Books: Isobel

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"There, there, boy," said Pelliter, pulling him away. "That was a
close one!"

He sat down and looked at Blake. He knew that the man was dead. Kazan
was sniffing about the sailor's head with stiffened spines. And then a
ray of light flashed for an instant through the window. It was the
sun-- the second time that Pelliter had seen it in four months. A cry
of joy welled up from his heart. But it was stopped midway. On the
floor close beside Blake something glittered in the fiery ray, and
Pelliter was upon his knees in an instant. It was the short golden
hair he had snatched from the dead man's coat, and partly covering it
was the picture of his sweetheart which had fallen when the table was
overturned. With the photograph in one hand and that single thread of
woman's hair between the fingers of his other Pelliter rose slowly to
his feet and faced the window. The sun was gone. But its coming had
put a new life into him. He turned joyously to Kazan.

"That means something, boy," he said, in a low, awed voice, "the sun,
the picture, and this! She sent it, do you hear, boy? She sent it! I
can almost hear her voice, an' she's telling me to go. `Tommy,' she's
saying, `you wouldn't be a man if you didn't go, even though you know
you're going to die on the way. You can take her something to eat,'
she's saying, boy, `an' you can just as well die in an igloo as here.
You can leave word for Billy, an' you can take her grub enough to last
until he comes, an' then he'll bring her down here, an' you'll be
buried out there with the others just the same.' That's what she's
saying, Kazan, so we're going!" He looked about him a little wildly.
"Straight up the coast," he mumbled. "Thirty miles. We might make it."

He began filling a pack with food. Outside the door there was a small
sledge, and after he had bundled himself in his traveling-clothes he
dragged the pack to the sledge, and behind the pack tied on a bundle
of firewood, a lantern, blankets, and oil. After he had done this he
wrote a few lines to MacVeigh and pinned the paper to the door. Then
he hitched old Kazan to the sledge and started off, leaving the dead
man where he had fallen.

"It's what she'd have us do," he said again to Kazan. "She sure would
have us do this, Kazan. God bless her dear little heart!"

VIII

LITTLE MYSTERY

Pelliter hung close to the ice-bound coast. He traveled slowly,
leading the way for Kazan, who strained every muscle in his aged body
to drag the sledge. For a time the excitement of what had occurred
gave Pelliter a strength which soon began to ebb. But his old weakness
did not entirely return. He found that his worst trouble at first was
in his eyes. Weeks of fever had enfeebled his vision until the world
about him looked new and strange. He could see only a few hundred
paces ahead, and beyond this little circle everything turned gray and
black. Singularly enough, it struck him that there was some humor as
well as tragedy in the situation, that there was something to laugh at
in the fact that Kazan had but one eye, and that he was nearly blind.
He chuckled to himself and spoke aloud to the dog.

"Makes me think of the games o' hide-'n'-seek we used to play when we
were kids, boy," he said. "She used to tie her handkerchief over my
eyes, 'n' then I'd follow her all through the old orchard, and when I
caught her it was a part of the game she'd have to let me kiss her.
Once I bumped into an apple tree--"

The toe of his snow-shoe caught in an ice-hummock and sent him face
downward into the snow. He picked himself up and went on.

"We played that game till we was grown-ups, old man," he went on.
"Last time we played it she was seventeen. Had her hair in a big brown
braid, an' it all came undone so that when I caught her an' took off
the handkerchief I could just see her eyes an' her mouth laughing at
me, and it was that time I hugged her up closer than ever and told her
I was going out to make a home for us. Then I came up here."

He stopped and rubbed his eyes; and for an hour after that, as he
plodded onward, he mumbled things which neither Kazan nor any other
living thing could have understood. But whatever delirium found its
way into his voice, the fighting spark in his brain remained sane. The
igloo and the starving woman whom Blake had abandoned formed the one
living picture which he did not for a moment forget. He must find the
igloo, and the igloo was close to the sea. He could not miss it-- if
he lived long enough to travel thirty miles. It did not occur to him
that Blake might have lied-- that the igloo was farther than he had
said, or perhaps much nearer.

It was two o'clock when he stopped to make tea. He figured that he had
traveled at least eighteen miles; the fact was he had gone but a
little over half that distance. He was not hungry, and ate nothing,
but he fed Kazan heartily of meat. The hot tea, strengthened with a
little whisky, revived him for the time more than food would have
done.

"Twelve miles more at the most," he said to Kazan. "We'll make it.
Thank God, we'll make it!"

