Triple Spies | Page 9

man, and at once he began to half hate and half admire him. He had lost sight of him immediately, and had not discovered him again. Whether the Russian had left town before the native band did, Johnny could not tell. But, if he had moved on, where did he go?
The other shock was similar in character. The woman who had bought furs for the North had also been in Khabarask. Whether she was a Japanese Johnny was not prepared to say, and that in spite of the fact that he had studied her carefully for five days. She might be a Chukche who, through some strange impulse, had been led south to seek culture and education. He doubted that. She might be an Eskimo from Alaska making her way north to cross Behring Strait in the spring. He doubted that also. Finally she might be a Japanese woman, but in that case, what could be the explanation of her presence here, some two hundred miles north of the last vestige of civilization?
Now, not ten feet from the spot where Johnny lay in an igloo assigned for her private use by the natives, that identical girl slept at this moment. Only four hours before, Johnny had bade her good night, after an enjoyable repast of tea, reindeer meat and hard bread prepared by her own hand over a small wood fire. It was she who was his fellow passenger, whose igloo he had erected, close to his own. Yes, there was mystery enough about the whole situation to keep any fellow awake; yet Johnny hated himself for not sleeping. He felt that the time was coming when he would need stored strength.
He had half dosed off when a sound very close at hand, within the walls of canvas he thought, started him again into wakefulness. His arm ready and free for action, he lay still. His breathing well regulated and even, as in sleep, he watched through narrow slit eyes the deer skin curtain rise, and a head appear. The ugly shaved head of a Chukche it was; and in the intruder's hand was a knife.
The knife startled Johnny. He could not believe his eyes. He thought he was seeing double; yet he did not move.
Slowly, silently the arm of the native rose until it hung over Johnny's heart. In a second it would--
In that second something happened. There came a deadly thwack. The native, without a cry, fell backward beyond the curtain. His knife shot outward too, and stuck hilt downward in the snow.
Johnny drew himself slowly from beneath the furs. Lifting the deer skin curtain cautiously, he looked out. Then he chuckled a cold, dry chuckle. His knuckles were bloody, for the only weapon he had used was that truly American weapon, a clenched fist. Johnny, as I have suggested before, was somewhat handy with his "dukes." His left was a bit out of repair just now, but his right was quite all right, as the crumpled heap of a man testified.
Johnny bent over the man and twisted his head about. No, his neck was not broken. Johnny was thankful for that. He hated to see dead people even when they richly deserved to die.
Then he turned to the knife. He started again, as he extricated the hilt from the snow. But there was no time for examining it. His ear caught a stifled cry, a woman's cry. It came, without a doubt, from the igloo of his fellow traveler, the woman. Hastily thrusting his knife in his belt, he threw back the tentflap and crossed the intervening snowpatch in three strides.
He threw back the canvas just in time to seize a second native by the hood of his deer skin parka. He whirled the man completely about, tossed him high in the air, then struck him as he was coming down; struck him in the same place he had hit the other, only harder, very much harder. He did not examine him later for a broken neck, either.
Turning, Johnny saw the woman staring at him. Evidently she had slept in her furs. As she stood there now, she seemed quite equal to the task of caring for herself. There was a muscular sturdiness about her which Johnny had failed to notice before. In her hand gleamed a wicked looking dagger with a twisted blade.
But that she had been caught unawares, there could be no question, and from the kindly flash in her eyes Johnny read the fact that she was grateful for her deliverance.
He threw one glance at the other igloos. Standing there casting dark, purple shadows, they were strangely silent. Apparently these two murderers had been appointed to accomplish the task alone. The others were asleep. For this Johnny was thankful.
Turning to the woman he said