The Heart of Unaga Part 33

The flash of excitement leapt into Marcel's eyes.

"You've--found the stuff?" he demanded, in a curious hushed tone. Then with a rush: "Where? On the road to Seal Bay? Or the sh.o.r.es of Hudson's Bay? It's the sort of thing for a coast like that. Guess it's like seaweed. Where?"

Steve shook his head.

"Guess again," he said, with a smile of added confidence. "No, I haven't seen it. I haven't found it. It's just a notion in my fool head." His eyes lapsed again into their wonted seriousness. "It's a notion I've got, and--it's right. Oh, yes. In my mind's eye I can see the stuff growing. And--I--know--where. It's just for me to locate the place and make the journey----"

"For us, Uncle Steve."

Steve turned sharply and gazed up into the boy's handsome, determined face. He studied the unsmiling blue eyes that returned his look unflinchingly. And that which he read in them left him with a realization that a new chapter in the history of their companions.h.i.+p was about to open.

"We'll get along to your father's office, boy," he said quietly. "It's been our refuge and schoolroom for fourteen years. Maybe it's still the best place for us both to learn our lessons."

He led the way out without waiting for reply. And as they pa.s.sed from the portals of the Poison House he again set up the fastenings.

Each had his own place in the simple room which Marcel's father had dedicated to the science which had been his whole life. For him it had been all sufficient. The storming of the elements outside might have been the breathlessness of a tropical climate so far as he cared, once absorbed in the studies that claimed him. And in a measure the atmosphere of the room had a similar influence upon these two who came after him.

Steve occupied the chair at the desk. Marcel had taken possession of the chair which stood before a small table upon which he had been accustomed to pursue the simple studies Steve had been able to prepare for him. He had turned the chair about so that he sat with his feet upon the rail of the stove in which summer and winter the fire was never permitted to go out. He had come prepared to listen to the man who had always been his guide and well-loved friend. But he had come also with the intention of pressing those claims of manhood which were pa.s.sionately crying out within him.

The room was changed only that the belongings of these men, acc.u.mulated in fourteen years, predominated over those things which the dead man had left behind him. The room was intimate with the personalities of its new tenants, while it still retained full evidence of the man who had modelled its original character.

For some moments Steve searched amongst the drawers of the desk. Finally he produced a number of note books and well-worn diaries. These he set on the writing pad before him. Then he smilingly regarded the man who was as a son to him.

"Guess I've got the things I need, boy," he said. "They're support for the notion I'm going to tell you about. That's so you won't think I'm crazy," he added, laying a hand on the books.

Marcel nodded keenly.

"Sure. And the notion?"

Steve understood the other's impatience.

"Ordinarily I'd hand you what's got into my mind right away," he said, still regarding the books. "But that way I couldn't convince anything.

There's got to be arguments, and your father's got to hand us the argument."

He thrust his fur cap back from his forehead.

"Light a pipe, boy," he went on kindly. "I've got to make a big talk.

And, for a while, anyway, you've got to listen."

Marcel laughed. He obeyed without demur. But Steve was in no way blinded to the fact that for all his excited interest there was lying, at the back of every thing, a tug-of-war coming between them, a tug-of-war which he was by no means sure he was equal to.

"I'm just glad about the big talk," Marcel said. "You see, Uncle Steve, there isn't much of the kid left in me. This country doesn't leave us kids long. I'm still ready to act when you say so, and mostly without question. But a whole heap of questions have been buzzing around in my head lately, and they need to get out sometime. May as well be now. Talk all you need, an' I'll blow the pipe."

Steve nodded. He knew the rope for the tug was laid.

"I'll begin at the right start," he said. "That way I'll have to hand you things you already know. But I don't want to leave you guessing anywhere along the line, because you're going to tell me all you think when I've done. First we'll look right back. For fourteen years we've chased over this territory where your father chased before us. We've followed his notions to the letter set out in these old books. We've gone further. We've tried tracking the Sleepers in the open season, which he reckoned was a bad play. The result? Nix. We've done all he's done and more, and we've no better result than he had. We've read and re-read his stuff. We've dreamed, and wondered, and guessed till we know the whole of Unaga like the pages of one of his books. We've failed to find the growing ground of this darn Adresol, and, like your father, we've had to content ourselves with a trade in the dried stuff these dopey rascals choose to hand us. In twice the years he had at his disposal we haven't advanced a step along the path he's handed to us."

