CHAPTER I

The sub-Arctic summer was at its height. The swelter of heat was of almost tropical intensity. No wisp of cloud marred the perfect purity of the steely blue sky, and no breath of wind relieved the intemperate scorch of the blazing sun.

The two men on the river bank gave no heed to the oppressive heat. For the moment they seemed concerned with nothing but their ease, and the swarming flies, and the voracious attacks of the mosquitoes from which the smoke of their camp fire did its best to protect them. Down below them, a few yards away, their walrus-hide kyak lay moored to the bank of the river, whose sluggish, oily-moving waters flowed gently northward towards the far-off fields of eternal ice. It was noon, and a rough midday meal had been prepared and disposed of. Now they were smoking away a leisurely hour before resuming their journey.

The younger of the two flung away the end of a cigarette with a movement that was almost violent in its impatience. He turned a pair of narrow black eyes upon his companion, and their sparkle of resentment shone fiercely in sharp contrast against the dusky skin of their setting.

“It’s no use blinding ourselves, sir,” he said, speaking rapidly in the tongue of the whiteman, with only the faintest suspicion of native halting. “It’s here. But we’ve missed it. And another’s found it.”

He was a youthful creature something short of the completion of his second decade. But that which he lacked in years he made up for in the alertness of purpose that looked out of his keen eyes. He was dark-skinned, its hue something between yellow and olive. He had prominent, broad cheek bones like those of all the natives of Canada’s extreme north. Yet his face differed from the general low type of the Eskimo. There was refinement in every detail of it. There was something that suggested a race quite foreign, but curiously akin.

“Marty Le Gros? Yes?”

The older man stirred. He had been lounging full length on the ground so that the smoke of the camp fire rolled heavily across him, and kept him safe from the torment of winged insects. Now he sat up like the other, and crossing his legs tucked his booted feet under him.

He was older than his companion by more than twenty years. But the likeness between them was profound. He, too, was dusky. He, too, had the broad, high cheek bones. He was of similar stature, short and broad. Then, too, his hair was black and cut short like the other’s, so short, indeed, that it bristled crisply over the crown of his bare head with the effect of a wire brush. He, too, was clad in the rough buckskin of the trail with no detail that could have distinguished him from the native. The only difference between the two was in age, and the colour of their eyes. The older man’s eyes were a sheer anachronism. They were a curious gleaming yellow, whose tawny depths shone with a subtle reflection of the brilliant sunshine.

“Tell me of it again, Sate,” he went on, knocking out the red clay pipe he had been smoking, and re-filling it from a beaded buckskin pouch.

But the youth was impatient, and the quick flash of his black eyes was full of scorn for the unruffled composure of the other.

“He’s beaten us, father,” he cried. “He has it. I have seen.” He spread out his hands in an expressive gesture. And they were lean, delicate hands that were almost womanish. “This priest-man with his say-so of religion. He search all the time. It is the only thing he think of. Gold! Well, he get it.”

He finished up with a laugh that only expressed fierce chagrin.

“And he get it here on this Loon Creek, that you make us waste three months’ search on, son?”

The father shook his head. And his eyes were cold, and the whole expression of his set features mask-like. The youth flung out his hands.

“I go down for trade to Fort Cupar. This missionary, Marty Le Gros, is there. He show this thing. Two great nuggets, clear yellow gold. Big? They must be one hundred ounces each. No. Much more. And he tell the story to McLeod, who drinks so much, that he find them on Loon Creek. I hear him tell. I listen all the time. They don’t know me. They think I am a fool Eskimo. I let them think. Well? Where is it on Loon Creek? We go up. We come down. There is no sign anywhere. No work. The man lies, for all his religion. Or we are the fools we do not think we are.”

Sate turned his searching eyes on the northern distance, where the broad stream merged itself into the purple of low, far-off hills.

It was a scene common enough to the lower lands of Canada’s extreme north. There was nothing of barren desolation. There were no great hills, no great primordial forests along the broad valley of Loon Creek. But it was a widespread park land of woodland bluffs of hardy conifers dotting a brilliant-hued carpet of myriads of Arctic flowers, and long sun-forced grasses, and lichens of every shade of green. It was Nature’s own secret flower garden, far out of the common human track, where, throughout the ages, she had spent her efforts in enriching the soil, till, under an almost tropical summer heat, it yielded a display of vivid colour such as could never have been matched in any wilderness under southern skies.

