CHAPTER XX

THE HUNCHBACK BOWMAN

Three days, coming to earth only for fuel and sleep, Curlie and Jerry skimmed the far horizon searching for some sign of the “Gray Streak.” The days were fair. Beneath them lay the earth, a blanket of white broken only by streaks of black where spruce and tamarack followed a narrow stream. Beyond, to the north, south, east and west, lay the gray rim of the horizon. Three times Curlie’s heart leaped at sight of a plane on that horizon. Each time he met with disappointment. A commercial plane bringing trappers in from the Barrens and two mineral hunters, they brought him no news of the ship he sought.

And then, on the third day at a time when he was feeling the urge of duty to turn back, the “Gray Streak” hove in sight.

What to do? To follow? To turn back? The thing must be decided on the instant. Official orders said, “Turn back.” Romance, adventure, the desire to avenge a fallen comrade, the common good of all those who had come to dwell in the North, urged him on.

Duty whispered.

The call of romance rang in his ears. Romance won.

“Jerry, we’re going after them.”

“Absolutely, son.” Jerry’s grin was good to see.

Three hours later Curlie found himself following the lead of that mysterious ship. Grave doubts had by this time entered his mind.

“How is this to end?” He asked this question many times. Many times, too, he told himself it was his duty to turn back, that a cargo of freight for the north awaited him, that each mile on this mad adventure was counting against him as a pilot with a blameless record; yet something still urged him on.

A hundred, two, three, four hundred miles they flew.

Then like a flash it came to him that he was being led away into a land where no man was.

“They hope I will run out of gas and be obliged to land where there is no fuel supply. And then?”

He shuddered at thought of that which might follow. Save for his bow and arrow, neither he nor Jerry was armed. “And if they did not attack us, we would be in a fair way to starve before we could beat our way back across this rocky wilderness.”

* * * * * * * *

At this same moment Johnny Thompson was enjoying adventures all his own.

With his dog team on his second journey in search of pitchblende he had traveled fifty miles, and the day was still young. That was because he had started at two o’clock in the morning. In this north country where at one time of the year there is no night at all and in another there is no day, men forget the conventions of life. Instead of three meals a day, they may eat five, or two, or only one. If a journey is to be made, they start when they are ready. Johnny had been ready at two in the morning.

He was fond of night travel. Then the moon casts ghostly shadows. The stars burn like candles. All living things are afoot. White foxes are barking on the crests of rocky ridges. Wolves follow a traveler for hours. He did not mind the wolves. Like Curlie, he was an archer. His powerful bow, a curious affair made of wood, rawhide and some secret glue, presented to him by an Indian, was ever at hand.

Now and then a dark bulk that was a caribou loomed in the distance.

“If I could pick off one of those I could make my journey twice as long,” he told himself.

He thought of the mineral he had come to seek, pitchblende. More illusive than gold and many times more precious, radium, the product of pitchblende, had somehow gotten into his blood.

Sandy possessed several books and pamphlets on radium. During his spare time Johnny had delved into these and had been fascinated by the story of radium. He had learned that while radium is worth sixteen million dollars a pound, a quantity worth twenty cents mixed with phosphorescent zinc will so illuminate a watch dial that time may be read from it on the darkest night.

Sandy had shown him a spinthariscope. In this curious instrument he had witnessed the flash of light that comes from a single atom of radium.

“And think!” Sandy had lowered his tone impressively. “Should this instrument be left in a dark chamber for a thousand years, that tiny atom would still give off light!”

As he traveled he paused now and then to chip off a bit of rock with his hammer, only to cast it away. He would do this to-day, to-morrow and the next day. Then, unless he obtained an extra food supply, he must turn back.

Yet in three days he could travel far. Beside some ancient river bed, on the rocks above a cataract that even winter could not conquer, at the crest of some mountain-like ridge, he might come upon the brownish-black, velvet-like quartz that would spell riches for old Sandy, Scott and himself. Always he thought first of his brawny, gray-haired friend.

“He is past seventy,” he told himself. “A prince of a man. Always lived for others. Ever a prospector, this is his last great adventure. It must be a real one. It surely must!”

His mind returned often to the strange tales Curlie had told him, tales of the “Gray Streak.”

“What if they were to swoop down upon me here on this river?” he said to himself with a shudder.

Once more he thought of pitchblende. “I’ll have some that shines like a candle in the dark before I turn back.”

Before he turned back? How little he knew of that which would happen before he turned his face toward camp!

Two things happened in quick succession. A caribou appeared on a ridge not fifty yards from his sled. A quick, fleeting arrow, and his food supply was supplemented by two hundred pounds of rich, juicy meat. Part of this he would hide in a scrub spruce tree, ready for use on his return. The rest would feed his dogs and himself for three days. And there was other food on his sled.

It was while he was preparing this meat that a truly curious thing happened. On a ridge a quarter of a mile from where he stood appeared a lone traveler. He drove a dog team. And such a team as it was! Up until that moment the boy had not believed that dogs could go so fast.

“Like the wind!” he exclaimed. “As if they had wings and raced an airplane.”

The driver was stranger still. He was short and broad. As one looked at him from a distance it seemed that a pair of very broad shoulders had been set upon a pair of long legs, and a head placed atop it all. Yet those legs were powerful and fast. This strange being followed the team with ease.

“The hunchback bowman.” Johnny’s lips parted with wonder, and a thrill ran through his being. The bow and his sled had been made by a hunchback, an Indian. But this Indian had lived hundreds of miles away. “The hunchback bowman,” he repeated, then turned to the task of the hour.