The Silver Horde. Rex Beach
circled toward the shore, the driver standing erect upon the heels of the runners, guiding his team with wide-flung gestures and sharp cries, the rush of air fluttering the many squirrel-tails of his parka like fairy streamers.
As they dashed past, both white men had one fleeting glimpse of a woman's face beneath a furred hood, and then it was gone. For a moment they stood and stared after the fast-dwindling team, while the breath of the Arctic sea stiffened their garments and froze their boot-soles to the ice.
"Did you see?" Fraser ejaculated. "Good Lord, it's a woman! A blonde woman!"
Emerson stirred himself. "Nonsense! She must be a breed," said he.
"Breeds don't have yellow hair!" declared the other.
Swiftly they bent in the free dogs and lashed the team to a run. They felt the chill of death in their bones, and instead of riding they ran with the sled till their blood beat painfully. Their outer coverings were like shells, their underclothes were soaked, and although their going was difficult and clumsy, they dared not stop, for this is the extremest peril of the North.
Ten minutes later they swung over the river-bank and into the midst of great rambling frame buildings, seen dimly through the falling snow. Their trail led them to a high-banked cabin, from the stovepipe of which they saw heat-waves pouring. The dogs broke into cry, and were answered by many others conjured from their hiding-places. Both men were greatly distressed by now, and could handle themselves only with difficulty. Another mile would have meant disaster.
"Rout out the owner and tell him we're wet," said Emerson; "I'll free the dogs."
As Fraser disappeared, the young man ran forward to slip the harness from his animals, but found it frozen into their fur, the knots and buckles transformed into unmanageable lumps of ice, so he wrenched the camp axe from the sled and cut the thongs, then hacked loose the stiff sled-lashings, seized the sodden sleeping-bags, and made for the house. A traveller's first concern is for his dogs, then for his bedding.
Before he could reach the cabin the door opened and Fraser appeared, a strange, dazed look on his face. He was followed by a large man of coarse and sullen countenance, who paused on the threshold.
"Don't bother with the rest of the stuff," Emerson chattered.
"It's no use," Fraser replied; "we can't go in."
The former paused, forgetting the cold in his amazement.
"What's wrong? Somebody sick?"
"I don't know what's the matter. This man just says 'nix,' that's all."
The fellow, evidently a watchman, nodded his head, and growled, "Yaas!
Ay got no room."
"But you don't understand," said Emerson. "We're wet. We broke through the ice. Never mind the room, we'll get along somehow." He advanced with the tight-rolled sleeping-bags under his arm, but the man stood immovable, blocking the entrance.
"You can't come in har! You find anoder house t'ree mile furder."
The traveller, however, paid no heed to these words, but pushed forward, shifting the bundle to his shoulder and holding it so that it was thrust into the Swede's face. Involuntarily the watchman drew back, whereupon the unwelcome visitor crowded past, jostling his inhospitable host roughly, laughing the while, although in his laughter there rang a dangerous metallic note. Emerson's quick action gained him entrance and Fraser followed behind into the living-room, where a flat-nosed squaw withdrew before them. The young man flung down his burden, and addressed her peremptorily.
"Punch up that fire, and get us something to eat, quick!" Turning to the owner of the house, who lumbered in after them, he disregarded the fellow's scowl, and said:
"Why, you've got lots of room, old man! We'll pay our way. Now get some more firewood, will you? I'm chilled to the bone. That's a good fellow." His forceful heartiness forbade dispute, and the man obeyed, sourly.
The two new-comers stripped off their outer clothing, and in a trice the small room became littered and hung with steaming garments. They took possession of the house, and ordered the Swede and his squaw about with firm good nature, until the couple slunk into an inner room and began to talk in low tones.
Fraser had been watching the fellow, and now remarked to his companion:
"Say, what ails that ginney?"
The assumption of good-nature fell away from Boyd Emerson as he replied:
"I never knew anybody to refuse shelter to freezing men before. There's something back of this—he's got some reason for his refusal. I don't want any trouble, but—"
The inner door opened, and the watchman reappeared. Evidently his sluggish resolution had finally set itself.
"You can't stop har!" he said. "Ay got orders."
Emerson was at the fire, busy rubbing the cramps from his arms, and did not answer. When Fraser likewise ignored the Swede, he repeated his command, louder this time.
"Get out of may house, quick!"
Both men kept their backs turned and continued to ignore him, at which the fellow advanced heavily, and threatened them in a big, raucous voice, trembling with rage:
"By Yingo, Ay trow you out!"
He stooped and gathered up the garments nearest him, then stepped toward the outer door; but before he could make good his threat, Emerson whirled like a cat, his deep-set eyes dark with sudden fury, and seized his host by the nape of the neck. He jerked him back so roughly that the wet clothes flapped to the floor in four directions, whereat the Scandinavian let forth a bellow; but Emerson struck him heavily on the jaw with his open hand, then hurled him backward into the room so violently that he reeled, and his legs colliding with a bench, he fell against the wall. Before he could recover, his assailant stepped in between his wide-flung hands and throttled him, beating his head violently against the logs. The fellow undertook to grapple with him, at which Emerson wrenched himself free, and, stepping back, spoke in a quivering voice which Fraser had never heard before:
"I'm just playing with you now—I don't want to hurt you."
"Get out of my house! Ay got orders!" cried the watchman wildly, and made for him again. It was evident that the man was not lacking in stupid courage, but Emerson, driven to it, stepped aside, and swung heavily. The squaw in the doorway screamed, and the Swede fell full length. Again Boyd was upon him, the restraint of the past long weeks now unbridled, his temper unchecked. He dragged his victim through the store-room, grinding his face into the floor at every effort to rise. He forced him to his own door-sill, jerked the door open, and kicked him out into the snow; then barred the entrance, and returned to the warmth of the logs, his face convulsed and his lips working.
"Fingerless" Fraser gazed at him queerly, as if at some utterly strange phenomenon, then drawled, with a sly chuckle:
"Well, well, you're bloody gentle, I must say. I didn't think it was in you."
When the other vouchsafed no answer, he took his pipe from a pocket of his steaming mackinaw, and filled it from a tobacco-box on the window-sill; then, leaning back in his chair, he propped his feet up on the table and sighed luxuriously, as he murmured:
"These scenes of violence just upset me something dreadful!"
CHAPTER II
IN WHICH THEY BREAK BREAD WITH A LONELY WOMAN
It was perhaps two hours later that Fraser went to the window for the twentieth time, and, breathing against the pane, cleared a peep-hole, announcing:
"He's gone!"
Emerson, absorbed in a book, made no answer. After his encounter with the householder