The older man observed him keenly.

“Sate, my son,” he said at last, “you are discontented. Why? This man has a secret. He has gold. Gold is the thing we look for. Not all the time, but between our trade which makes us rich, and our people rich. We are masters of the north country. It is ours by right of the thing we do. It must be ours. And all its secrets. This man’s secret. We must have it, too.”

The man spoke quietly. He spoke without a smile, without emotion. His tawny eyes were expressionless, for all the blaze of light the sun reflected in them.

“You are right to be discontented,” he went on, after the briefest pause. “But I look no longer on Loon Creek or any other creek. We get this secret from Marty Le Gros. I promise that.”

“How?”

The youth’s quick eyes were searching his father’s face. He had listened to the thing he had hoped to hear. And now he was stirred to a keen expectancy that was without impatience.

The other shrugged his powerful shoulders.

“He will tell it to us—himself.”

The black eyes of the youth abruptly shifted their gaze. Something in the curious eyes of his parent communicated the purpose lying behind his words. But it was insufficient to satisfy his headlong impulse.

“He? He tell his secret to—us?”

There was derision in the challenge.

“Yes. He will tell—when I ask him.”

“But it is far south and west. It is beyond—our territory. It is within the reach of the northern police. There is big risk for you to ask him the—question.”

Again the man with the yellow eyes shook his head.

“Your mother looked for you to be a girl. Maybe her wish had certain effect. Risk? There is no risk. I see none. It is simple. I bend this man to my will. If he will not bend I break him. Yes. He is white. That is as it should be. Someday—sometime the whites of this country will bend, or break before us. They know that. They fear that. The thing they do not yet know is that they bend now. This man, Le Gros, we will see to him without delay.”

He rose from his cross-legged position almost without an effort. He stood up erect, a short, broad-shouldered, virile specimen of manhood in his hard trail clothing. Then he moved swiftly down towards the light canoe at the water’s edge.

The youth, Sate, was slow to follow him. He watched the sturdy figure with unsmiling eyes. He resented the imputation upon his courage. He resented the taunt his father had flung. But his feelings carried nothing deeper than the natural resentment of a war-like, high-strung spirit.

He understood his father. He knew him for a creature of iron nerve, and a will that drove him without mercy. More than that he admitted the man’s right to say the thing he chose to his son. His attitude was one of curious filial submission whatever the hurt he suffered. He may have been inspired by affection, or it may simply have been an expression of the filial obedience and subservience native to the race from which he sprang. But the taunt hurt him sorely. And he jumped to a decision as violent as it was impulsive.

He leapt to his feet, slight, active as a panther, and hastily descended to the water’s edge and joined his parent.

“You think me like a woman, father? You think that?” he demanded hotly.

The other turned eyes that gained nothing of gentleness from their smile.

“No,” he said, and bent again to his work of hauling the little craft clear of the drift-wood that had accumulated about it.

The youth breathed a deep sigh. It was an expression of relief.

“We put that question to this Le Gros soon? Yes?” he asked.

“Yes.”

Sate nodded, and a great light shone in his black eyes. They were fierce with exultation.

“Then we must waste no time. The way is long. There are many miles to Fox Bluff.” He laughed. “Le Gros,” he went on. “It is a French name, and it means—Tcha!” he exclaimed with all the impetuous feeling which drove him like a whirlwind. “We show him what it means.”

The man with the tawny eyes looked up from his work. For one moment he gazed searchingly into the dark face of his son. Then he returned again to his work without a word.

CHAPTER II

“Man, I’d sooner they’d put out my eyes, or cut out my tongue. I’d sooner they’d set my body to everlasting torture. Look! Look there! Yes, and there! Oh, God! It’s everywhere the same.” A shaking hand was outthrust. “Dead! Mutilated! Old men! Old women! And poor little bits of life that had only just begun. The barbarity! The monstrousness!”

