by Roy J. Snell
CHAPTER XII THE GREAT BANSHEE
Next day they marched straight away over the white expanse. A fog,hanging low over the tundra, hid all but a narrow circle from view. Theytraveled by the compass and the ancient map Johnny had found in the cabinby the river. That it was a long chance the boy admitted to himself. Whatif the map were wrong? Few maps of this country are accurate.
"Can't turn back now," he told himself. "Have to take a chance. Take achance." As he repeated the words, to his surprise he found that he wasbeginning to hate them. All his life, so it seemed as he looked back uponit, he had been taking chances. And what had he gotten out of it?Precious little.
He thought of the cozy cottage the girl had described to him so often."That's the life," he told himself. "And yet they left it for this. Theytook a chance. And here they are." For the hundredth time he wonderedwhy.
The land became more rolling as they advanced. The tundra was leftbehind. This the boy took for a good sign. "Coming to the mountains," hetold himself. But were they?
As night fell the fog thickened. "Going to be dark as a dungeon," GordonDuncan mumbled. "Tough luck. No wood for a fire. No place to camp."
What he said was true. For the first time Johnny felt regret for thecourse they had taken. All about them was rolling ground. Snow blanketedall. Cropping out here and there were bunches of last year's grass, butthese poor wisps of wind-shrouded straw would provide neither fire norbed.
When darkness had fully come, they yielded to the inevitable. Havingscooped away the snow as best they could from a narrow patch of turf,they spread out their blankets, sat upon them while they ate a cold andcheerless supper; then with Tico in their midst, huddling together asbest they could, they prepared to defy the damp chill of a late winternight in the Arctic.
It must have been some time past midnight that Johnny, wakened by a lowgrowl from Tico, sat up to peer into the inky darkness and listen.
What he heard caused his blood to run cold. A faint chopping sounddrifted in from the dark. Now coming from the right, the left, beforehim, behind, it seemed all about him at once.
Putting out a hand, he shook the shoulder of Gordon Duncan.
"Listen! Wolves!" he said in a tone that was low and deep.
"What is it?" the girl asked, sitting up.
"Listen! Wolves!" Johnny repeated.
At once, above the chop-chop of the distant enemy, he heard the girl'steeth chatter.
"Get out the bows and arrows," said Gordon Duncan. "If only we had afire."
"If we only had!" the girl echoed.
"But we'll do for 'em!" the old man declared stoutly.
"Here! There! Stop him!" The girl sprang to her feet.
She was too late. Tico had leaped away into that darkness and fog.
A moment of suspense, then from out that shadow-land came sounds of aterrific encounter.
With a cry of dismay the girl leaped to her feet and would have gone tothe aid of her faithful friend. But Gordon Duncan pulled her back.
"No! No! child!" he exclaimed. "It won't do. We must stay together. It'sour only chance."
"There are many," he rumbled on. "More than I have ever known before.They do not as a rule travel in packs, these white phantoms of theArctic. They go about in families. But when caribou are passing they aresometimes thrown together in packs. This is the time when they are mostdangerous."
"Listen!" Faye caught her breath as the growl and howl of Tico wasblended with the yip-yip of wolves. "They'll kill him. What can we do?"She gripped Johnny's arm until it hurt.
Fortunately this question did not need answering. Fierce as the battle inthe dark was, it ended quite suddenly. A moment later the dog camelimping back. One shoulder was terribly torn. His strength was completelygone.
Torn and bloody as he was, the girl gathered him in her arms to wrap himin a blanket and lay him down beside her.
"Brave old boy!" she murmured.
For a half hour after that they sat there back to back waiting,listening, staring into the dark, but seeing nothing.
Then a sudden gust of wind sweeping in from the great unknown before themrolled the fog away, to leave them gasping at the size and ferociousappearance of the gray-white creatures that surrounded them, a grim,silent circle.
As if this were the sign for an advance, the wolves rose each in hisplace and began a slow advance.
"Now!" said Gordon Duncan. "When I give the word, shoot the one beforeyou, and for the good of all, don't miss. It may mean death."
