CHAPTER XVIII

TO BE OR NOT TO BE

In the meantime life did not lack for excitement back in the Matamuska valley. Strange tales had come to Mary both by mail and by air. Brought by air-mail, two letters from Florence had reached her. They told of the lost mine, of the dog race that was to be run and of the all too exciting life the big girl was living in the far North.

“Miss Santa Claus,” Mary whispered when she had read those letters twice. “Speed Samson said I should be little Miss Santa Claus.” She was thinking of those delayed Christmas presents to the Eskimo children still lying there in the postoffice in Anchorage. As she closed her eyes she tried to picture the miles and miles of timber, tundra, and endless snow she must fly over to reach that strange land.

“Speed Samson will take Mr. Il-ay-ok up there,” she whispered. “I could go too and take all those presents. I wonder—”

Yes, it did seem probable that when the hunting season was over, Speed would, taking a chance of being paid in fox skins, fly the little Eskimo to his home. Truth is, he was growing very fond of the little man. Having taken him along on a hunting trip he discovered that he was a capital cook and that he could prepare meat in a manner that delighted his guest-hunters. After that he took him often.

It was on one of these occasions that something happened which made Mary’s dreams of becoming “little Miss Santa Claus” lighter and brighter. Speed carried a short-wave radio in his plane. It was on this evening, after he had landed on the little lake at Rainbow Farm, planning to stay all night, that the thing happened. Mary, Mark, and Mr. Il-ay-ok were in the cabin of the plane taking turns at listening to the radio. Speed himself had the head-set clamped over his head when suddenly he exclaimed:

“It’s some cute kids way up at Cape Prince of Wales. School teacher’s children or something. Big brother’s rigged up a short-wave outfit. They think they’re talking only to some people on a small island seventy miles away, but it’s going out over the air. Something about a Christmas tree made of willow branches and a driftwood log. Seems there was to have been quite a Christmas up there, dolls, toys, candy, everything. The presents—”

“Yes! Yes! I know!” Mary broke in. “The presents didn’t come. Too late for the boat. They’re in Anchorage now.”

“Is that a fact?” Speed stared at her in surprise.

“Say-ee!” he exclaimed suddenly. “Guess they got on to my listening in on the air. They’re talking in some new lingo. Guess it’s Eskimo. Here, Mr. Il-ay-ok, give me your ears.” He clamped the head-set over the Eskimo’s head.

“Oh! Ah-ne-ca!” the little man smiled broadly. “Yes. Talking Eskimo.”

“What do they say?” Mary exclaimed.

“Can’t tell now. Bye-and-bye.” The Eskimo waved her away.

“Let him alone,” Mark scolded. “It may be important, a shipwreck, or—or something.”

It was important, very important to at least three young people quite far away. It was not a shipwreck. An Eskimo girl was talking. Eskimo people are born story tellers, and Kud-lucy was telling a story to No-wad-luk, her little friend at Shishmaref Island. The story was long, but in her excitement she forgot all else.

As Mr. Il-ay-ok listened to the tiny Eskimo’s story, Mary waited in breathless silence. What will this story mean to me, she was asking herself. Perhaps much. Perhaps nothing at all.

Of a sudden Mr. Il-ay-ok dragged the head-set from his ears. “Gone!” he smiled broadly. “All over now.”

“Tell us!” Mary’s eyes shone. “What did they say?”

“Long story. Must tell all,” Mr. Il-ay-ok spoke slowly.

He did tell all and a most interesting narrative it proved to be. The little Eskimo girl’s story as he told it was this:

There was to have been a Christmas tree at the Cape. What was a Christmas tree? Oh, something quite wonderful! So bright it was that it shone like the sun. And on this bright tree there grew all manner of strange things. Little people? Yes, little people, no longer than a man’s foot, but all dressed in bright clothes. Could they talk? To be sure. Yes, and cry and close their eyes, and go for a walk. Someone apparently had done her best to give Kud-lucy a real notion of what a Christmas tree was like. Had she succeeded? You be the judge.

Yes, and there were to have been more things, Kud-lucy hurried on. Small seals that were not truly seals, and walrus and polar bears. Yes, and many things no Eskimo had ever seen before.

“But now—” little Kud-lucy’s voice had faltered, “now there is to be no Christmas tree, not any at all!” Why? Because the big boat had come too soon. All the wonderful things apparently were left behind.

At this instant apparently little Kud-lucy suddenly realized that she was talking in some strange, mysterious manner to her friend far away. The discovery frightened her and she had gone off the air.