If his eyes had been better he would have seen and recognized the huge
snow-covered rock called the Blind Eskimo, which was just nine miles
from the cabin. As it was, he went on, filled with hope. There were
sharper pains in his head now, and his legs dragged wearily. Day ended
at a little after two, but at this season there was not much change in
light and darkness, and Pelliter scarcely noted the difference. The
time came when the picture of the igloo and the dying woman came and
went fitfully in his brain. There were dark spaces. The fighting spark
was slowly giving way, and at last Pelliter dropped upon the sledge.

"Go on, Kazan!" he cried, weakly. "Mush it-- go on!"

Kazan tugged, with gaping jaws; and Pelliter's head dropped upon the
food-filled pack.

What Kazan heard was a groan. He stopped and looked back, whining
softly. For a time he sat on his haunches, sniffing a strange thing
which had come to him in the air. Then he went on, straining a little
faster at the sledge and still whining. If Pelliter had been conscious
he would have urged him straight ahead. But old Kazan turned away from
the sea. Twice in the next ten minutes he stopped and sniffed the air,
and each time he changed his course a little. Half an hour later he
came to a white mound that rose up out of the level waste of snow, and
then he settled himself back on his haunches, lifted his shaggy head
to the dark night sky, and for the second time that day he sent forth
the weird, wailing, mourning death-howl.

It aroused Pelliter. He sat up, rubbed his eyes, staggered to his
feet, and saw the mound a dozen paces away. Rest had cleared his brain
again. He knew that it was an igloo. He could make out the door, and
he caught up his lantern and stumbled toward it. He wasted half a
dozen matches before he could make a light. Then he crawled in, with
Kazan still in his traces close at his heels.

There was a musty, uncomfortable odor in the snow-house. And there was
no sound, no movement. The lantern lighted up the small interior, and
on the floor Pelliter made out a heap of blankets and a bearskin.
There was no life, and instinctively he turned his eyes down to Kazan.
The dog's head was stretched out toward the blankets, his ears were
alert, his eyes burned fiercely, and a low, whining growl rumbled in
his throat.

He looked at the blankets again, moved slowly toward them. He pulled
back the bearskin and found what Blake had told him he would find-- a
woman. For a moment he stared, and then a low cry broke from his lips
as he fell upon his knees. Blake had not lied, for it was an Eskimo
woman. She was dead. She had not died of starvation. Blake had killed
her!

He rose to his feet again and looked about him. After all, did that
golden hair, that white woman's hair, mean nothing? What was that? He
sprang back toward Kazan, his weakened nerves shattered by a sound and
a movement from the farthest and darkest part of the igloo. Kazan
tugged at his traces, panting and whining, held back by the sledge
wedged in the door. The sound came again, a human, wailing, sobbing
cry.

With his lantern in his hand Pelliter darted across to it. There was
another roll of blankets on the floor, and as he looked he saw the
bundle move. It took him but an instant to drop beside it, as he had
dropped beside the other, and as he drew back the damp and partly
frozen covering his heart leaped up and choked him. The lantern light
fell full upon the thin, pale face and golden head of a little child.
A pair of big frightened eyes were staring up at him; and as he knelt
there, powerless to move or speak in the face of this miracle, the
eyes closed again, and there came again the wailing, hungry note which
Kazan had first heard as they approached the igloo. Pelliter flung
back the blanket and caught the child in his arms.

"It's a girl-- a little girl!" he almost shouted to Kazan. "Quick,
boy-- go back-- get out!"

He laid the child upon the other blankets, and then thrust back Kazan.
He seemed suddenly possessed of the strength of two men as he tore at
his own blankets and dumped the contents of the pack out upon the
snow. "She sent us, boy," he cried, his breath coming in sobbing
gasps. "Where's the milk 'n' the stove--"

In ten seconds more he was back in the igloo with a can of condensed
cream, a pan, and the alcohol lamp. His fingers trembled so that he
had difficulty in lighting the wick, and as he cut open the can with
his knife he saw the child's eyes flutter wide for an instant and then
close again.

"Just a minute, a half minute," he pleaded, pouring the cream into the
pan. "Hungry, eh, little one? Hungry? Starving ?" He held the pan
close down over the blue liame and gazed terrified at the white little
face near him. Its thinness and quiet frightened him. He thrust his
finger into the cream and found it warm.

