CHAPTER XII
For a few minutes after the wolf-man and his hunters had gone from thecorral Philip did not move from the window. He almost forgot that thegirl was standing behind him. At no time since Pierre Breault hadrevealed the golden snare had the situation been more of an enigma tohim than now. Was Bram Johnson actually mad--or was he playing acolossal sham? The question had unleashed itself in his brain with asuddenness that had startled him. Out of the past a voice came to himdistinctly, and it said, "A madman never forgets!" It was the voice ofa great alienist, a good friend of his, with whom he had discussed thesanity of a man whose crime had shocked the country. He knew that thewords were true. Once possessed by an idea the madman will not forgetit. It becomes an obsession with him--a part of his existence. In hiswarped brain a suspicion never dies. A fear will smolder everlastingly.A hatred lives steadily on.
If Bram Johnson was mad would he play the game as he was playing itnow! He had almost killed Philip for possession of the food, that thegirl might have the last crumb of it. Now, without a sign of themadman's caution, he had left it all within his reach again. A dozentimes the flaming suspicion in his eyes had been replaced by a calm andstupid indifference. Was the suspicion real and the stupidity a cleverdissimulation? And if dissimulation--why?
He was positive now that Bram had not harmed the girl in the way he haddreaded. Physical desire had played no part in the wolf-man'spossession of her. Celie had made him understand that;--and yet inBram's eyes he had caught a look now and then that was like the dumbworship of a beast. Only once had that look been anythingdifferent--and that was when Celie had given him a tress of her hair.Even the suspicion roused in him then was gone now, for if passion anddesire were smoldering in the wolf-man's breast he would not havebrought a possible rival to the cabin, nor would he have left themalone together.
His mind worked swiftly as he stared unseeing out into the corral. Hewould no longer play the part of a pawn. Thus far Bram had held thewhip hand. Now he would take it from him no matter what mysteriousprotestation the girl might make! The wolf-man had given him a dozenopportunities to deliver the blow that would make him a prisoner. Hewould not miss the next.
He faced Celie with the gleam of this determination in his eyes. Shehad been watching him intently and he believed that she had guessed apart of his thoughts. His first business was to take advantage ofBrain's absence to search the cabin. He tried to make Celie understandwhat his intentions were as he began.
"You may have done this yourself," he told her. "No doubt you have.There probably isn't a corner you haven't looked into. But I have ahunch I may find something you missed--something interesting."
She followed him closely. He began at each wall and went over itcarefully, looking for possible hiding places. Then he examined thefloor for a loose sapling. At the end of half an hour his discoveriesamounted to nothing. He gave an exclamation of satisfaction when underan old blanket in a dusty corner he found a Colt army revolver. But itwas empty, and he found no cartridges. At last there was nothing leftto search but the wolf-man's bunk. At the bottom of this he found whatgave him his first real thrill--three of the silken snares made fromCelie Armin's hair.
"We won't touch them," he said after a moment, replacing the bear skinthat had covered them. "It's good etiquette up here not to disturbanother man's cache and that's Bram's. I can't imagine any one but amadman doing that. And yet--"
He looked suddenly at Celie.
"Do you suppose he was afraid of YOU?" he asked her. "Is that why hedoesn't leave even the butcher-knife in this shack? Was he afraid youmight shoot him in his sleep if he left the temptation in your way?"
A commotion among the wolves drew him to the window. Two of the beastswere fighting. While his back was turned Celie entered her room andreturned a moment or two later with a handful of loose bits of paper.The pack held Philip's attention. He wondered what chance he would havein an encounter with the beasts which Bram had left behind as a guard.Even if he killed Bram or made him a prisoner he would still have thathorde of murderous brutes to deal with. If he could in some way inducethe wolf-man to bring his rifle into the cabin the matter would beeasy. With Bram out of the way he could shoot the wolves one by onefrom the window. Without a weapon their situation would be hopeless.The pack--with the exception of one huge, gaunt beast directly underthe window--had swung around the end of the cabin out of his vision.The remaining wolf in spite of the excitement of battle was gnawinghungrily at a bone. Philip could hear the savage grind of its powerfuljaws, and all at once the thought of how they might work out theirsalvation flashed upon him. They could starve the wolves! It would takea week, perhaps ten days, but with Bram out of the way and the packhelplessly imprisoned within the corral it could be done. His firstimpulse now was to impress on Celie the necessity of taking physicalaction against Bram.
The sound of his own name turned him from the window with a suddenthrill.
If the last few minutes had inspired an eagerness for action in his ownmind he saw at a glance that something equally exciting had possessedCelie Armin. Spread out on the table were the bits of paper she hadbrought from her room, and, pointing to them, she again called him byname. That she was laboring under a new and unusual emotion impressedhim immediately. He could see that she was fighting to restrain animpulse to pour out in words what would have been meaningless to him,and that she was telling him the bits of paper were to take the placeof voice. For one swift moment as he advanced to the table the papersmeant less to him than the fact that she had twice spoken his name. Hersoft lips seemed to whisper it again as she pointed, and the look inher eyes and the poise of her body recalled to him vividly the pictureof her as he had first seen her in the cabin. He looked at the bits ofpaper. There were fifteen or twenty pieces, and on each was sketched apicture.
