The Magnetic North Part 78

The stranger spoke low and quietly.

They talked for some time.

The owner of the two had shuffled off home again, with Spotty and Red at his heels.

The Leader came quite near, looking almost docile; but he snapped suddenly at the fish with an ugly gleam of eye and fang. The Boy nearly made the fatal mistake of jumping, but he controlled the impulse, and merely held tight to what was left of the salmon. He stood quite still, offering it with fair words. The Leader walked all round him, and seemed with difficulty to recover from his surprise. The Boy felt that they were just coming to an understanding, when up hurries Peetka, suspicious and out of sorts.

_"My dog!"_ he shouted. "No sell white man my dog. Huh! ho--_oh_ no!"

He kicked the Leader viciously, and drove him home, abusing him all the way. The wonder was that the wolfish creature didn't fly at his master's throat and finish him.

Certainly the stranger's sympathies were all with the four-legged one of the two brutes.

"--something about the Leader--" the Boy said sadly, telling the Colonel what had happened. "Well, sir, I'd give a hundred dollars to own that dog."

"So would I," was the dry rejoinder, "if I were a millionaire like you."

After supper, their host, who had been sent out to bring in the owner of Red and Spotty, came back saying, "He come. All come. Me tell--you from below Holy Cross!" He laughed and shook his head in a well-pantomimed incredulity, representing popular opinion outside. Some of the bucks, he added, who had not gone far, had got back with small game.

"And dogs?"

"No. Dogs in the mountains. Hunt moose--caribou."

The old Ingalik came in, followed by others. "Some" of the bucks? There seemed no end to the throng.

Opposite the white men the Indians sat in a semicircle, with the sole intent, you might think, of staring all night at the strangers. Yet they had brought in Arctic hares and grouse, and even a haunch of venison. But they laid these things on the floor beside them, and sat with grave unbroken silence till the strangers should declare themselves. They had also brought, or permitted to follow, not only their wives and daughters, but their children, big and little.

Behind the semicircle of men, three or four deep, were ranged the ranks of youth--boys and girls from six to fourteen--standing as silent as their elders, but eager, watchful, carrying king salmon, dried deer-meat, boot-soles, thongs for snow-shoes, rabbits, grouse. A little fellow of ten or eleven had brought in the Red Dog, and was trying to reconcile him to his close quarters. The owner of Red and Spotty sat with empty hands at the semicircle's farthest end. But he was the capitalist of the village, and held himself worthily, yet not quite with the high and mighty unconcern of the owner of the Leader.

Peetka came in late, bringing in the n.i.g.g.e.r dog against the n.i.g.g.e.r dog's will, just to tantalise the white men with the sight of something they couldn't buy from the poor Indian. Everybody made way for Peetka and his dog, except the other dog. Several people had to go to the a.s.sistance of the little boy to help him to hold Red.

"Just as well, perhaps," said the Colonel, "that we aren't likely to get all three."

"Oh, if they worked together they'd be all right," answered the Boy.

"I've noticed that before." But the Leader, meanwhile, was flatly refusing to stay in the same room with Red. He howled and snapped and raged. So poor Red was turned out, and the little boy mourned loudly.

Behind the children, a row of squaws against the wall, with and without babies strapped at their backs. Occasionally a young girl would push aside those in front of her, craning and staring to take in the astonis.h.i.+ng spectacle of the two white men who had come so far without dogs--pulling a hand-sled a greater distance than any Indian had ever done--if they could be believed!

Anyhow, these men with their sack of tea and magnificent bundle of matches, above all with their tobacco--they could buy out the town--everything except Peetka's dog.

The Colonel and the Boy opened the ball by renewing their joint offer of eighty dollars for Red and Spotty. Although this had been the old Ingalik's own price, it was discussed fully an hour by all present before the matter could be considered finally settled, even then the Colonel knew it was safest not to pay till just upon leaving. But he made a little present of tobacco in token of satisfactory arrangement.

The old man's hands trembled excitedly as he pulled out his pipe and filled it. The bucks round him, and even a couple of the women at the back, begged him for some. He seemed to say, "Do your own deal; the strangers have plenty more."

By-and-by, in spite of the limited English of the community, certain facts stood out: that Peetka held the white man in avowed detestation, that he was the leading spirit of the place, that they had all been suffering from a tobacco famine, and that much might be done by a judicious use of Black Jack and Long Green. The Colonel set forth the magnificent generosity of which he would be capable, could he secure a good Leader. But Peetka, although he looked at his empty pipe with bitterness, shook his head.