"A cup, Kazan! Why didn't I bring a cup?" He darted out again and
returned with a tin basin. In another moment the child was in his
arms, and he forced the first few drops of cream between her lips. Her
eyes shot open. Life seemed to spring into her little body; and she
drank with a loud noise, one of her tiny hands gripping him by the
wrist. The touch, the sound, the feel of life against him thrilled
Pelliter. He gave her half of what the basin contained, and then
wrapped her up warmly in his thick service blanket, so that all of her
was hidden but her face and her tangled golden hair. He held her for a
moment close to the lantern. She was looking at him now, wide-eyed and
wondering, but not frightened.

"God bless your little soul!" he exclaimed, his amazement growing.
"Who are you, 'n' where'd you come from? You ain't more'n three years
old, if you're an hour. Where's your mama 'n' your papa?" He placed
her back on the blankets. "Now, a fire, Kazan!" he said.

He held the lantern above his head and found the narrow vent through
the snow-and-ice wall which Blake had made for the escape of smoke.
Then he went outside for the fuel, freeing Kazan on the way. In a few
minutes more a small bright blaze of almost smokeless larchwood was
lighting up and warming the interior of the igloo. To his surprise,
Pelliter found the child asleep when he went to her again. He moved
her gently and carried the dead body of the little Eskimo woman
through the opening and half a hundred paces from the igloo. Not until
then did he stop to marvel at the strength which had returned to him.
He stretched his arms above his head and breathed deeply of the cold
air. It seemed as though something had loosened inside of him, that a
crushing weight had lifted itself from his eyes. Kazan had followed
him, and he stared down at the dog.

"It's gone, Kazan," he cried, in a low, half-credulous voice. "I don't
feel-- sick-- any more. It's her--"

He turned back to the igloo. The lantern and the fire made a cheerful
glow inside, and it was growing warm. He threw off his heavy coat,
drew the bearskin in front of the fire, and sat down with the child in
his arms. She still slept. Like a starving man Pelliter stared down
upon the little thin face. Gently his rough fingers stroked back the
golden curls. He smiled. A light came into his eyes. His head bent
lower and lower, slowly and a little fearfully. At last his lips
touched the child's cheek. And then his own rough grizzled face,
toughened by wind and storm and intense cold, nestled against the
little face of this new and mysterious life he had found at the top of
the world.

Kazan listened for a time, squatted on his haunches. Then he curled
himself near the fire and slept. For a long time Pelliter sat rocking
gently back and forth, thrilled by a happiness that was growing deeper
and stronger in him each instant. He could feel the tiny beat of the
little one's heart against his breast; he could feel her breath
against his cheek; one of her little hands had gripped him by his
thumb.

A hundred questions ran through his mind now. Who was this little
abandoned mite? Who were her father and her mother, and where were
they? How had she come to be with the Eskimo woman and Blake? Blake
was not her father; the Eskimo woman was not her mother. What tragedy
had placed her here? Somehow he was conscious of a sensation of joy as
he reasoned that he would never be able to answer these questions. She
belonged to him. He had found her. No one would ever come to
dispossess him. Without awakening her, he thrust a hand into his
breast pocket and drew out the photograph of the sweet-faced girl who
was going to be his wife. It did not occur to him now that he might
die. The old fear and the old sickness were gone. He knew that he was
going to live.

"You," he breathed, softly, "you did it, and I know you'll be glad
when I bring her down to you." And then to the little sleeping girl:
"And if you ain't got a name I guess I'll have to call you Mystery--
how is that?-- my Little Mystery."

When he looked from the picture again Little Mystery's eyes were open
and gazing up at him. He dropped the picture and made a lunge for the
pan of cream warming before the fire. The child drank as hungrily as
before, with Pelliter babbling incoherent nonsense into her baby ears.
When she had done he picked up the photograph, with a sudden and
foolish inspiration that she might understand.

"Looky," he cried. "Pretty--"

To his astonishment and joy, Little Mystery put out a hand and placed
the tip of her tiny forefinger on the girl's face. Then she looked up
into Pelliter's eyes.

"Mama," she lisped.

Pelliter tried to speak, but something rose like a knot in his throat
and choked him. A fire leaped all at once through his body; the joy of
that one word blinded him with hot tears. When he spoke at last his
voice was broken, like a sobbing woman's.

"That's it." he said. "You're right, little one. She's your mama!"

