Lost Face | Page 7

with the toe of his moccasin, he touched the Cossack--a grisly
spectacle, no longer conscious--yet in whose dismembered body the
pain-racked life clung and was loth to go.
"Also, the medicine was weak. For at that place there were no berries
of a certain kind, of which I see you have plenty in this country. The
medicine here will be strong."
"I will let you go down river," said Makamuk; "and the sled and the
dogs and the six hunters to give you safety shall be yours."
"You are slow," was the cool rejoinder. "You have committed an
offence against my medicine in that you did not at once accept my
terms. Behold, I now demand more. I want one hundred beaver skins."
(Makamuk sneered.)
"I want one hundred pounds of dried fish." (Makamuk nodded, for fish
were plentiful and cheap.) "I want two sleds--one for me and one for
my furs and fish. And my rifle must be returned to me. If you do not
like the price, in a little while the price will grow."
Yakaga whispered to the chief.
"But how can I know your medicine is true medicine?" Makamuk
asked.
"It is very easy. First, I shall go into the woods--"

Again Yakaga whispered to Makamuk, who made a suspicious dissent.
"You can send twenty hunters with me," Subienkow went on. "You see,
I must get the berries and the roots with which to make the medicine.
Then, when you have brought the two sleds and loaded on them the fish
and the beaver skins and the rifle, and when you have told off the six
hunters who will go with me--then, when all is ready, I will rub the
medicine on my neck, so, and lay my neck there on that log. Then can
your strongest hunter take the axe and strike three times on my neck.
You yourself can strike the three times."
Makamuk stood with gaping mouth, drinking in this latest and most
wonderful magic of the fur-thieves.
"But first," the Pole added hastily, "between each blow I must put on
fresh medicine. The axe is heavy and sharp, and I want no mistakes."
"All that you have asked shall be yours," Makamuk cried in a rush of
acceptance. "Proceed to make your medicine."
Subienkow concealed his elation. He was playing a desperate game,
and there must be no slips. He spoke arrogantly.
"You have been slow. My medicine is offended. To make the offence
clean you must give me your daughter."
He pointed to the girl, an unwholesome creature, with a cast in one eye
and a bristling wolf-tooth. Makamuk was angry, but the Pole remained
imperturbable, rolling and lighting another cigarette.
"Make haste," he threatened. "If you are not quick, I shall demand yet
more."
In the silence that followed, the dreary northland scene faded before
him, and he saw once more his native land, and France, and, once, as he
glanced at the wolf-toothed girl, he remembered another girl, a singer
and a dancer, whom he had known when first as a youth he came to
Paris.

"What do you want with the girl?" Makamuk asked.
"To go down the river with me." Subienkow glanced over her critically.
"She will make a good wife, and it is an honour worthy of my medicine
to be married to your blood."
Again he remembered the singer and dancer and hummed aloud a song
she had taught him. He lived the old life over, but in a detached,
impersonal sort of way, looking at the memory-pictures of his own life
as if they were pictures in a book of anybody's life. The chief's voice,
abruptly breaking the silence, startled him
"It shall be done," said Makamuk. "The girl shall go down the river
with you. But be it understood that I myself strike the three blows with
the axe on your neck."
"But each time I shall put on the medicine," Subienkow answered, with
a show of ill-concealed anxiety.
"You shall put the medicine on between each blow. Here are the
hunters who shall see you do not escape. Go into the forest and gather
your medicine."
Makamuk had been convinced of the worth of the medicine by the
Pole's rapacity. Surely nothing less than the greatest of medicines could
enable a man in the shadow of death to stand up and drive an old-
woman's bargain.
"Besides," whispered Yakaga, when the Pole, with his guard, had
disappeared among the spruce trees, "when you have learned the
medicine you can easily destroy him."
"But how can I destroy him?" Makamuk argued. "His medicine will not
let me destroy him."
"There will be some part where he has not rubbed the medicine," was
Yakaga's reply. "We will destroy him through that part. It may be his