CHAPTER XXVI

WALLS OF LIGHT

The hunchback bowman stood tapping upon the airplane cabin in which Johnny Thompson had been made prisoner. How had he traveled over all those weary miles? How had he known the way? Had the airplane left a path across the sky for his eyes?

Who will answer? For that matter, who will answer a hundred questions that might well be asked concerning the strange natives of the North? How do they follow trails that are wind-blown, no trails at all, over miles of darkness and storm? How do they in the midst of fog, without sun, moon or stars to guide them, steer frail craft over dark waters to land on unlighted shores before their wigwam doors? How can they know what happens a hundred miles away at the very hour at which it happens? To all these questions there is no answer. Ask them. They will reply, “We cannot tell.” Do they speak the truth? Who can say?

The bowman was here. How? What matter this? He was here. He was Johnny’s undying friend. Once he had saved the boy’s life. His hand it had been that, with so much skill, had fashioned the bow taken by him from the snow hours before. The lost bow, the overturned sled had spoken to him. They had said, “Your friend, Johnny Thompson, is in distress.”

He had replied, “I will go to his aid.” Now he tapped upon the glass and beckoned.

For answer, Johnny threw back his robe, disclosing the stout steel manacles on his ankles.

The hunchback’s reaction was startling. Wrenching open the door with his powerful hands, he prepared to drag Johnny from the cabin to his sled.

With a sigh Johnny told him that the other boy must go too. The Indian understood. Swiftly, silently he lifted the second boy and carried him to the sled. Then, dragging forth Johnny’s robe, he wrapped it about them.

At a barely audible call from Johnny, the five dogs came bounding from the cabin. Then they were away.

The Indian made no effort to hitch Johnny’s dogs to the sled. There was no need. His own tireless team was still fit for the trail. In the North both dogs and men are accustomed to long hours of rest and long days of toil.

So, with no sound coming from the darkened cabin where, relying on their false security, the mysterious ones slept on, the sled glided away into the night.

For an hour they followed the shore of the lake. Then turning sharply to the left, they climbed a steep hill to go gliding along a ridge. Mile after mile of glistening white had passed beneath their runners when at last they went tobogganing down a steep incline to tumble all in a heap at the bottom. And that bottom was the frozen surface of still another lake.

Fifteen minutes more and, just as dawn was breaking, they found themselves facing a brown wall of rock. In the center of this wall was a narrow opening. Into this opening they were invited to crawl.

“D—do you think it’s safe t—to go in there?” D’Arcy Arden looked up at Johnny. With their feet still bound together, they were obliged to crawl on hands and knees.

“Safest thing in the world.” Johnny prepared to lead the way. “I have one rule for every land; do as the natives do. If a native says a thing is safe, you may be sure it is.

“Besides,” he added as he crept forward, “this man is an old friend of mine. Think of the miles he traveled to save me!”

For all his confidence in his guide, Johnny was a little surprised at the place he entered. Not so much a cave as a passageway among a tumbled mass of jagged rocks, it led right, left, up, down until he was fairly dizzy. But at last they came into a rather large, low chamber.

To his surprise, Johnny found that in this chamber he could see plainly enough to find his way about. He was, however, too much worn down by excitement and lack of sleep to note this with any degree of interest or to ask questions about it. Having been assured by signs from his strange host that they were now quite safe and that he was prepared to guard the entrance, he curled up once more beneath his robe and, with D’Arcy at his side, fell asleep in a chamber which sunlight never entered, but where darkness never reigned supreme.

* * * * * * * *

At about the time Johnny and his companions reached the cave, Sandy MacDonald, the veteran prospector who had risen early that he might get a full day of prospecting, heard a scratching at the door of the cabin.

As he threw open the door Ginger, Johnny’s gray leader, with a look upon his face that seemed almost human, sprang upon him.

“Ginger!” Sandy exclaimed. “Where’s Johnny?”

For answer the dog turned and dashed through the door. He went a distance down the trail. Then, seeing he was not followed, turned back.

The aged prospector’s astonishment knew no bounds. He had not expected Johnny back, had believed him safe in some cabin or camping beneath the stars. And here was his indispensable leader racing into the cabin and demanding attention.

“Something’s happened! I get you!” Sandy said to the dog. “Just a cup of coffee, and I’ll be with you.”

The intelligent creature appeared to understand for, weary messenger that he was, he threw himself down beside the fire and fell fast asleep.

The instant the door opened, he was on his feet, ready to lead the way back over that long weary trail to the cabin he had left, and then on and on, who could tell how much farther? until they came upon his young master. Such is the humble devotion of a faithful dog.

