<SPAN name="startofbook"></SPAN>
<h1>The Purple Flame</h1>
<p class="tbcenter"><b><i>By</i>
<br/><span class="large">ROY J. SNELL</span></b></p>
<h2 id="c1"><br/>CHAPTER I <br/>THE MYSTERY OF THE OLD DREDGE</h2>
<p>Marian Norton started, took one step backward,
then stood staring. Startled by this sudden
action, the spotted reindeer behind her
lunged backward to blunder into the brown
one that followed him, and this one was in
turn thrown against a white one that followed
the two. This set all three of them into
such a general mix-up that it was a full minute
before the girl could get them quieted and
could again allow her eyes to seek the object
of her alarm.</p>
<p>As she stood there her pulse quickened, her
cheeks flushed and she felt an all but irresistible
desire to turn and flee. Yet she held her
ground. Had she seen a flash of purple flame?
She had thought so. It had appeared to shoot
out from the side of the dark bulk that lay
just before her.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_8">[8]</div>
<p>“Might have been my nerves,” she told herself.
“Perhaps my eyes are seeing things.
T’wouldn’t be strange. I came a long way
to-day.”</p>
<p>She <i>had</i> come a long way over the Arctic
tundra that day. Starting but two mornings
before from her reindeer herd, close to a hundred
miles from Nome, Alaska, she had covered
fully two-thirds of that distance in two
days.</p>
<p>Her way had lead over low hills, across
streams whose waters ran clear and cold toward
the sea, down broad stretches of tundra
whose soft mosses had oozed moisture at her
every step. Here a young widgeon duck, ready
to begin his southward flight—for this was
the Arctic’s autumn time—had stretched his
long neck to stare at her. Here a mother
white fox had yap-yaped at her, insolently and
unafraid. Here she had paused to pick a handful
of pink salmon berries or to admire a
particularly brilliant array of wild flowers,
which, but for her passing, might have been
“Born to blush unseen and waste their fragrance
on the desert air.” Yet always with the
three reindeers at her heels, she had pressed
onward toward Nome, the port and metropolis
of all that vast north country.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_9">[9]</div>
<p>The black bulk that loomed out of the darkness
before her was a deserted dredging scow,
grounded on a sand bar of the Sinrock River.
At least she had thought the scow deserted.
Until now she had believed and hoped that
here she might spend the night, completing her
journey on the morrow.</p>
<p>“But now,” she breathed. “Yes! Yes!
There can be no mistake. There it is again.”</p>
<p>Sinking wearily down upon the damp grass,
she buried her face in her hands. She was so
tired she could cry, yet she must “mush” on
through the dark, over the soft, oozing tundra,
for fifteen more weary miles. Fifteen miles
further down the river was the Sinrock Mission.
Here she might hope to find a corral for
her deer, and food and rest for herself.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_10">[10]</div>
<p>Marian did not cry. Born and bred in the
Arctic, she was made of such stern stuff as the
Arctic wilderness and the Arctic blizzard alone
can mould.</p>
<p>She did not mean to take chances with the
occupants of the old dredge. There was something
mysterious and uncanny about that purple
flame which she now saw shoot straight out, a
full two feet, to instantly disappear. She had
seen nothing like it before in the Arctic. As
she studied the outlines of the dredge, she realized
that the light was within it; that it
flashed across a small square window in the
side of the old scow.</p>
<p>“No,” she reasoned, “I can’t afford to take
chances with them. I must go on down the
river. I can make Sinrock.”</p>
<p>Speaking to her reindeer, she tugged at their
lead straps. One at a time they started forward
until at last they again took up the weary
swish-swish across the tundra.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_11">[11]</div>
<p>Once Marian turned to look back. Again
she caught the flash of a purple flame.</p>
<p>Had she known how this purple flame was
to be mixed up with her own destiny, she
might have paused to look longer. As it was,
she gave herself over to wondering what sort
of people would take up their habitation in
that half tumbled-down dredge, and what their
weird light might signify.</p>
<p>She had heard of the strange rites performed
by those interesting child-people, the
Eskimos, in the worship of the spirits of dead
animals. For one of these, the “Bladder Festival,”
they saved all the bladders of polar bears,
walrus and seals which they had killed, and at
last, after four days of ceremony, committed
them again to the waters of the ocean.</p>
<p>“They burn wild parsnip stalks in that festival,”
Marian mused, “but that purple flame
was not made by burning weeds. It was the brilliant
flame of a blue-hot furnace flaring up, or
something like that. Probably wasn’t Eskimo
at all. Probably—well, it may be some Orientals
who have stolen away up here to worship
their idols by burning strange fires.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_12">[12]</div>
<p>She thought of all the foreign people who
had crossed the Pacific to take up their homes
in the far north city of Nome, which was just
forty miles away.</p>
<p>“Japanese, Chinese, Koreans, Russians, and
members of nameless tribes,” she whispered to
herself, as if half afraid they might hear her.
