Part 6 (2/2)
”Come back here!” cried Connie. ”Don't be a fool! There ain't any _tamahnawuses_--and if there are, I've got the medicine that will lick 'em! I brought one in once that had run a whole tribe of Injuns off their hunting ground.”
'Merican Joe, who had halted at the boy's command, looked dubious. ”I ain' huntin' no _tamahnawus_--I ain' los' none!”
”You come with me,” laughed the boy, ”and I'll show you your _tamahnawus_. I've got a hunch that fellow has dropped into a cave or something and can't get out. And he can't be so very far off either.”
With Connie in the lead they ascended the slope in the direction of the sound which came now from a point upstream from where they had descended. Once more Leloo paused and sniffed, the hair of his back bristling. Whatever the object of his attention, it seemed to lie beneath the outspreading branches of a large spruce. Connie peered beneath the branches where an oblong of snow appeared to have been disturbed from under the surface. Even as he looked the sound of a voice, plain enough now to distinguish the words, reached his ears.
”Git me out of here! Ain't you never comin'? Or be you goin' to leave me here 'cause I burnt them pancakes?”
”Come on out,” called Connie. ”What's the matter with you?”
”Come on out! How kin I? Who be you?”
Connie reached the man's side and proceeded to sc.r.a.pe away the snow, while 'Merican Joe stood at a respectful distance, his rifle at full c.o.c.k. ”Come on Joe!” the boy called, at length. ”Here's your _tamahnawus_--and it's going to take two of us to get him out.”
When the snow had been removed both Connie and the Indian stared in surprise. There lay the man closely wrapped in his moose skin, fur side in, and the heavy hide frozen to the hardness of iron!
”I'm all cramped up,” wailed the man. ”I can't move.”
The man was wrapped, head and all, in the frozen hide. Fortunately, he had left an air s.p.a.ce but this had nearly sealed shut by the continued freezing of his breath about its edges.
Rolling him over the two grasped the edge of the heavy hide and endeavoured to unroll it, but they might as well have tried to unroll the iron sheathing of a boiler.
”We've got to build a fire and thaw him out,” said Connie.
”Tak' um to de cabin,” suggested the Indian. ”Kin drag um all same toboggan.”
The plan looked reasonable but they had no rope for a trace line. Connie overcame the difficulty by making a hole with his hand ax in a flap of the hide near the man's feet, and cutting a light spruce sapling which he hooked by means of a limb stub into the hole.
By using the sapling in the manner of a wagon tongue, they started for the cabin, keeping to the top of the ridge where the snow was shallow and wind-packed.
All went well until they reached the end of the ridge. A mile back, where they had ascended the slope, the pitch had not been great, but as they neared the river the sides grew steeper, until they were confronted by a three hundred foot slope with an extremely steep pitch. This slope was spa.r.s.ely timbered, and great rocks protruded from the snow. Connie was for retracing the ridge to a point where the ascent was not so steep, but 'Merican Joe demurred.
[Ill.u.s.tration: ”The third day dawned cold and clear, and daylight found the outfit on the move.”
Drawn by Frank E. Schoonover]
”It git dark queek, now. We git um down all right. Turn um roun' an'
mak de pole lak de tail rope on de toboggan--we hol' um back easy.” The early darkness was blurring distant outlines and the descent at that point meant the saving of an hour, so Connie agreed and for the first twenty yards all went well. Then suddenly the human toboggan struck the ice of a hillside spring and shot forward. The pole slipped from the snowy mittens of the two and, enveloped in a cloud of flying snow, the man in the frozen moose hide went shooting down the slope! Connie and 'Merican Joe barely saved themselves from following him, and, squatting low on their webs they watched in a fascination of horror as the flying body struck a tree trunk, shot sidewise, ploughed through the snow, struck a rock, bounded high into the air, struck another rock and, gaining momentum with every foot, shot diagonally downward--rolling, whirling, sliding--straight for the brink of a rock ledge with a sheer drop of twenty-five or thirty feet. Over the edge it shot and landed with a loud thud among the broken rock fragments of the valley floor.
”We ought to have gone back!” shuddered the boy. ”He's dead by this time.”
'Merican Joe shrugged. ”Anyhow, dat com' queek. Dat better as if he lay back onder de tree an' froze an' starve, an' git choke to deat' w'en his air hole git froze shut. He got good strong coffin anyhow.”
Relieved of their burden it was but the work of a few moments to gain the floor of the valley and hasten to the form wedged tightly between two upstanding boulders, where they were greeted by the voice of the man raised in whining complaint.
”Are you hurt?” eagerly asked Connie, kneeling at the man's side and looking at him closely.
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