IX

THE SECRET OF THE DEAD

On the eighth day after Pelliter found the Eskimo igloo Billy MacVeigh
came up through a gray dawn with his footsore dogs, his letters, and
his medicines. He had traveled all of the preceding night, and his
feet dragged heavily. It was with a feeling of fear that he at last
saw the black cliffs of Fullerton rising above the ice. He dreaded the
first opening of the cabin door. What would he find? During the past
forty-eight hours he had figured on Pelliter's chances, and they were
two to one that he would find his partner dead in his bunk.

And if not, if Pelliter still lived, what a tale there would be to
tell the sick man! For he knew that he must tell some one, and
Pelliter would keep his secret. And he would understand. Day after
day, as he had hurried straight into the north, Billy's loneliness and
heartbreak weighed more and more heavily upon him. He tried to force
Isobel out of his thoughts, but it was impossible. A thousand visions
of her rose before him, and each mile that he drew himself farther
away from her seemed only to add to the nearness of her spirit at his
side and to the strange pain in his heart that rose now and then to
his lips in sobbing breaths that he fought with himself to stifle. And
yet, with his own grief and hopelessness, he experienced more and more
each day a compensating joy. It was the joy of knowing that he had
given back life and hope to Isobel and her husband. Each day he
figured their progress along with his own. From the Eskimo village he
had sent a messenger back to Churchill with a long report for the
officer in command there, and in that report he had lied. He reported
Scottie Deane as having died of the injury he had received in the
snow-slide. Not for a moment had he regretted the falsehood. He also
promised to report at Churchill to testify against Bucky Smith as soon
as he reached Pelliter and put him on his feet.

On this last day, as he saw the towering cliffs of Fullerton ahead of
him, he wondered how much he would tell to Pelliter if he found him
alive. Mentally he rehearsed the amazing story of what came to him
that night on the Barren, of the dogs coming across the snow, the
great, dark, frightened eyes of the woman, and the long, narrow box on
the sledge. He would tell pelliter all that. He would tell how he had
made a camp for her that night, and how, later, he had told her that
he loved her and had begged one kiss. And then the disclosures of the
morning, the deserted tent, the empty box, the little note from
Isobel, and the revelation that the box had contained the living body
of the man for whom he and Pelliter had patrolled this desolate
country for two thousand miles. But would he tell the truth of what
had happened after that ?

He quickened his tired pace as the dogs climbed up from the ice of the
Bay to the sloping ridge, and stared hard ahead of him. The dogs
tugged harder as the smell of home entered their nostrils. At last the
roof of the cabin came in view. MacVeigh's bloodshot eyes were like an
animal's in their eagerness.

"Pelly, old boy," he gasped to himself. "Pelly--"

He stared harder. And then he spoke a low word to the dogs and
stopped. He wiped his face. A deep breath of relief fell from his
lips.

Straight up from the chimney of the cabin there rose a thick column of
smoke!

He came up to the door of the cabin quietly, wondering why Pelliter
did not see him or hear the three or four sharp yelps the dogs had
given. He twisted off his snow-shoes, chuckling as he thought of the
surprise he would give his mate. His hand was on the door latch when
he stopped. The smile left his lips. Startled wonderment filled his
face as he bent close to the door and listened, and for a moment his
heart throbbed with a terrible fear. He had returned too late--
perhaps a day-- two days. Pelliter had gone mad! He could hear him
raving inside, filling the cabin with a laughter that sent a chill of
horror through his veins. Mad! A sob broke from his lips, and he
turned his face up to the gray sky. And then the laughter turned to
song. It was the sweet love song which Pelliter had told him that the
girl down south used to sing to him when they were alone out under the
stars. Suddenly it broke off short, and in its place he heard another
sound. With a cry he opened the door and burst in.

"My God!" he cried. "Pelly-- Pelly--"

Pelliter was on his knees in the middle of the floor. But it was not
the look of wonderment and joy in his face that Billy saw first. He
stared at the little golden-haired creature on the floor in front of
him. He had traveled hard, almost day and night, and for an instant it
flashed upon him that what he saw was not real. Before he could move
or speak again Pelliter was on his feet, wringing his hands and almost
crying in his gladness. There was no sign of fever or madness in his
face now. Like one in a dream Billy heard what he said.

"God bless you, Billy! I'm glad you've come!" he cried. "We've been
waiting 'n' watching, and not more'n a minute ago we were at the
window looking along the edge of the Bay through the binoculars. You
must have been under the ridge. My God! A little while ago I thought I
was dying-- I thought I was alone in the world-- alone-- alone. But
look-- look, Billy, I've got a fam'ly!"

