Chapter 12

One by one Marks loosed his dogs from harness, giving each a vicious kick as it was freed, and sending it away howling and whining, until he came to the last one, a big, gray creature. As he approached this animal, it bared its fangs and snarled at him savagely. With the butt of his whip he beat the dog mercilessly. Then slipping the harness from the animal, Marks kicked at it as he had kicked at the others. The dog, apparently expecting the kick, sprang aside, and Marks losing his balance went sprawling in the snow. In an instant the savage beast was upon him.

XXIII

THE LOST FUR

With the release of the stranger's dogs Toby had rather anticipated a renewal of hostilities between the packs. To be prepared and armed for such an event he was standing by with his dog whip ready for action.

He had been observing Marks and the dog, and the ill feeling between the two had caused him to expect, sooner or later, some such accident as that which had occurred. The gray dog was bolder than is usual with Eskimo dogs, and Toby had no doubt that it was constantly on the alert for an opening that might permit it to find its cruel master at a disadvantage, when it could attack and destroy him safely.

With these thoughts, Toby was an anxious witness of the inhuman treatment of the dogs by Marks, and when the big wolf dog sprang upon its victim, he intuitively and instantly brought the butt of his whip down upon the dog's head using all the force of his young arm. This unexpected attack from the rear caused the animal to retreat, but not until it had torn a rent in the man's adikey, and drawn blood from his shoulder, barely missing the neck and throat, which had been its aim.

Marks was in a white rage when he regained his feet, and the dog would have had another merciless beating at his hands, had he been able to approach it, but it wisely kept at a distance, and would not permit itself to be approached.

"That dog's holdin' a grudge against you," remarked Toby. "He'll be gettin' you when you're not mindin' he sometime, and he'll sure kill you if he does. I'd shoot un if 'twere mine."

"No," snapped Marks decisively, "I won't kill him. He won't kill me. I'll keep him and club him till he cringes and crawls at my feet. I'll be his master. No dog can make me kill him because he's bad. I'll take it out of him."

"But that un has a grudge," repeated Toby.

"Just bad! Just bad! Three-quarters wolf! I'll make him a dog and take the wolf out of him."

The wound in Marks's shoulder proved little more than a scratch. Mrs. Twig bathed it with Dr. Healum's Liniment, and Marks assured her it would be all right. Then while Marks smoked, and the boys sat and talked with him, she repaired his torn adikey.

"I'm buying fur," Marks presently suggested. "Aaron Slade told me you have some."

"We has some fur," Toby admitted, "but Dad sells the fur and he's away at his path. He'll not be comin' home till the middle o' April month."

"Too bad, but I'd like to have a look at it. Aaron says you have a silver fox. I'd like to see that."

"I'll get un," said Toby.

While Toby opened the fur chest, and brought forth the cotton bag in which he kept the silver fox pelt, Marks watched him closely. As Toby drew the pelt from the bag and handed it to Marks and the man shook it out and held it up for inspection, Charley detected a gleam in his eye of mingled admiration and greed, and it gave Charley a most uncomfortable feeling.

"I'll give you four hundred cash for it," said Marks without taking his eyes from the fur.

"No," Toby declined, "I'm not wantin' to sell un."

"That's a good offer," persisted Marks. "It's about what they'll give you at the post in _trade_. I'll pay _cash_."

"I'll not sell un. I'll keep un till Dad comes home, and let he sell un."

"Four hundred fifty," said Marks, and he drew forth a roll of bills and counted out the money. "There's the cash. Take it. I want this fur. It's a big price."

"I can't take un," Toby declined, unmoved. "I'm not doubtin' 'tis a fair price, but I'll not sell un. The fur's for Dad to sell when he comes home."

"You're a stubborn young fool!" blurted the man in a burst of temper.

"I'm not doubtin' that either," grinned Toby. "I'm a bit stubborn whatever about not sellin' the fur. 'Tis for Dad to sell."

"All right. We'll call you stubborn and not a fool but foolish. That's what I mean to say. You're turning down the best offer you'll ever get for that skin, and your father will say so, and he would want you to sell it if he were here."