Marty Le Gros, the missionary of the Hekor River, spoke in a tone that was almost choking with grief. His eyes, so dark and wide, were full of the horror upon which they gazed. His Gallic temperament was stirred to its depths. The heart of the man was overflowing with pity and grief, and outraged parental affection.

Usak, the Indian, his servant, stood beside him. He offered no verbal comment. His only reply to the white-man was a low, fierce, inarticulate grunt, which was like the growl of some savage beast.

The men were standing at the entrance to a wide clearing. The great Hekor River flowed behind them, where the canoe they had just left swung to the stream, moored at the crude landing stage of native manufacture. They were gazing upon the setting of a little Eskimo encampment. It was one of the far flung Missions which claimed the spiritual service of Le Gros. He had only just arrived from his headquarters at Fox Bluff, on the river, near by to Fort Cupar the trading post, on his monthly visit, and the hideous destruction he had discovered left him completely staggered and helpless.

The devastation of the settlement was complete. Dotted about the clearing, grimly silhouetted against a background of dull green woods, stood the charred remains of a dozen and more log shanties. Broken and burnt timbers littered the open ground, and filled the room spaces where the roofs had fallen. Every habitation was burnt out stark. Not even the crude household goods had been spared.

But this was the least of the horror the two men gazed upon. The human aspect of the destruction was a thousand-fold more appalling. The ground was littered with mutilated dead. As the missionary had said, there were old men, old women, and babes torn from their mothers’ arms. Silent and still, death reigned everywhere. The young men? The young women? There was no sign of these. And therein lay a further horror which the onlookers were swift to appreciate.

The hideous fascination of the scene held them. But at last it was Usak who broke from under its spell.

“Euralians!” he cried fiercely. And again in his voice rang that note which sounded like the goaded fury of some creature of the forest.

The Euralians!

To the mind of every far northwestern man, in that territory which lies hundreds of miles beyond the efficient protection of the northern police, the name of this people was sufficient to set stirring a chill of unvoiced terror that was something superstitious. Who they were? It was almost impossible to say. It was still a problem in the minds of even the farthest travelled trail men and fur hunters. But they were known to all as a scourge of the far flung border which divides Alaska from the extreme north of Yukon Territory.

The threat they imposed on the region was constantly growing. It had grown lately from the marauding of mere seal ground and fur poachers, who came down out of the iron fastnesses beyond the Arctic fringes of Alaska, where they lived hidden in security beyond the reach of the strong arm of the United States law, into a murder scourge threatening all human life and property within reach of their ruthless operations.

Hitherto, Le Gros had only known them from the tales told by the native pelt hunters, the men who came down to trade at Fort Cupar. He knew no more and no less than the rest of the handful of white folks who peopled the region. The stories he had had to listen to, for all their corroborative nature, were, he knew, for the most part founded upon hearsay. He had listened to them. He always listened to these adventurers. But somehow his gentle, philosophic mind had left him missing something of the awe and dread which beset the hearts of the men whose lurid stories took vivid colour from the stirring emotions which inspired them.

But now, now he was wide awake to the reality of the terror he had so largely attributed to superstitious exaggeration. Now he knew that no story he had ever listened to could compare with the reality. He was gazing upon a scene of hideous murder and wanton, savage destruction that utterly beggared description.

His feelings were torn to shreds, and his heart cried out in agony of helpless pity.

These poor benighted folk, these simple, peaceful Eskimo, amiable, industrious, yearning only for the betterment he was able by his simple ministrations to bring into their lives. What were they to claim such barbarity from a savage horde? What had they? What had they done? Nothing. Simply nothing. They were fisher-folk who spent their lives in the hunt, asking only to be left in peace to work out the years of their desperately hard-lived lives. Now—now they were utterly wiped out, a pitiful sacrifice to the insensate lust of this mysterious scourge.

Le Gros thrust his cap from his broad forehead. It was a gesture of impotent despair.

“God in Heaven!” he cried, and the words seemed to be literally wrung from him.

“It no use to call Him.”

The Indian’s retort came on the instant. And his tone was harshly ironical.