“Might be any of these. Might—”</p>
<p>Suddenly she broke off her thinking and
stopped short. Just before her a form loomed
out of the dark. Another and yet another
appeared.</p>
<p>For a moment she stood there rigid, scarcely
breathing. Then she threw back her head and
laughed.</p>
<p>“Reindeer,” she exclaimed. “I was frightened
by some reindeer. Oh, well,” she said,
after a moment’s reflection, “I might excuse
myself for that. I’m tired out with marching
over this soggy tundra. Besides, I guess that
purple flame got on my nerves. All the same,”
she avowed stoutly, “I’ll solve that mystery
yet. See if I don’t.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_13">[13]</div>
<p>There for the time the subject was dismissed.
The presence of these few reindeer before her
told of more not far away, a whole herd of
them. Where there were reindeer there would
be herders, and herders lived in tents. Here
there would be a warm, dry place to rest and
sleep.</p>
<p>“Must be the Sinrock herd,” she concluded.</p>
<p>In this she was right. Soon, off in the distance,
she caught the yellow glow of candlelight
shining through a tent wall. Fifteen
minutes later she was seated upon a rolled-up
sleeping bag, chatting gayly with two black-eyed
Eskimo girls who were keeping their
brothers’ tents while those worthies were out
looking for some stray fauns.</p>
<p>After her three reindeers had been relieved
of their packs and set free to graze, Marian
had dined on hardtack and juicy reindeer chops.
Then she crawled deep down into her soft reindeer
skin sleeping bag, to snatch a few hours
of rest before resuming her journey to Nome.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_14">[14]</div>
<p>Before her eyelids closed in sleep her tireless
brain went over the problem before her and
the purpose of her fatiguing journey. She had
come all this way to meet a relative whom she
had never seen—a cousin, Patsy Martin, from
Louisville, Kentucky.</p>
<p>“Kentucky,” she whispered the word for the
hundredth time. “Way down south. Imagine
a girl who was brought up down there coming
here for a winter to endure our cold, snow,
and blizzards. She’s probably slim, willowy,
and tender as a baby; dresses in thin silks, and
all that. Why did father send her up here?
Looks like it was bad enough to have four
hundred reindeer to herd, without having a
sixteen year old cousin from Ken-tuck-ie to
look after.”</p>
<p>She yawned sleepily, yet her mind went on
thinking of her reindeer herd and her problems.
Though she had lived all but one year
of her life in the far north, she had never,
until two months before, spent a single night
in a reindeer herder’s camp. But it was no
longer a novel experience.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_15">[15]</div>
<p>Until recently her father had been a prosperous
merchant in Nome. Financial reverses
had come and he had been obliged to sell his
store. The reindeer herd, which he had taken
as payment for a debt, was the only wealth
he had saved from the crash. Following this,
his doctor had ordered him to leave the rigorous
climate of the North and to seek renewed
health in the States. Much as he regretted it,
he had been obliged to ask his daughter to
give up her studies and to take charge of the
herd until a favorable opportunity came for
selling it.</p>
<p>“And that won’t be soon, I guess,” Marian
sighed. “Reindeer herds are a drug on the
market. Trouble is, it’s too hard to dispose of
the meat. And if you can’t sell reindeer meat
you can’t make any money. Now, added to
this, comes this cousin, Patsy Martin.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_16">[16]</div>
<p>Her father had written that Patsy was given
to over-study, and that Mr. Martin, her uncle,
thinking that a year in the northern wilds
would do her good, had asked permission to
send her up to be with Marian. Marian’s
father had consented, and Patsy was due on
the next boat.</p>
<p>“She’ll be company for you,” her father had
written.</p>
<p>“I do wonder if she will?” Marian sighed
again. “Oh, well, no use to be a pessimist,”
and at that she turned over and fell asleep.</p>
<p>It was a surprised Marian who three days
later found herself caught in the firm embrace
of her cousin, Patsy. Patsy was two years
younger than Marian. There could be no missing
the fact that she was much slimmer and
more graceful, and that there was strength in
her slender arms was testified to by her warm
embrace.</p>
<p>When at last Marian got a look at Patsy’s
face, she found it almost as brown as her own.