Everybody in the village would profit, the Colonel went on; everybody should have a present if--

Peetka interrupted with a snarl, and flung out low words of contemptuous refusal.

The Leader waked from a brief nap cramped and uneasy, and began to howl in sympathy. His master stood up, the better to deliver a brutal kick.

This seemed to help the Leader to put up with cramp and confinement, just as one great discomfort will help his betters to forget several little ones. But the Boy had risen with angry eyes. Very well, he said impulsively; if he and his pardner couldn't get a third dog (two were very little good) they would not stock fresh meat here. In vain the Colonel whispered admonition. No, sir, they would wait till they got to the next village.

"Belly far," said a young hunter, placing ostentatiously in front his brace of grouse.

"We're used to going belly far. Take all your game away, and go home."

A sorrowful silence fell upon the room. They sat for some time like that, no one so much as moving, till a voice said, "We want tobacco,"

and a general murmur of a.s.sent arose. Peetka roused himself, pulled out of his s.h.i.+rt a concave stone and a little woody-looking knot. The Boy leaned forward to see what it was. A piece of dried fungus--the kind you sometimes see on the birches up here. Peetka was hammering a fragment of it into powder, with his heavy clasp-knife, on the concave stone. He swept the particles into his pipe and applied to one of the fish-selling women for a match, lit up, and lounged back against the Leader, smiling disagreeably at the strangers. A little laugh at their expense went round the room. Oh, it wasn't easy to get ahead of Peetka!

But even if he chose to pretend that he didn't want cheechalko tobacco, it was very serious--it was desperate--to see all that Black Jack going on to the next village. Several of the hitherto silent bucks remonstrated with Peetka--even one of the women dared raise her voice.

She had not been able to go for fish: where was _her_ tobacco and tea?

Peetka burst into voluble defence of his position. Casting occasional looks of disdain upon the strangers, he addressed most of his remarks to the owner of Red and Spotty. Although the Colonel could not understand a word, he saw the moment approaching when that person would go back on his bargain. With uncommon pleasure he could have throttled Peetka.

The Boy, to create a diversion, had begun talking to a young hunter in the front row about "the Long Trail," and, seeing that several others craned and listened, he spoke louder, more slowly, dropping out all unnecessary or unusual words. Very soon he had gained an audience and Peetka had lost one. As the stranger went on describing their experiences the whole room listened with an attentiveness that would have been flattering had it been less strongly dashed with unbelief.

From beyond Anvik they had come? Like that--with no dogs? What! From below Koserefsky? Not really? Peetka grunted and shook his head. Did they think the Ingaliks were children? Without dogs that journey was impossible. Low whispers and gruff exclamations filled the room. White men were great liars. They pretended that in their country the bacon had legs, and could run about, and one had been heard to say he had travelled in a thing like a steamboat, only it could go without water under it--ran over the dry land on strips of iron--ran quicker than any steamer! Oh, they were awful liars. But these two, who pretended they'd dragged a sled all the way from Holy Cross, they were the biggest liars of all. Just let them tell that yarn to Unookuk. They all laughed at this, and the name ran round the room.

"Who is Unookuk?"

"Him guide."

"Him know."

"Where is him?" asked the Boy.

"Him sick."

But there was whispering and consultation. This was evidently a case for the expert. Two boys ran out, and the native talk went on, unintelligible save for the fact that it centred round Unookuk. In a few minutes the boys came back with a tall, fine-looking native, about sixty years old, walking lame, and leaning on a stick. The semicircle opened to admit him. He limped over to the strangers, and stood looking at them gravely, modestly, but with careful scrutiny.

The Boy held out his hand.

"How do you do?"

"How do you do?" echoed the new-comer, and he also shook hands with the Colonel before he sat down.

"Are you Unookuk?"

"Yes. How far you come?"

Peetka said something rude, before the strangers had time to answer, and all the room went into t.i.tters. But Unookuk listened with dignity while the Colonel repeated briefly the story already told. Plainly it stumped Unookuk.

"Come from Anvik?" he repeated.

"Yes; stayed with Mr. Benham."

"Oh, Benham!" The trader's familiar name ran round the room with obvious effect. "It is good to have A. C. Agent for friend," said Unookuk guardedly. "Everybody know Benham."

"He is not A. C. Agent much longer," volunteered the Boy.