Poised each on a knee, back to back, they set their bows and nocked theirarrows, then waited breathless for the old Scot's whispered command.
To Johnny it seemed that he caught the glint of a gray beast's eye beforethe whisper came:
"Now!"
Five seconds of suspense for steadied nerves, then Johnny's arrow sped.Before him a gray streak reared in air to fall sprawling and clawing atnothing. The arrow had gone clean through him, then glanced away over thesnow.
"What luck for her and for the old man?" he asked himself. There was notime for looking.
In this warfare there was no frightening din. The wolves who had escapedthe biting arrows came straight on. A particularly ferocious creaturecame stealing upon the boy. Now he was ten paces away, now five, nowthree. A spring and--
Again his bow twanged low. A second arrow found its mark.
But now, before he could turn, before he could as much as realize hisdanger, a gray streak launched itself upon him.
Down he went. Snapping teeth and tearing claws, and after that a shock.He was beneath a combat, not a part of it. One frenzied effort and he wasfree.
A glance told him much. The wolf had leaped upon him. Maimed as he was,Tico had come to his aid. The brave dog was down now, the wolf at histhroat.
Lacking better weapons, the boy seized the wolf by the throat and grippedhim hard. Trained as they were for every form of combat, the grip of theboy's hands was like steel.
The struggle that followed was a terrific one. Not daring to release hishold, yet fearing every instant that he would be frightfully torn by thebeast's claws, Johnny hung on like grim death.
Of a sudden the sight that appeared before him drove him to desperation.As the girl sprang back, a wolf leaped for her throat. They went downtogether.
Quite forgetting self he released his hold on the first wolf to seize theaxe that in the struggle had been thrown from their kit, and with asingle blow dispatched the beast that threatened Faye Duncan's life.
And through it all, like the ancient warrior he was, Gordon Duncanremained in his place calmly nocking arrows and sending them crashinginto the ribs of his enemies.
"There are more," Johnny panted, helping the girl to her feet.
"More," she panted, "More!"
But what was this? Just when the tide seemed set against them there camea strange roaring sound from the distance. This resembled more than anyother the call of a wild beast, a challenge to battle.
Pausing, the gray streaks appeared to listen. Then, one by one, they wenttrotting away into the night.
Hardly a moment had elapsed before there came a sharp yip of pain,another and yet another. A moment of silence, then the night was madehideous by the noise of battle.
"Wha--what can it be?" The girl's words came in stifled whispers.
"Can't tell," said Johnny.
"Get your bows and arrows," commanded Gordon Duncan. "They may be backupon us at any moment."
"And--and that other monstrous thing!" Faye Duncan's nerves wereshattered.
"Five out there." Gordon Duncan's voice was calm. He was pointing in thedirection his arrows had sped.
Johnny was feeling a little ashamed of his record when his eyes fell uponthe wolf that had attacked Tico. He was dead, strangled.
"Not so bad," he thought as he once more gripped his bow and sought outan arrow.
There was, as it turned out, no need for further worry. As they sat the
reshivering, gripping bows with hands benumbed with cold, they listened tothe distant tumult rise, then fade away into the night.
"All over," Johnny said at last, rising to ease his stiffened limbs.
"Who--what could it have been?" The girl gripped his hand hard as heassisted her to rise.
"That," said Johnny, "as far as I can tell was the great banshee."
"But look," he said suddenly. "Over there not a quarter of a mile away isa small forest."
What he had said was true. Had they marched but a quarter of a milefarther they might have slept warm by a roaring fire which would haveserved to keep the wolves away.
Needless to say, they were not long in packing up and moving to thisplace of greater safety and comfort.
A half hour later, seated before a fire that fairly blistered theircheeks, the boy and girl, conversing in awed whispers, discussed thestrange happenings of the night. In the meantime, rolled in his blankets,and quite as if nothing had happened, Gordon Duncan slept the sleep ofthe just.
"Heart, did you say?" Johnny nodded toward the sleeping one. "Did you sayhis heart was bad? Mine was in my throat all the time."
"So was mine. But he--he's different. He--he's a Bruce," the girlwhispered back. "His ancestry goes back to the famous Bruce of oldScotland."