And as for freckles, there could scarcely have
been a greater number on one person’s face.
Her mouth, too, had lines that Marian liked.
It was a firm, determined little mouth that
said: “When I have a hill to climb I <i>run</i> up it.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_17">[17]</div>
<p>Never had Marian beheld such a wealth of
color as was displayed in Patsy’s winter wardrobe.
Orange and red sweaters; great, broad
scarfs of mixed grays; gay tams; short plaid
skirts; heavy brown corduroy knickers; these
and many other garments of exquisite workmanship
and design were spread out before her.</p>
<p>“And the fun of it all is,” giggled Patsy,
“we’re going to play we’re twins and wear
one another’s clothes. You’ve got a spotted
fawnskin parka, I know you have. I’m going
to wear that, right away—this afternoon.
Going to have my picture taken in it and send
it back to my school friends.”</p>
<p>“All right,” agreed Marian. “You can have
anything I own. I’m heavier than you are, but
arctic clothing doesn’t fit very tight, so I guess
it will be all right.”</p>
<p>As if to clinch the bargain, she wound an
orange colored scarf about her neck and went
strutting across the room.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_18">[18]</div>
<p>A half hour later, while Patsy was out having
her picture taken, Marian walked slowly up
and down the room. She was thinking, and
her thoughts were long, long thoughts.</p>
<p>“I like her,” she said at last. “I’m going
to like her more and more. But it’s going to be
hard for her sometimes, fearfully hard. When
the blizzards sweep in from the north and we’re
all shut in; when no one comes and no one goes,
and the nights are twenty hours long; when the
dogs howl their lonesome song—it’s going to
be hard for her then. But I’ll do the best I
can for her. Her father was right—it will
do her a world of good. It will teach her the
slow and steady patience of those who live in
the North, and that’s a good thing to know.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_19">[19]</div>
<p>Three weeks later the two girls, toiling
wearily along after two reindeer sleds, approached
the black bulk of the old scow in the
river, the one in which Marian had seen the
mysterious purple flame. Again it was night.
They were on their way north to the reindeer
herd. Traveling over the first soft snow of
winter, they had made twenty miles that day.
For the last hour Patsy had not uttered a single
word. She had tramped doggedly after the
sled. Only her drooping shoulders told how
weary she was. Marian had hoped against hope
that they would this time find the old dredge
deserted.</p>
<p>“It would make a nice dry place to camp,”
she said to herself, as she brought her reindeer
to a halt and stood studying the dark bulk.
Patsy dropped wearily down upon a loaded sled.</p>
<p>Just as Marian was about to give the word
to go forward, there flashed across the square
window a jet of purple flame.</p>
<p>“Oh!” exclaimed Marian.</p>
<p>“What is it?” asked Patsy.</p>
<p>“The purple flame!”</p>
<p>“The purple flame? What’s that?”</p>
<p>“You know as much as I do; only I know
it’s there in that old dredge. And since it’s
there, we can’t stop here for the night. We
must go on.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_20">[20]</div>
<p>“Oh, but—but I can’t!” Patsy half sobbed.
“You don’t know, you can’t know how tired I
am.”</p>
<p>“Yes, I know,” said Marian softly. “I’ve
been just that way; but we dare not stop here.
The people in the old scow might have dogs and
they would attack our reindeer. We must go on;
five miles more.”</p>
<p>“And then—”</p>
<p>“Camp beneath the stars.”</p>
<p>“All right,” said Patsy, with a burst of
determination. “Let’s get it over quick.”</p>
<p>Again they moved slowly forward, but neither
of them forgot the purple flame. Three times
they saw it flash across the window.</p>
<p>“That place must be haunted,” Marian sighed
as she turned to give her full attention to the
lagging reindeer.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_21">[21]</div>
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