me.

I could climb up there in fifteen minutes."

For a moment she stood undecided. Then, seized by a sudden touch of daring, she whirled her deer about, tethered him to his sled, and went scouting up a gully toward the spot where the mysterious flame had flashed for a moment, then had gone out.

"I'll see something, anyway," she told herself as she strove in vain to still the painful fluttering of her heart.

She had worked her way to a position on the side of the hill where the outlines of a tent, with its extension of stovepipe standing out black above it, was outlined against the sky. Then, to her consternation, she saw the flaps of the tent move.

"Someone is coming out," she whispered to herself. "Perhaps they have been watching me through a hole in the tent. Perhaps-"

Her heart stopped beating at thought of the dangers that might be threatening. Should she turn and flee, or should she flatten herself against the snow and hope that she might not be seen? Suddenly remembering that her parka, made of white fawnskin, would blend perfectly with the snow, she decided on the latter course.

There was not a second to lose. Hardly had she melted into the background of snow when a person appeared at the entrance of the tent.

Then it was that Patsy received a thrilling shock. She had been prepared to see a bearded miner, an Eskimo, most any type of man. But the person she saw was not a man, but _a woman_; scarcely that-little more than a girl.

It was with the utmost difficulty that Patsy suppressed an audible exclamation. Closing her lips tight, she took one startled look at the strange girl.

Carefully dressed in short plaid skirt, bright checkered mackinaw, and a blue knit hood; the girl stood perfectly silhouetted against the sky. Her eyes and hair were brown; Patsy was sure of that. Her features were fine.

There was a deep shade of healthy pink in her cheeks.

"She's not a native Alaskan," Patsy told herself. "Like me, she has not been long in Alaska."

How she knew this she could not exactly tell, but she was as sure of it as she was of anything in life. Suddenly she was puzzled by a question: "What had brought the girl from the warmth of the tent into the cold?"

Patsy saw her glance up toward the sky. There was a rapt look on her face as she gazed fixedly at the first evening stars.

"It's as if she were saying a prayer or a Psalm," Patsy murmured. "'The heavens declare the glory of G.o.d and the firmament his handiwork.'"

For a full moment the strange girl stood thus; then, turning slowly, she stepped back into the tent. That the tent had at least one other occupant, Patsy knew at once by a shadow that flitted across the wall as the girl entered.

"Well," mused Patsy. "Well, now, I wonder?"

She was more puzzled than ever, but suddenly remembering that she had barely escaped being caught spying on these strangers, she rose and went gliding down the hill.

When she reached her reindeer she loosed him and turned him toward home, nor did she allow him to pause until he stood beside her igloo.

Once inside her lodge, with the candle gleaming brightly and a fire of dry willows snapping in the sheet-iron stove, Patsy took a good long time for thinking things through.

Somewhat to her surprise, she found herself experiencing a new feeling of safety. It was true she had not been much afraid since Marian had left her alone with the herders, for it was but a step from her igloo to Terogloona's tent. This old herder, who treated her as if she were his grandchild, would gladly give his life in defending her from danger.

Nevertheless, a little feeling of fear lingered in her mind whenever she thought of the tent of the purple flame. As she thought of it now she realized that she had lost that fear when she had discovered that there was a girl living in that tent.

"And yet," she told herself, "there are bad women in Alaska just as there are everywhere. She might be bad, but somehow she didn't look bad. She looked educated and sort of refined and-and-she looked a bit lonely as she stood there gazing at the stars. I wanted to walk right up to her and say 'h.e.l.lo!' just like that, nice and chummy. Perhaps I will, too, some day.

"And perhaps I won't," she thoughtfully added a moment later. Something of the old dread of the purple flame still haunted her mind. Then, too, there were two puzzling questions: Why were these people here at all; and how did they live, if not off Marian's deer?

Not many days later Patsy was to make a startling discovery that, to all appearances, was an answer to this last question.

CHAPTER XII ANCIENT TREASURE

With a hand that trembled slightly, Marian held the candle that was to light their way in the exploration of the mysterious mountain cavern. As if drawn by a magnet, she led the way straight to the spot where but a few hours before she had been so frightened by finding herself standing in the burned out ashes and bones of an old camp-fire.

She laughed now as she bent over to examine the spot. There could be no question that there had once been a camp-fire here. There were a number of bones strewn about, too.

"That fire," she said slowly, "must have burned itself out years ago; perhaps fifty years. Those bones are from the legs of a reindeer or caribou. They're old, too. How gray and dry they are! They are about to fall into dust."

She studied the spot for some time. At last she straightened up.

"Not much to it, after all," she sighed. "It's interesting enough to know that some storm blown traveler who attempted the pa.s.s, as we did, once spent the night here. But he left no relic of interest behind, unless-why-what have you there?" She turned suddenly to her companion.

Attatak was holding a slim, dull brown object in her hand.

"Only the broken handle of an old cow-drill," she said slowly, still studying the thing by the candle light.

"It's ivory."

"_Eh-eh._"

"And quite old?"

"Mebby twenty, mebby fifty years. Who knows?"

"Why are you looking at it so sharply?"

"Trying to read."

"Read what?"

"Well," smiled Attatak, as she placed the bit of ivory in Marian's hand, "long ago, before the white man came, my people told stories by drawing little pictures on ivory. They scratched the pictures on the ivory, then rubbed smoke black in them so they would see them well. This cow-drill handle is square. It has four sides. Each side tells a story. Three are of hunting-walrus, polar bear and caribou. But the other side is something else. I can't quite tell what it says."

Marian studied it for a time in silence.

"Mr. Cole would love that," she said at last, and her thoughts were far away. For the moment her mind had carried her back to those thrilling days aboard the pleasure yacht, _The O'Moo_. Since you have doubtless read our other book, "The Cruise of _The O'Moo_," I need scarcely remind you that Mr. Cole was the curator of a great museum, and knew all about strange and ancient things. He had done much to aid Marian and her friends in unravelling the mystery of the strange blue face.

"Bring it along," Marian said, handing the piece back to Attatak. "It tells us one thing-that the man who built that fire was an Eskimo. It is worth keeping. I should like to take it with me to the Museum when I go back.

"Now," she said briskly, "let's go all over the cave. There may be things that we have not yet discovered."

And indeed there were. It was with the delicious sensation of research and adventure that the girls wandered back and forth from wall to wall of the gloomy cavern.

Not until they had pa.s.sed the spot where they had spent the night, and were far back in the cave, did they make a discovery of any importance.

Then it was that Marian, with a little cry of joy, put out her hand and took from a ledge of rock a strange looking little dish no larger than a finger bowl. It was so incrusted with dirt and dust that she could not tell whether it was really a rare find of some ancient pottery, or an ordinary china dish left here by some white adventurer. However, something within her seemed to whisper: "Here is wealth untold; here is a prize that will cause your friend, the museum curator, to turn green with envy."