Panther Eye. Roy J. Snell
been working on the second mine of the seven. The pay dirt they had struck was not as rich as they hoped to find, but it would repay the labor of sluicing. It was growing richer each hour. They hoped in time to uncover the mother-lode. This would pay for panning and yield a rich reward.
It was placer mining. Beside the mine entrance stood a steam thawer, a coal-heated boiler such as is used for driving a sawmill or grist-mill engine. From this a wire-wound hose extended into the interior of the mine. The mine was fifteen feet underground, but even here the earth was frozen solid. Attached to the hose was a sharp pointed iron pipe. This pipe was perforated in hundreds of places. When it was driven into the earth and the steam turned on, it thawed the flinty soil and rendered it pliable to the pick and shovel.
“Yes,” Johnny heaved a sigh of satisfaction, “yes, sometime, perhaps in two or three months, we will send by reliable reindeer carriers our first gift of gold to the orphans of Russia.”
He made his way up the hill to the point where he had found the phonographic record, for he was curious to know the lay of the land above that point. He wanted to know where this strange person had been hiding when he set the disk rolling.
“It’s strange, mighty strange,” he whispered, as he looked up at the cliffs which towered skyward some three hundred yards above the spot where he stood.
Then suddenly he stopped short. Had he seen a dark shadow flit from one little ridge to another? The surface of the hill was very uneven. He could not tell.
At first he was inclined to turn back. But he had started for the rocky cliff and he was not given to turning back. He went on.
As he moved forward, his thoughts were again of that strange fellow who had made the record on the disk.
“Couldn’t be a native” he murmured. “No native has a voice like that. If it’s a strange white man, why doesn’t he join us? Perhaps—” He stopped short in his tracks. “Perhaps it’s one of our own number. Perhaps it’s Pant. He’s queer enough to do or be anything.”
His mind hung on that last word—anything. Yes, he might not be a man at all. Might be a girl. Why always that hood drawn tight? Why the goggles? And, being a girl, she might be more than an adventuress. Possibly she was a radical, a Russian spy, who had joined his crew to thwart his purposes. Who could tell?
“Humph!” he shook himself free from these reflections. “Lot of chance of all that being true. There’s witchery in this moonlight. And yet, stranger things have happened. Whatever you say, Pant’s a devil. Who else could see in the dark?”
He was standing almost directly beneath the rocky cliff. Suddenly with the quickness of thought, a small brown figure sprang at him. Then another and another.
Right at his face sprang the first one. Not one nor two of these could be too quick for Johnny. Like a shot his right arm curved out. With a screaming shudder the man leaped in air and went crashing down the hill. The second, seized by his fragile squirrel-skin parka, tore himself away. The third landed upon Johnny’s back. Like an infuriated bucking bronco, Johnny went over on his back, crushing the wind out of the fellow on the hard packed snow. But the second man, dressed now in a garment of crimson hue, which he had worn under his parka, was upon Johnny’s chest. His arm was entwined in Johnny’s left in a jujutsu hold. His hand flashed to the white boy’s chin. With such a hold even a small man could do much. The man pinioned beneath, having regained his breath, added his strength to the other in holding his adversary flat to the snow. Johnny dug his left elbow into this one’s face, while his right arm turned beneath the arm of the man on his chest and reached a position of half-nelson behind the man’s head. He was now in a position to break this assailant’s neck. Bones snapped as he applied the terrific muscles of his right arm and the brown man’s muscles relaxed. Johnny’s head and arms were free. With the speed of a wild-cat, he sprang to his feet, faced about, then, with a bounding leap, cleared the remaining assailant and went tobogganing down the hill. He had seen five others of the brown villains approaching. He had had enough for this night—more than enough.
The snow was hard packed; the descent for many yards was steep, and Johnny gained a momentum in his downward plunge that threatened disaster. Now he careened over a low ridge to shoot downward over a succession of rolling terraces. Now he slid along the trough of a bank of snow. One thought was comforting; he was escaping from those strange brown men. Shots had rung out. Bullets whizzed past him, one fairly burning his cheek. It was with a distinct sense of relief that he at last bumped over a sheer drop of six feet to a gentler incline where he was quite out of their sight.
By digging in his heels, he brought himself to a stop. Hardly had he done this than he sprang up and raced back up the hill to the last rocky ridge over which he had glided. From the top of this he might be able to see the men without himself being seen.
As he thrust his toe into a crack and braced his elbows, he peered up the snowy slope to the cliffs above. All was bathed in a glorious moonlight, but not a creature stirred. He watched for fully five minutes with no result. When about to drop to the snow again, he thought he detected a movement to the left of where he had been looking. Fixing his eyes on that point, he watched. Yes, there it was; something was passing out from behind a rock. A gasp escaped his lips.
What appeared to be a gigantic golden coated cat had moved stealthily out upon the snow, and was gliding toward the upper cliffs.
“Whew!” Johnny wiped the cold perspiration from his brow. Still he stared.
The creature moved in a leisurely manner up the hill until it disappeared around the cliffs.
Johnny looked to the right and down the hill. The light of the clubroom was still burning. He beat a hasty retreat.
It was a surprised and startled group that looked him over as he appeared at the door, ragged, bruised and bloody. Eagerly they crowded about to hear his story.
When he had washed the blood from his face and drawn on clean shirt and trousers, he took a place by the open fire and told them—told them as only Johnny could.
“Well, what do you make of it?” He threw back his head and laughed a frank, boyish laugh, as he finished. “Some wild and woolly adventure, eh? Who were those little men? And what does it all mean?”
“Means the natives are getting superstitious about our effect on the spirits of their dead whales and are planning to treat us rough,” suggested Dave.
“Natives!” exploded Jarvis, “Them ain’t any natural ’eathen. Them’s ’eathen frum further down the sea. I ’ates to think what a ’ard lot they is. Dave and me’s seen a ’eap further north than this. ’E’s got spies everywhere, this ’eathen ’as.”
“Struck me a little that way too,” smiled Johnny. “That fellow I tore the clothes off was wearing silk undergarments. Show me the Chukche who wears any at all, let alone silk.”
“Sure!” exclaimed Jarvis.
“But if they’re around here, why don’t we see them?” objected one of the miners.
“The big cat’s ’ere. Johnny saw ’im,” scoffed Jarvis. “You ’aven’t seen ’im, ’ave you? All that’s about ain’t seen. Not by a ’ouse full.”
“What about the big cat?” exclaimed Johnny. “I thought I was seeing things.”
“E’s a Roosian tiger,” stated Jarvis. “I’ve seen the likes of ’im fur north of here.”
“To-morrow,” said Johnny, “we’ll take a day off for hunting. Big, yellow cats and little yellow men are not good neighbors unless they’ve agreed in advance to behave. Move we turn in. All in favor, go to bed.”
A moment later the clubroom was deserted.
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