He turned the pages of some of the notebooks while the smoke of Marcel's pipe distributed a pleasant haze about the room.

"Now your father was a heap more than a clever scientific man," he went on a moment later, "and I get that through his notes, which I well-nigh know by heart. He was a reasoner in those things that had nothing to do with his science. Guess he was dead practical, too, well-nigh a genius that way. As for his courage and patience--well, I guess you've only got to look around you at this old fort. You won't need my hot air to tell you of it. So I'm left guessing at the wonder of it. _He just missed the whole point of his own observations, and knowledge, and research._"

A smile crept into Steve's eyes as he made the final announcement. It grew into his characteristic short laugh.

"Oh, I'm not going to tell you how wise I am. I'm not going to tell you your great old father was a fool man, and I'm the wise guy that's figgered out all he missed. I'm the fool man who's been handed a fool's luck. I was sitting around over the camp-fire on the trail from Seal Bay with nothing better to do than to listen to the crazy dream of an ignorant, superst.i.tious neche. It was in that fool yarn I found the answer to all the questions we've asked in fourteen years. As I tell you, it was just a crazy notion till I started in to fit it to the arguments your father handed to us. Then I saw in a flash, and got the start of my life. There's times that I'm still wondering if I'm not plumb crazed."

He indicated a notebook which he had opened. Its pages were scored with his own pencilled notes.

"I don't need to worry you with all the stuff written here," he went on. "You know it like I do. But I'm going to read a piece so you'll get the full drift of my argument when I hand it you. First, though, we'll reconstruct some. The neches go out for this stuff in the open season.

They start when the ice breaks, and don't get back to home till things freeze up again. That's important. They bring the Adresol in _dried_.

Like stuff dead for months. They don't bring it green, and dry it themselves. They bring it _dried_. Now then, your father says that one root would yield a thousand per cent. more Adresol than the green foliage. And the green foliage five hundred per cent. more than the dried. Why then do the neches bring in the dried stuff in the open growing season? Do they prefer it that way?" He shook his head thoughtfully. "Guess it's not that. There's a reason though. These folk have been using this stuff for ages. Yet they never bring it green. They never bring the root. Why not? Do they know about the yield of the foliage, of the root? Maybe. But I don't think so. I'd like to say _they've never seen the stuff in its growing state_. Only dead!"

Steve picked up the notebook in front of him.

"I want to read this to you, boy. You've read it. We've both read it, but it's got a different meaning--now. Listen."

"Adresol has many features, interesting and deadly, foreign to all other known drug-producing flora. Aconite, digitalis, and the commoner varieties of toxins lie dormant in the producing plant. That is, there are no exhalations of a noxious nature. In Adresol the drug is active--violently active. Adresol extracted and duly treated (see note X, Book C) for uses in medicine is not only harmless to the human body in critical stages of disease, but even beneficial to the whole system in a manner not yet fully explored. But in its active, crude state in the growing plant, it is of a very violent and deadly character. It would almost seem that an All-wise Creator has, for this reason, set it to flourish in climates almost unendurable to human and animal life, and in remotenesses almost inaccessible. No animal or human life could exist within the range of the poison its deadly bloom exhales. The plant belongs to the order Liliaceae and would seem from its general form to be closely allied with the Lilium Candidum. This, however, only applies to its form, and by no means to its habit. Its magnificent bloom is dead white and of intense purity. A field of this strange plant in full bloom, viewed from above, would probably give an appearance like the spread of a white damask table-cloth of giant proportions. The blooms almost entirely obscure the weed-like foliage. The danger lies in the pungent, sickly, but delicious perfume it exhales, which is so intense, that, coming up against the wind, it could be detected miles away.

