by Kirk Munroe
CHAPTER XXV.
LOST IN A BLIZZARD.
So numbed was our poor lad by the shock of his discovery that, for afew moments, he stood motionless. Of course it would be of no use tocontinue his hopeless struggle. Even if he had come in the rightdirection he must ere this have passed the place where his companionswere encamped. If he could only regain the timber there might be aslight chance of surviving the night; but even its location was lost tohim, and a certain death stared him in the face. At any rate it wouldbe a painless ending, for he had only to lie down to be quickly coveredby a soft blanket of snow. Then he could go to sleep never again towaken. He was very weary, and already so drowsy that the thought ofsleep was pleasant to him. Such a death would certainly not be soterrible as drowning after a hopeless struggle with black waters.
With this thought every incident of that awful night after the loss ofthe "Lavinia" flashed into his mind. How utterly hopeless had seemedhis situation then and how desperately he had fought for his life. Buthe had fought, and had won the fight. What was the use of learning alesson of that kind if he could not profit by it? Was not his life aswell worth fighting for now as then? Of course it was; nor was hispresent position any more hopeless than that one had been. Then he haddrifted with the wind, and now he would do the same thing. If he couldhold out long enough he would fetch up somewhere sometime. It wasmerely a question of endurance. Even in that howling wilderness, withdeath on all sides, there were still three chances for life. The driftwith the wind might take him to the igloo that Yim must have built erethis. How bright, and warm, and cosey its lamplighted interior wouldbe. How glad they would be to see him, and how he would laugh at allhis recent fears. But of course there was not one chance in a millionof his finding the igloo. It was not at all unlikely, though, that thedrift might take him to a belt of timber, into which the bitter windcould not penetrate; and where he could crawl under the thick,low-hanging branches of some tent-like spruce. Even such a shelter nowseemed very desirable, and would be accepted with thankfulness. If hefailed to reach timber, the wind might blow him to some region ofcliffs and rocks that would shelter him from its cutting blasts. If hemissed all these chances, and if worse came to worst, he could alwaysgo to sleep beneath the snow blanket, and it would be better to do thatwith the consciousness of having made a good fight than to yield nowlike a coward.
All these thoughts flashed through Cabot's mind within the space of aminute, and, having determined to fight until the battle was either wonor lost, he flung away his now useless burden of firewood and startedoff down the wind. Tramping through that newly fallen snow, even withthe support of racquets, was exhausting work, but the effort at leastkept him warm, and, before he came to the end of his strength, somehours later, he had covered a number of miles. He had also come to theleast promising of the three places he had hoped for, and found himselfin a region of cliffs, precipices, and huge rocks, among which he couldno longer make headway, even though he had not reached the limit ofendurance.
But he had reached that limit, and now only sought a spot in which hemight lie down and go to sleep. Of course the snow would quickly coverhim, and doubtless he would be buried deep ere the fury of the stormwas past. But he had a vague plan for putting his snowshoes over hishead like an inverted V, and hoped in that way to be kept fromsmothering. At the same time he had little thought that he should eversee the light of another day.
"Only a bit further and then I can rest," he muttered, as he pushedinto the blackness of a rift between two tall cliffs, and experienced apartial relief from the furious wind. It seemed as though he ought topenetrate this as far as possible, and so he struggled weakly forward.Then he stumbled over something that lay across his path and fellheavily. As he lay wondering whether an attempt to regain his feetwould be worth while, he seemed to hear the distant but strenuousringing of an electric bell, and almost smiled at the absurdity of sucha fancy in such a place. The thought carried him back to theelectrical laboratory of the Institute, and he began to dream that hewas still a student of ohms, volts, and amperes.
In another moment his consciousness would have been wholly merged indreams, but suddenly the place where he lay was filled with a blaze oflight that apparently streamed from the solid rock on either side. Sointense was this light that it penetrated even Cabot's closed eyes, andaroused him from the stupor into which he had fallen. He lifted hishead, and, still bewildered, wondered why the laboratory was sobrilliantly illuminated.