The man smiled in an effort to appear agreeable, though Charley thought there was something sinister and unpleasant in the curl of his lips.

"I'll not sell un whatever without Dad's tellin' me to sell un."

At his request Toby displayed to Marks his other pelts.

"I'll pay you twenty-five dollars apiece for your marten skins, and take them as they run," Marks offered. "That's cash I'm offering, not trade."

"I can't sell un," Toby declined. "We owes a debt at the Company shop, and we has to use un to pay the debt. They gives us thirty dollars for un there."

"But that's trade," said Marks. "I offer cash, and twenty-five in cash is more than thirty-five in trade."

"Not for us," objected Toby. "If we takes twenty-five dollars in cash we only buys twenty-five dollars' worth with un. If we trades un in we gets thirty dollars' worth with un, whatever."

"I can't argue with you, I see," and the man appeared to relinquish his effort to buy the fur.

Marks made no further reference to the pelts, indeed, until after Mrs. Twig and Violet had retired that evening to the inner room and to bed. Then for nearly an hour he sat smoking and telling the boys stories of adventures up and down the coast, until Charley, yawning, suggested that he was sleepy, and saying good night retired to the bunk which he and Toby occupied.

While Toby was spreading a caribou skin upon the floor near the stove as a protection for Marks's sleeping bag, Marks suggested:

"Let me see that silver again. I'd like another look at it."

Toby obligingly brought it forth, and again Marks held it up for inspection.

"I'll give you five hundred and fifty in trade for that, and you can come to my shop at White Bear Run and trade it out any time you like."

"No, I'll not sell un," and there was no doubt that this was Toby's final and decisive decision.

"All right!" and Marks returned the pelt to Toby. "You have an otter there you didn't show me. How about that?"

Toby passed the otter pelt over to Marks, who examined it critically, and finally suggested:

"I'll give you fifty-five dollars in cash for it."

That was a good price. Toby was aware that the best price for otters at the Hudson's Bay Company's shop was fifty dollars in trade, and he could see no reason for refusing to sell it to Marks.

"You can have he," he accepted.

"Glad I can buy something," Marks grinned, counting out the money and handing it to Toby.

"Aye," said Toby, accepting the bills and counting them, "and I'm glad I can sell that un to you, sir."

"Dream pleasant dreams, and let them be about the silver fox," Marks smiled his sinister smile. "If you dream right, you'll dream you took me up on my offer."

"I'll not be dreamin' that, sir, whatever. Good night, and I hopes you'll rest well," and closing the fur chest, Toby joined Charley, who was already asleep.

Marks made no further mention of the silver fox the following morning. Directly breakfast was eaten he packed his sledge, harnessed his dogs, and drove away, and was soon lost in the distance.

It was after sundown that evening, when Toby and Charley had just fed the dogs, and were about to return to the cabin, when suddenly there appeared out of the silent forest a party of six Indians, each hauling a heavily laden flat sled, or toboggan.

Charley was the first to see them as they emerged in single file from the shadow of the trees into the clearing--tall, swarthy creatures, with straight, coarse black hair reaching to their shoulders, and held in place by red or blue bands of cloth tied around the forehead. They wore hooded buckskin coats, decorated with painted designs. Two of the Indians had the hoods of their coats drawn over their heads, showing them to be of caribou skin with the hairy side out, and with pieces of skin sewn on each side of the hood to represent ears, and which served to lend a savage aspect to the wearer. Some of them wore buckskin leggings, while others wore leggings of bright red cloth reaching from their buckskin moccasins to the knees.

Straight down they came on their snowshoes to Charley and Toby. Fierce and wild they looked to Charley, but Toby stepped out to meet them and to shake the hand of each, greeting them in their own tongue, while they laughed as they returned the greeting and appeared to be glad to see Toby.

Then they shook hands with Charley, and when he looked into their faces he decided that they were not so savage after all, but human enough, though he could not take his eyes from their strange dress. It spoke of mystery and of the wild life the men lived in the trackless land from which they came.

They unpacked their toboggans, and directed by Toby stowed their belongings in the porch. When everything was stowed, they stood the toboggans on end, leaning them against the house, and followed Toby into the living-room.