He heard a low catch in Celie's breath as he bent over them, and hisown pulse quickened. A glance was sufficient to show him that with thepictures Celie was trying to tell him what he wanted to know. They toldher own story--who she was, why she was at Bram Johnson's cabin, andhow she had come. This, at least, was the first thought that impressedhim. He observed then that the bits of paper were soiled and worn asthough they had been handled a great deal. He made no effort torestrain the exclamation that followed this discovery.
"You drew these pictures for Bram," he scanning them more carefully."That settles one thing. Bram doesn't know much more about you than, Ido. Ships, and dogs, and men--and fighting--a lot of fighting--and--"
His eyes stopped at one of the pictures and his heart gave a suddenexcited thump. He picked up the bit of paper which had evidently beenpart of a small sack. Slowly he turned to the girl and met her eyes.She was trembling in her eagerness for him to understand.
"That is YOU," he said, tapping the central figure in the sketch, andnodding at her. "You--with your hair down, and fighting a bunch of menwho look as though they were about to beat your brains out with clubs!Now--what in God's name does it mean? And here's a ship up in thecorner. That evidently came first. You landed from that ship, didn'tyou? From the ship--the ship--the ship--"
"Skunnert!" she cried softly, touching the ship with her finger."Skunnert--Sibirien!"
"Schooner-Siberia," translated Philip. "It sounds mightily like that,Celie. Look here--" He opened his pocket atlas again at the map of theworld. "Where did you start from, and where did you come ashore? If wecan get at the beginning of the thing--"
She had bent her head over the crook of his arm, so that in her eagerscrutiny of the map his lips for a moment or two touched the velvetysoftness of her hair. Again he felt the exquisite thrill of her touch,the throb of her body against him, the desire to take her in his armsand hold her there. And then she drew back a little, and her finger wasonce more tracing out its story on the map. The ship had started fromthe mouth of the Lena River, in Siberia, and had followed the coast tothe blue space that marked the ocean above Alaska. And there the littlefinger paused, and with a hopeless gesture Celie in
timated that was allshe knew. From somewhere out of that blue patch the ship had touchedthe American shore. One after another she took up from the table thepieces of paper that carried on the picture-story from that point. Itwas, of course, a broken and disjointed story. But as it progressedevery drop of blood in Philip's body was stirred by the thrill andmystery of it. Celie Armin had traveled from Denmark through Russia tothe Lena River in Siberia, and from there a ship had brought her to thecoast of North America. There had been a lot of fighting, thesignificance of which he could only guess at; and now, at the end, thegirl drew for Philip another sketch in which a giant and a horde ofbeasts appeared. It was a picture of Bram and his wolves, and at lastPhilip understood why she did not want him to harm the wolf-man. Bramhad saved her from the fate which the pictures only partly portrayedfor him. He had brought her far south to his hidden stronghold, and forsome reason which the pictures failed to disclose was keeping her aprisoner there.
Beyond these things Celie Armin was still a mystery.
Why had she gone to Siberia? What had brought her to the barren Arcticcoast of America? Who were the mysterious enemies from whom Bram themadman had saved her? And who--who--
He looked again at one of the pictures which he had partly crumpled inhis hand. On it were sketched two people. One was a figure with herhair streaming down--Celie herself. The other was a man. The girl hadpictured herself close in the embrace of this man's arms. Her own armsencircled the man's neck. From the picture Philip had looked at Celie,and the look he had seen in her eyes and face filled his heart with aleaden chill. It was more than hope that had flared up in his breastsince he had entered Bram Johnson's cabin. And now that hope wentsuddenly out, and with its extinguishment he was oppressed by a deepand gloomy foreboding.
He went slowly to the window and looked out.
The next moment Celie was startled by the sudden sharp cry that burstfrom his lips. Swiftly she ran to his side. He had dropped the paper.His hands were gripping the edge of the sill, and he was staring likeone who could not believe his own eyes.
"Good God--look! Look at that!"
They had heard no sound outside the cabin during the last few minutes.Yet under their eyes, stretched out in the soiled and trampled snow,lay the wolf that a short time before had been gnawing a bone. Theanimal was stark dead. Not a muscle of its body moved. Its lips weredrawn back, its jaws agape, and under the head was a growing smear ofblood. It was not these things--not the fact but the INSTRUMENT ofdeath that held Philip's eyes. The huge wolf had been completelytransfixed by a spear.
Instantly Philip recognized it--the long, slender, javelin-like narwhalharpoon used by only one people in the world, the murderous littleblack-visaged Kogmollocks of Coronation Gulf and Wollaston Land.
He sprang suddenly back from the window, dragging Celie with him.
The Golden Snare Page 12