As the story ended, Mary jumped to her feet exclaiming:

“Just think! To be Miss Santa Claus to a hundred Eskimo children! But then—” She sat down quite suddenly to stare out into the dark, cold night.

“Why not?” said Speed.

“It’s a long, long way.”

“No way is long any more, with an airplane,” he replied quietly.

“Well, perhaps. Who knows?” Mary looked at Mark. He said never a word. There was no need. She could read his thoughts. He was thinking, “I love those Eskimo children, but I love Mary more. I want her always to be safe. And yet—I wonder.”

That night beside the huge, barrel stove in the Hughes’ cabin, Mr. Il-ay-ok talked long of his people who lived on the rim of a frozen sea. He spoke of the children, of their play and their simple toys, of their cheerful natures and happy smiles. With every word Mary’s interest grew. Her cheeks burned as she dreamed on of that suggested flight into the North.

“Christmas in Eskimo-land, dog-teams, reindeer and everything,” she whispered to herself. “Then perhaps Florence will be ready to return and we shall fly home together.” How she missed Florence! Then and there something like a resolve was formed in her mind. Would she go? There would be solemn family conferences, but in the end, would she go? To this question, for the moment, there came no answer.

Now Mr. Il-ay-ok was talking of other things, he was telling why that man Loome hated him. Somehow government officials had been persuaded that the Eskimo should drive their reindeer into the hills where feed was more plentiful. This they would never do; first they would sell their deer for very little. Loome and his companions were planning to profit by their misfortune.

“Now,” the little man’s eyes shone, “now, I have the papers. Here,” he patted his pocket. “Reindeer may stay as they are. The so wonderful government has said that. My people, they will be happy. But first I must show them the paper. First day of next year it will be too late. So-o, I must go. I must fly.”

“And you shall fly,” said Speed Samson. “Here. Shake on it.” They shook hands in silence. Mary’s heart burned with hope.

“Miss Santa Claus in Eskimo land,” she whispered.

Next day Madam Chicaski, who had of late been acting rather strangely, did the oddest thing of all. When in the summer Bill had returned from his fruitless search for gold, he had left his pick and shovel in the Hughes woodshed. They were still there. On this morning Mary saw the large Russian woman take the pick from the shed and march resolutely toward the giant stump that stood in the back yard. It was an innocent appearing thing, that stump. All weather-beaten and festooned with rustling morning-glory vines, it seemed a thing destined to stand there for years. And yet, as Mary watched, she felt sure that this woman meant to attack its roots, if possible to tear it from the earth.

“I wonder why?” she asked herself. At that moment her mind was filled with mingled emotion, surprise, consternation and something of alarm. This last she could not even have explained to herself.

There was, it seemed, no immediate cause for anxiety. The big woman did not swing the pick, at least, not that day. Instead as she came near to the stump, using the pick for a cane, she stood there leaning on it looking for all the world like a picture called “The Man with the Hoe.” On her face at that moment was a look Mary had seen there before, it was the gaze of one who worships at a shrine.

In the far away valley, work on the lost mine progressed famously. Since the greater part of the digging had been done long ago by Tom Kennedy and his partner, there remained little to be done save to pick away at the gold-laden gravel, to hoist it through the floor, then to wash it out in water brought up from the lake. Even with so much of the work done, it was a slow process. Days passed. Each day saw Tom Kennedy’s moose-hide sack a little heavier, but each day brought their small supply of flour, sugar, bacon and beans dwindling lower and lower.

“We’ll kill a fat reindeer and pay Bowman for it when we get back,” said Tom Kennedy.

“Grandfather, if we are to drive those reindeer all the way back it will take days and days,” Florence was worried. “There will be nothing left to eat but reindeer meat. Can we live on that?”

“We can try. Eskimo do.”

“We’re not Eskimo.”

“No-o. But something will turn up. We’ll manage.” The old man was too absorbed in his golden quest to think overmuch of things to eat.

Then came the great day. “The mother-lode.” Tom Kennedy spoke to Florence. She was at his side in the mine. “See!” The light of his torch was cast back by a yellow gleam. “See! Nuggets big as bird’s eggs.”

“And—and will this be the end?” she asked.

“The end, yes,” his tone was impressive. “But enough. Who could ask for more? Only look there’ll be—” He broke short off to listen intently.

“An airplane!” the girl’s voice was low and tense.

“They’ve found us,” the old man muttered.

“Who?”

“Who knows?” was his strange answer. “No good ever comes from spying.”