“Ginger, old boy,” the gray-bearded prospector rumbled, as he turned his team into the trail, “I figured I’d come onto that pitchblende today, regular velvety black stuff and heavy, heavy as gold, the real stuff, and radium, radium aplenty. But when a pal of ours is in distress, that’s a different matter. Success? Well now, that can wait until to-morrow.” So they hit the long, long trail.

* * * * * * * *

But Curlie Carson and his mechanic Jerry—what had happened to them? They had slept the night through and with the dawning of a bright new day were eager to be on their way.

“I’d give a penny to know why that chap lives way up here back of beyond,” Curlie said to Jerry, as they prepared to warm up their motor.

“Don’t you know?”

“No. Do you?”

“Absolutely. He’s a trapper. Scattered all over this country, these trappers are.”

“Then he’s not connected with the ‘Gray Streak?’”

“Not a chance; nor is that little chap back there beyond Fort Chipewyan, the one with the carrier pigeon.”

Curlie showed his disappointment at this fresh discovery. He had come a long way on a wild goose chase. He had hoped against hope that this cabin might furnish a clue to the solution of the mystery that gathered itself about that gray rover of the sky. Yet here was Jerry telling him there was not a chance.

“But why didn’t he tell us he was a trapper?” he objected.

“These men of the North are silent fellers,” Jerry said slowly. “You’ll find that out. They live in the midst of silence. They’re here because they love silence. People that like cities live in ’em and talk aplenty.

“One thing helps,” Jerry added after a time. “Our record is still good. We’ve added a grand distance to our total year’s flight and, this being an errand of mercy, counts extra special.”

Curlie smiled as he thought what an accidental errand of mercy it had been.

“But not so much an accident after all,” he said half aloud. “God planned it, beyond a shadow of a doubt. And what God plans can never be called an accident.”

The baggage their passenger proposed to take with him was proof enough that he was a trapper. This was composed of bales of white fox skins.

“This,” he explained, “is only part of our catch. My partner left with the rest on our dog sled five days ago. It’s five hundred miles to Fort Chipewyan. You have to carry food for yourself and your dogs. We didn’t dare try it together. Too much of a load for so long a journey. I was to come down later. But now,” he smiled, “guess I’ll beat him out. That’s the glory of the air.”

“Yes,” Curlie agreed, “that’s the glory of the air.”

Even then his mind was but half occupied with the affairs of the moment. He was thinking of the mystery plane.

“What became of them?” he asked himself. “Did they make a forced landing? Could they have crashed? Did they reach their base? If so, where is it? Will I ever find it? And if I do?

“The riddle of the storm,” he murmured, “of two storms. When will it be solved?” For the first time he realized how fully this problem had taken possession of his thoughts.

“Such a riddle!” His tone became animated. “And its solution means so much to these far flung dwellers of the North.

“One thing comes first. That’s clear. We must get this wounded man to the doctor at Resolution!

“Oh, Jerry,” he called. “Is the motor O.K.?”

“Absolutely.”

“All right. Let’s go.”

The motor thundered. Curlie climbed aboard, looked back to see that his passenger was ready, then set the plane gliding over the snow. A moment later the great bird rose with a graceful glide and soared toward the clouds.

* * * * * * * *

Johnny Thompson did not sleep long in the hunchback’s curious cave. Everything was too strange for that. There were too many matters that needed thinking through.

He did not waken suddenly, nor all at once. For a time, only half awake, he lay there wondering. Who were these mysterious airmen? Why had they taken him prisoner? Would they follow the track of the hunchback’s sled and attempt to recapture him? He sincerely hoped they would not.

“Could be but one end to that,” he told himself. “They’d be shot through and through by my Indian friend’s arrows.” He had seen that Indian kill a grizzly bear with those arrows.

He thought of Ginger, his dog leader.

“Did he escape, or did they kill him?” He was bound to believe that his good pal of many a long trail was safe.

“And if he is,” he whispered to himself, “if he is—” Suddenly he sat straight up, wide awake. A thought had struck him squarely between the eyes. “If Ginger is alive, he has gone back over the trail. He has told Sandy MacDonald that something is wrong. They will start back over the trail. They will follow until they come to the camp of those mysterious aviators. Then Sandy will be made prisoner. And Ginger! They will surely kill him this time.

“It must not happen! I must attempt to find that trail and head them off. There is not a moment to lose! I—”

He broke off to stare about him. His startled eyes, roving from corner to corner of the cave and from floor to ceiling, had, even in his excitement and anxiety, taken note of an astonishing fact. He was in a cave. There was no lamp. Not an oil lamp, not an electric torch was to be found; and yet the place was illumined. And outside it was still night.

“It’s the walls,” he told himself. “They are all alight.

“D’Arcy! D’Arcy Arden!” He put out a trembling hand to shake his companion into wakefulness. “D’Arcy! Wake up! We are surrounded by walls of light!”