Little Mystery had climbed to her feet. She was looking at Billy
wonderingly, her golden curls tousled about her pretty face, and
gripping two or three of Pelliter's old letters in her tiny hand. And
then she smiled at Billy and held out the letters to him. In an
instant he had dropped Pelliter's hands and caught her up in his arms.

"I've got letters for you in my pocket, Pelly," he gasped. "But--
first-- you've got to tell me who she is and where you got her--"

Briefly Pelliter told of Blake's visit, the fight, and of the finding
of Little Mystery.

"I'd have died if it hadn't been for her, Billy," he finished. "She
brought me back to life. But I don't know who she is or where she came
from. There wasn't anything in his pockets or in the igloo to tell. I
buried him out there-- shallow-- so you could take a look when you
came back."

He snatched like a starving man for food at the letters MacVeigh
pulled from his pocket. While he read Billy sat down with Little
Mystery on his knees. She laughed and put her warm little hands up to
his rough face. Her eyes were blue, like Isobel's; and suddenly he
crushed his face close down against her soft curls and held her so
close to him that for a moment she was frightened. A little later
Pelliter looked up. His eyes shone, his thin face was radiant with
joy.

"God bless the sweetest little girl in the world, Billy!" he
whispered, huskily. "She says she's lonely for me. She tells me to
hurry-- hurry down there to her. She says that if I don't come soon
she'll come up to me! Read 'em, Billy!"

He looked in astonishment at the change which he saw in MacVeigh's
face. Billy accepted the letters mechanically and placed them on the
edge of the bunk near which he was sitting.

"I'll read them-- after a while," he said, slowly.

Little Mystery clambered from his knee and ran to Pelliter. Billy was
staring straight into the other's face.

"You're sure you've told me everything, Pelly? There wasn't anything
in his pockets? You searched well?"

"Yes. There was nothing."

"But-- you were sick--"

"That's why I buried him shallow," interrupted Pelliter. "He's close
to the last cross, just under the ice and snow. I wanted you to look--
for yourself."

Billy rose to his feet. He took Little Mystery in his arms again and
looked closely in her face. There was a strange look in his eyes. She
laughed at him, but he did not seem to notice it. And then he held her
out to Pelliter.

"Pelly, did you ever-- ever notice eyes-- very closely?" he asked.
"Blue eyes?"

Pelliter stared at him amazed.

"My Jeanne has blue eyes--"

"And have they little brown dots in them like a wood violet?"

"No-o-o--"

"They're blue, just blue, ain't they?"

"Yes."

"And I suppose most all blue eyes are just blue, without the little
brown spots. Wouldn't you think so?"

"What in Heaven's name are you driving at?" demanded Pelliter.

"I just wanted you to notice that her eyes have little brown spots in
them," replied Billy. "I've only seen one other pair of eyes-- just
like hers." He turned toward the door. "I'm going out to care for the
dogs and dig up Blake," he added. "I can't rest until I've seen him."

Pelliter placed Little Mystery on her feet.

"I'll see to the dogs," he said. "But I don't want to look at Blake
again."

The two men went out, and while Pelliter led the dogs to a lean-to
behind the cabin Billy began to work with an ax and spade at the spot
his comrade had pointed out to him. Ten minutes later he came to
Blake. An excitement which he had tried to hide from Pelliter overcame
his sense of horror as he dragged out the stiff and frozen corpse of
the man. It was a terrible picture that the dead man made, with his
coarse bearded face turned up to the sky and his teeth still snarling
as they had snarled on the day he died. Billy knew most men who had
come into the north above Churchill, but he had never looked upon
Blake before. It was probable that the dead man had told a part of the
truth, and that he was a sailor left on the upper coast by some
whaler. He shivered as he began going through his pockets. Each moment
added to his disappointment. He found a few things-- a knife, two
keys, several coins, a fire-flint, and other articles-- but there was
no letter or writing of any kind, and that was what he had hoped to
find. There was nothing that might solve the mystery of the miracle
that had descended upon them. He rolled the dead man into the grave,
covered him over, and went into the cabin.

Pelliter was in his usual place-- on his hands and knees, with Little
Mystery astride his back. He paused in a mad race across the cabin
floor and looked up with inquiring eyes. The little girl held up her
arms, and MacVeigh tossed her half-way to the ceiling and then hugged
her golden head close up to his chilled face. Pelliter jumped to his
feet; his face grew serious as Billy looked at him over the child's
tousled curls.

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