Triple Spies | Page 9

During those three days he had made two startling
discoveries; the short Russian of the broad shoulders and sharp chin, he
of the envelope of diamonds, was in Khabarask. Johnny had seen him
in an eating place, and had had an opportunity to study him without
being observed. The man, he concluded, although a total stranger in
these parts, was a person of consequence, a leader of some sort,
accustomed to being obeyed. There seemed a brutal certainty about the
way he ordered the servants of the place to do his bidding. There was a
constant wrinkle of a frown between his eyes. A man, perhaps without
a sense of humor, he would force every issue to the utmost. Once given
an idea, he would override all obstacles to carry it through, not stopping
at death, or at many deaths. This had been Johnny's mental analysis of
the character of the 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