Before and after its blooming season it is only less deadly that it can be safely approached. To cut or break the sappy stems and foliage would be only to court prompt disaster without the use of adequate poison masks. The newly cut plant exhales the same deadly perfume as the bloom, one deep breath of which would frequently be fatal to human life. The cuts in the foliage heal up quickly, however, and after a day's delay its transport could be safely undertaken. The reference here is to transport in the open air. The green harvest once stored in a confined s.p.a.ce again becomes actively dangerous. All stores containing it should be carefully locked up, and isolated, and should only be entered by those with poison masks carefully adjusted. The only moment at which Adresol, in its native conditions, is perfectly innocuous is in its dead season, when the bulbous root lies dormant. The proportion of the drug contained in the dried foliage, however, is infinitely small.'"

Steve looked up from his reading.

"That," he said, "is all we need to convince us of the Sleepers' lack of understanding of the nature of the plant. I'd say right here they've never seen the plant in growth. If they had they'd be scared to get next it by a thousand miles. Whatever we don't know of Adresol, we do surely know Indians. But I guess there's a heap more importance in that writing than that. How do these folk get the dead stuff in the growing season--the blooming season? How can they face that deadly scent?

They've no scientific poison masks. Yet year after year an outfit makes the summer trail and they get back when things freeze up with enough Adresol for their own doping, and a big bunch for trade to us. Your father doesn't answer that. He leaves us guessing, and thinking of winter when the whole darn country is covered feet thick in snow and ice."

The interest in Marcel's eyes was profound, and he drew a deep breath as Steve paused. He had no question, however. He sat leaning forward in his chair expectantly, waiting, his pipe dead out and forgotten.

Steve's face suddenly lit with a smile.

"Now I'm going to give you a crazy man's answer to all those things. I'd hate for your father to hear me. I'm going to say the growing, blooming season of this queer stuff is _dead, hard winter_. At least up here. I'm going to say the foliage lies dead the whole of the open season, and the root is dormant. I'm going to say these Sleepers don't know a thing but the stuff they find, and never have known in all their history. I believe that some where away back their ancestors found the dead weed, and maybe used it to smoke like other weeds some of the Northern Indians use. Maybe it doped them in the pipe. Maybe some bright squaw tried boiling it into a drink. It's a guess. You can't say how they came to use it as dope. Anyway the thing just developed, and has gone on without them getting wise to any of the things your father knew."

"Oh, yes, it all sounds crazy," Steve hurried on as Marcel stirred.

"It's too crazy I guess for a scientific head like your father's. But he hadn't listened to Oolak's fool dream, and he never saw the thing I've seen--twice."

"You've seen?"

Marcel could deny himself no longer. Intense excitement urged him. Steve shook his head.

"I haven't found it--yet," he said. "No. The thing I've seen you've seen, too. You were just a bit of a kiddie and won't remember. I'll try and fix up the picture of what I saw then in the far-away distance, and what I see now in my crazy mind's eye."

He paused. Then, with a swift movement that had something of excitement in it, he flung out an arm pointing while his voice took on a new note, and his words came rapidly.

"Somewhere out there," he cried. "A land of glacial ice, endless snow and ice. Hills everywhere, broken, bald, immense. A range of mountains.

In the midst of 'em a giant hill bigger and higher than anything I've ever dreamed. A hill of blasting, endless fire. It never dies out. It burns right along, belching the fiery heart out of the bowels of the earth. And everywhere about, for maybe miles, a blistering tropical heat that defies the deadliest cold the Arctic hands out. Do you get it? Sure you do. You're getting my crazy notion, that isn't so crazy. Well, what then? Winter. A temperature that turns a snowstorm into a pleasant summer rain, and the buzzard into a summer gale. Vegetation starts into growth. I can't guess how the absence of sun fixes it. Maybe it grows--_white_. But it grows--grows all the time, like those things of the folk who grow out of season. Then spring, and the sun again. Rising temperature. The heat from this h.e.l.l ripens the stuff quick, and the sun makes it green again. This Adresol. A great field of dead white. Then, as swiftly, it dies. Dies before the Indians come. Burnt up by the rising temperature of the advancing season _and the blistering volcanic heat_."

Marcel started up from his chair with an excited cry.

"You're right, Uncle," he cried, completely carried away. "But where?

Where's this place? This old hill? I've seen it? Where?"