Mrs. Twig welcomed the Indians with the cordiality of the frontier, and made a pot of tea for them, which they drank with rare relish until the pot was drained.

Then spoke Amishku[13] who was the leader, or chief, and Toby, who understood their language well, interpreted his words:

"We have been far into the land hunting the caribou, the marten and the fox, and it has been long since we have visited the wigwams of the white man. This is the first tea we have had in many moons. It is good, and we are hungry for it. You are our friends."

"Tell un we'll be havin' supper after a bit," said Mrs. Twig, "and then I'll make more tea."

Upon Toby repeating this, the Indians laughed and two of them went to the porch, where their belongings had been left, and presently returned with a quantity of jerked[14] caribou meat, half a dozen caribou tongues smoked and cured after the Indian manner, and six beautifully tanned hides of buckskin, all of which they presented to Mrs. Twig.

"Give the poor men each a stick of your father's tobacco," directed Mrs. Twig, when the Indians had seated themselves upon the floor, with their backs against the wall, after supper.

Toby went to Skipper Zeb's chest, and fetched a plug for each of them. When they saw the tobacco their faces beamed, and every man drew a red stone pipe from his belt, and when they had filled their pipes and were sending up clouds of smoke they began to laugh and joke.

The conversation inevitably turned to the success of the winter's hunt, and the fur they had caught, and Toby went proudly to his chest to produce and exhibit his precious silver fox pelt to the appreciative eyes of the Indians.

He gave an exclamation of horror, and standing up held in his hand the empty bag in which he had kept the pelt. Then he wildly rummaged to the very bottom of the chest, and finally cried out:

"'Tis gone! The silver's gone!"

Madly he looked through the chest again, throwing out every pelt and every article it contained, but the pelt was not there.

FOOTNOTES: [12] Hudson's Bay Company. [13] The Beaver. [14] Dried.

XXIV

THE VENGEANCE OF THE PACK

Marks was well satisfied with his day's work. He had gone to Double Up Cove for the silver fox pelt, and he had it. He also had the otter pelt. He had paid a good price for the otter--more than he would have paid under ordinary circumstances. Still, it would yield him a fair margin of profit.

He and Toby had been alone when the bargain was struck. Mrs. Twig and the little maid had retired and were asleep, and in any case could not have heard the final bargaining or conversation between himself and Toby. He was assured, also, by the lad's heavy breathing, that Charley was asleep. There was no witness. It would be his word against Toby's. He was a trader with an established reputation, Toby was only a boy.

Marks cringed a little when it occurred to him that contracts made with minors were not binding, if the minor's parents or guardians chose not to approve them. But this was Labrador, with no court of justice to which they might appeal. Possession was the point, and Marks grinned with satisfaction. He had the pelt in his possession.

No doubt, when the silver fox pelt was missed, he would be accused of having stolen it. When they came to him, he would simply claim that he had purchased it from Toby, upon a trade basis, and that the price was five hundred and fifty dollars. He would stand upon this claim. He was prepared to supply them with goods to this extent of value at any time they might choose to come to his shop at White Bear Run and select them. The price he should put on the goods, he assured himself, would be sufficiently high to render the deal a highly profitable one for him.

Marks had no doubt that he could establish a plausible case. He assured himself that he had no intention of stealing the pelt. At most, he had been guilty only of sharp practice. He would pay for it. From the moment that Aaron Slade had told him about it, he had set his heart upon possessing it, and, he told himself, he usually got what he wanted.

"I'm a go-getter," he laughed in self-appreciation.

The sun was climbing in the sky, and the reflection from the great white field of snow covered ice was intense. At this season it is never safe to travel in the north with the eyes unprotected by goggles fitted with smoked or orange-tinted glasses. The penalty for neglect might prove a serious attack of snow-blindness.

Marks felt in a pocket for his goggles. He could not find them. He felt in another pocket, and repeated the search, but they were not to be found. Then he remembered that he had laid them on the shelf beside the clock, at Double Up Cove, at the time he had taken off his adikey the previous day, and he had no recollection of having removed them from the shelf.