Then, through the glare, he saw the driving snow-flakes with theirdancing shadows magnified a hundred fold, and, all at once, heremembered. Staggering to his feet, and groping with outstretchedarms, he pushed forward along the narrow pathway outlined by themysterious light. He no longer heard the sound of bells, but in itsplace came strains of music that blended weirdly with the shriekingwind, and irresistibly compelled him forward. The pathway slopeddownward and then took a sharp turn. As Cabot passed this the lightbehind him was extinguished as suddenly as it had appeared, the wildmusic sounded louder than ever, and directly in front of him gleamedtwo squares of light like windows. Between them was a dark space,towards which he instinctively stumbled. It proved to be as he hadhoped, a door massive and without any means of unclosing that his blindfumblings could discover. So he beat against it feebly and uttered ahoarse cry for help. In another moment it was opened, and Cabot,leaning heavily against it, fell into a room, small, warm, and brightlylighted.
For a few minutes he lay with closed eyes, barely conscious that hisstruggle for life had been successful, and that in some mysteriousmanner he had gained a place of safety. Gradually he became aware thatsome one was bending over him, and opening his eyes he gazed full intoa face that he instantly recognised, though it had sadly changed sincehe last saw it. At that time it had expressed strength in every line,but now it was haggard and worn by suffering.
"The Man-wolf!" gasped Cabot, in a voice hardly above a whisper.
A slight smile flitted across the man's face, and then, withoutwarning, he sank to the floor in a dead faint. His mighty strength hadbeen turned to the weakness of water, and the iron will had at lengthrelaxed its hold upon the enfeebled body. As the man-wolf fell, astream of blood trickled from his mouth, and he choked for breath asthough strangling.
There is nothing so effective in restoring spent strength as a demandupon it from one who is weaker, and at sight of the big man'shelplessness Cabot was instantly nerved to renewed effort. He sat up,cut loose his snowshoes, closed the open door, and rid himself of hissnow-laden outer garments. Then, by a supreme effort, he managed todrag the unconscious man to a bed that was piled with robes and leanhim against it. His eyes had already lighted on a jug of water, andfetching this he bathed the sufferer's face, washed the blood from hismouth, and finally had the satisfaction of seeing his eyes unclose.Then he helped him on to the bed, and though during the operation theman's face expressed the most intense pain, he uttered no sound. Butthe movement was accompanied by another hemorrhage, so severe that itseemed to our distressed lad as though the man must surely bleed todeath before it was checked. When it finally ceased the exhaustedsufferer dropped asleep, and, for the first time since entering thatplace of mysteries, Cabot found an opportunity for looking about him.
Although the room was small it was comfortably furnished with a table,chairs--one of which was a rocker--a lounge, and the bed on which theman-wolf lay. There were no windows nor doors except those in front.The ceiling was of heavy canvas tightly stretched, while the walls werehung with the skins of fur-bearing animals, and the floor was coveredwith rugs of the same material. At first Cabot paid no attention tothese details, for his eyes were fixed upon the most astonishing thinghe had seen in all Labrador. It was a lamp that, depending from theceiling, gave to the room an illumination as brilliant as daylight.
"Electric, as I live!" gasped the young engineer. "A regularincandescent, and those lights out on the trail must have been thesame. That wa
s an electric bell too. I know it now, though I couldn'tbelieve my ears at the time. The light he scared the Indians with musthave been an electric flash, worked by a storage battery. But it isall so incredible! I wonder if I am really awake or still dreaming?"
To assure himself on this point Cabot went to the light, and, as he didso, came upon another surprise greater than any that had preceded it.He had wondered at the comfortable temperature of the room, for therewas nowhere a fire to be seen, and the blizzard still howled outsidewith unabated fury. Now, on drawing near to the lamp, he found himselfalso approaching some heretofore unobserved source of heat, which hediscovered to be a drum of sheet iron. It stood by itself, unconnectedwith any chimney, and apparently had no receptacle for any form offuel, solid, liquid, or gaseous.
"A Balfour electric heater," murmured Cabot, in an awe-stricken tone,"and I didn't even know they had been perfected. I don't suppose thereare half-a-dozen in use in all the world, and yet here is one of themdoing its full duty up here in the Labrador wilderness, a thousandmiles from anywhere. It is fully equal to any tale of the ArabianNights, and Mr. Homolupus must, as the natives say, be either a god ora devil. I do wonder who he is, where he came from, what has happenedto him, where he gets his electricity, and a thousand other things. Iwish he would wake up, and I wish he could talk."
Cabot's curiosity concerning the weird music that had drawn him to thatplace had been partially satisfied by the discovery of a violin on thefloor beside the sick man's bed. Now, as he flung himself wearily downon the lounge for a bit of rest, he became conscious of the muffledb-r-r-r of a dynamo. That accounted in a measure for the electriclights, but still left our lad in a daze of wonder at the nature of hissurroundings.