“What I tell you plenty time,” he went on sharply. “The great God. He look down. He see this thing. He do nothing. No. It this way. Man do this. Yes. Man do this. Man must punish this dam Euralian. I know.”

The missionary turned from the slaughter ground. He searched the Indian’s broad, dusky face. It was a striking face, high-boned and full of the eagle keenness of the man’s Sioux Indian forbears. He was a creature of enormous stature, lean, spare and of tremendous muscle. For all he was civilized, for all he was educated, this devoted servant lacked nothing of the savage which belonged to his red-skinned ancestors.

Servant and master these two comrades in a common cause stood in sharp contrast. Usak was a savage and nothing could make him otherwise. Usak was a man of fierce, hot passions. The other, the whiteman, except for his great stature, was in direct antithesis. The missionary was moulded in the gentlest form. He was no priest. He represented no set denomination of religion. He was a simple man of compassionate heart who had devoted his life to the service of his less fortunate fellow creatures where such service might help them towards enlightenment and bodily and spiritual comfort.

He had been five years on his present mission at Fox Bluff. He had come there of his own choice supported by the staunch devotion of a young wife who was no less prepared to sacrifice herself. But now he stood almost alone, but not quite. For though death had swiftly robbed him of a wife’s devotion, it had left him with the priceless possession they had both so ardently yearned. The motherless Felice was at home now in the care of Pri-loo, the childless wife of Usak, who had gladly mothered the motherless babe.

Even as he gazed into the Indian’s furious eyes Le Gros’ mind had leaped back to his home at Fox Bluff. A sudden fear was clutching at his heart. Oh, he knew that Fox Bluff was far away to the east and south. He knew that the journey thither from the spot where they stood was a full seven days’ of hard paddling on the great river behind them. But Pri-loo and his infant child were alone in his home. They were utterly without protection except for the folk at the near-by Fort. And these Euralians, if they so desired, what was to stop them with the broad highway of the river which was open to all?

He shook his head endeavouring to stifle the fears that had suddenly beset him.

“You’re wrong, Usak,” he said quietly. “God sees all. He will punish—in his own good time.”

Usak’s fierce eyes snapped.

“You say that? Oh, yes. You say that all the time, boss,” he cried. “I tell you—no. You my good boss. You mak me man to know everything so as a whiteman knows. You show me all thing. You teach me. You mak me build big reindeer farm so I live good, an’ Pri-loo eat plenty all time. Oh yes. I read. I write. I mak figgers. You mak me do this thing. You, my good boss. I mak for you all the time. I big heart for you. That so. But no. I tell you—No! The great God not know this thing. He not know this Euralian wher’ he come from. No. Not no more as you he know this thing. But I know. I—Usak. I know ’em all, everything.”

At another time the missionary would have listened to the man’s quaint egoism with partly shocked amusement. His final statement, however, startled him out of every other feeling.

“You know the hiding-place of these—fiends?” he demanded sharply.

Usak nodded. A curious vanity was shining in the dark eyes which looked straight into the whiteman’s.

“I know him—yes,” he said.

“You’ve never told a thing of this before?”

There was doubt in the missionary’s tone, and in the regard of his brown eyes.

“I know him,” Usak returned shortly. Then, in a moment, he flung out his great hands in a vehement gesture. “I say I know him—an’ we go kill ’em all up.”

All doubt was swept from the missionary’s mind. He understood the passionate savagery underlying the Indian’s veneer of civilization. The man was in desperate earnest.

“No.” Le Gros’ denial came sharply. Then his gaze drifted back to the scene of destruction, and a deep sigh escaped him. “No,” he reiterated simply. “This is not for us. It is for the police. If you know the hiding-place of these—”

“No good, boss. No,” Usak cried, in fierce disappointment. “The p’lice? No. They so far.” He held up one hand with two fingers thrusting upwards. “One—two p’lice by Placer. An’ Placer many days far off. No good.” He shrugged his great shoulders. “Us mans all dead. Yes. Pri-loo all dead. Felice dead, too. All mans dead when p’lice come. I know. You not know. You good man. You not think this thing. Usak bad man Indian. He think this thing all time. Listen. I tell you, boss, my good boss. I say the thing in my mind. The thing I know.”