It was a risk to proceed without them, but there was a very good reason why he could not safely return to the cabin at Double Up Cove. He felt that it was to his advantage, until the Twigs had become accustomed to the loss of the silver fox skin, to place as many miles as he could between himself and them, and to do it as quickly as possible. Toby was stubborn, and nobody knew what he might do in his first anger upon discovering his loss.

"He might even shoot," he mused. "That other fellow didn't like me, and the two work together. I'll take a chance without glasses, and won't go back for them."

He turned about on the komatik and looked toward the cabin, his guilty conscience prompting him to fear that even now he might be followed. The cabin was still in view, and to his relief he could discover no activity, and nothing to alarm him.

He urged the dogs forward, and did not halt until he had passed Pinch-In Tickle, and early in the afternoon had turned into the next bay to the southward.

Here he found a grove of spruce trees, and with firewood at hand he stopped and lighted a fire and put his kettle over to boil for luncheon.

When the fire was burning freely, Marks discovered, upon looking into it, a painful sensation in his eyeballs. The glare of the snow had affected them. Before he finished eating, the pain had developed considerably, and he determined to remain where he was until sunset, when he would proceed to Aaron Slade's cabin, some five miles farther. Here he could spend the night, and could borrow a pair of goggles, he was sure, from Aaron. If he kept his eyes closed in the meantime, he had no doubt they would be much improved when evening came.

Snapping his long whip over the dogs, he compelled them to lie down. The big gray dog was slow to obey, and Marks laid the lash upon him two or three times to enforce authority.

The dogs quieted, he dropped the whip in the snow at the rear of the komatik, and within reach, and breaking some boughs arranged them to form a comfortable couch near the fire. He then unlashed his sleeping bag from the top of the load on his komatik, spread it upon the boughs and crawled into it.

Marks fell asleep. When he awoke it was nearing sunset, and time to drive on to Aaron Slade's. But he could only open his eyes to a narrow slit, and that for a moment, when they would close. The pain was excruciating. Marks was snowblind.

It was near feeding time, and the dogs were on their feet and restless. If he could get them started, perhaps they would carry him unguided to Slade's. At any rate, he determined to try, for he could not remain where he was.

With much fumbling and groping he succeeded fairly well in securing his load. He felt for his whip, and found it on the snow at the rear of the komatik, where he had dropped it after compelling the dogs to lie down.

The restless dogs had swung around in their traces, and were facing him. Through some mysterious instinct they appeared to have sensed the fact that there was something wrong with Marks. When he ordered them forward, and snapped the whip over them in an effort to straighten them out in the direction in which he wished to go, they replied with snarls, and refused to obey. Their open defiance of his authority sent Marks into a rage. He tried to lash them, but in his blinded condition his aim was poor and his efforts ineffectual.

His anger rose to white heat. If he could not lash them, he could at least beat them into submission, at close quarters, with the clubbed handle of the whip. With a volley of curses, he flew at them blindly, beating right and left, and bringing whines of pain from the unfortunate dogs that he chanced to strike.

Still they did not move into position. In painful peeps that he had through narrow eye slits he saw the big gray dog facing him and snarling at him with a show of its ugly fangs. That dog was the instigator of the trouble he was having! He hated the creature! He would beat it into submission!

The gray dog was in the center of the pack, and to reach it Marks was compelled to step over the traces of some of the other dogs. One of them, in fear of the whip handle, sprang away as Marks approached, and in the movement wrapped its trace around the man's foot. Marks stooped to disentangle his foot, and as he did the dog swung in another direction in an effort to escape.

This motion jerked the blinded man's feet from under him, and unable to recover his balance, he fell at full length among the dogs.

In a moment the gray dog, followed by the pack, was upon the prostrate and helpless man. The trader's team had suddenly become a snarling, yelping savage pack of wolves.

XXV

AMISHKU AND MAIGEN, THE INDIANS

Every one gathered around Toby and the chest. The Indians were no less excited than were Charley and Toby. Again the chest was searched, but with no result, until Charley thrust his hand into the cotton bag in which Toby had kept the missing pelt, and drew forth a piece of paper.

"Here's something!" he exclaimed. "It's a note that man wrote and left."

"Read un! Read un to me, Charley!" Toby asked, and Charley read:

"To TOBY TWIG:

"I forgot to give you credit slip for the silver fox skin before you went to bed. I may forget to give it to you in the morning, so I will put this in the bag where you will find it. You may use this as a credit memorandum. You may have trade goods from my store at White Bear Run to the value of $550.00 at any time you wish to take the goods.

"JACOB MARKS."

"I didn't trade he the silver!" Toby protested. "I'm not wantin' his goods! I sold he the otter, and told he the silver was for Dad to sell when he comes home from his path!"

"Of course you didn't sell it to him," Charley vouched indignantly. "He's a crook! I knew it right away! He stole it! He's going to try to make out that you sold it to him for five hundred and fifty dollars in trade."

"I wants the silver back," said Toby decisively. "I'll get un, too! Come on, Charley, we'll go for un now."

"All right, Toby, _I'll_ help you get it! We'll make that fellow hand it over, if we ever catch him," and Charley meant every word of it.

"What is you lads about?" asked Mrs. Twig anxiously, as Toby and Charley began to change to their traveling moccasins.

"Charley and I'll be gettin' the silver back," said Toby firmly. "Marks'll be gettin' no farther than David Dyson's to-day, whatever, and Charley and I'll be catchin' he by marnin'. If we don't we'll follow he till we does, won't we, now, Charley? We'll be gettin' the silver."

"I'll stick to you, whatever you do," said Charley.

"You lads can't be goin' alone, whatever," objected Mrs. Twig.

"I'm goin' to get that silver!" persisted Toby.

"Don't be hasty, lads. Ask Amishku what he thinks about un," suggested Mrs. Twig. "I'm fearin' to have you lads go."

In his excitement Toby had failed to interpret the note to the Indians, nor had he told them of his purpose of following Marks, and they were looking curiously on without understanding the conversation.

When Toby now told them in their own language the contents of the note which Charley had found in the bag, and of his own and Charley's intention of following Marks and recovering the pelt, and of his mother's objection, the Indians were interested in behalf of their friends. They gathered at once in council. Shortly Amishku turned to Toby, and said:

"You are our friends and you are in trouble. We wish to help you. Your silver fox skin has been stolen, and we will help you find the man that stole it, and get it back for you. We are on our way to the Hudson's Bay Company's Post at Snow Inlet. At Pinch-In Tickle we must turn north. The man that stole your fur is from White Bear Run. That is south.

"This man left here this morning. He has been traveling all day. We must go now and travel all night if we overtake him soon. I will go with you and my brother Maigen[15] will go with you. You will take my things and my brother's things on your sledge. Our three friends will follow to-morrow and bring their flat sleds with their loads. At Pinch-In Tickle they will wait for us if we are not there before them. We will leave my brother's things and my own things at Pinch-In Tickle and go south until we find the man that stole your fur. Then we will get the fur and come back to Pinch-In Tickle where our friends will be waiting.

"Are you ready? We must go, and we must travel fast, that we may not lose the man's trail."

There was hustle and bustle at once. Toby and Charley brought in the komatik box that Mrs. Twig might pack in it necessary provisions and other equipment. The Indians packed their goods upon the komatik, together with the boys' sleeping bags, and Toby and Charley harnessed the dogs.

All of these preparations required but a few minutes, and when they were ready, and as the boys were leaving, Mrs. Twig plead with Toby to prevent the Indians "hurting the poor man," even if he would not surrender the fur.

"I'd shoot he myself," said Toby, "if he wouldn't give un up. I would, I'm that self-willed!"

"Don't be hard on the poor man now," admonished Mrs. Twig as Toby broke the dogs loose and they dashed away in the starlight.

The ice was firm and with few hummocks, and the snow that covered it was frozen nearly as hard as the ice beneath it. The dogs made fast progress, taking a steady trotting gait, with Toby and Charley trotting beside the komatik and the two Indians ahead following the trail of Marks to be certain that it did not turn to some other quarter.