<h2 id="c4"><br/>CHAPTER IV <br/>THE RANGE ROBBER</h2>
<p>Just as Marian finished thinking these things
through, her reindeer gave a final leap which
brought him squarely upon the crest of the
highest ridge. From this point, so it seemed to
her, she could view the whole world.</p>
<p>As her eyes automatically sought the spot
where the four reindeer had first appeared, a
stifled cry escaped her lips. The valley at the
foot of that slope was a moving sea of brown
and white.</p>
<p>“The great herd!” she exclaimed. “Scarberry’s
herd!”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_47">[47]</div>
<p>The presence of this great herd at that spot
meant almost certain disaster to her own little
herd. Even if the herds were kept apart—which
seemed extremely unlikely—her pasture
would be ruined, and she had no other place to
go. If the herds did mix, it would take weeks
of patient toil to separate them—toil on the
part of all. Knowing Scarberry as she did, she
felt certain that little of the work would be done
by either his herders or himself. All up and
down the coast and far back into the interior,
Scarberry was known for the selfishness, the
brutality and injustice of his actions.</p>
<p>“Such men should not be allowed upon the
Alaskan range,” she hissed through tightly set
teeth. “But here he is. Alaska is young. It’s
a new and thrilling little world all of itself. He
who comes here must take his chance. Some
day, the dishonest men will be controlled or
driven out. For the present it’s a fight. And
we must fight. Girls though we are, we <i>must</i>
fight. And we will! We will!” she stamped the
snow savagely. “Bill Scarberry shall not have
our pasture without a struggle.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_48">[48]</div>
<p>Had she been a heroine in a modern novel of
the North, she would have leaped upon her
saddle-deer, put the spurs to his side, and gone
racing to the camp of the savage Bill Scarberry,
then and there to tell him exactly what her
rights were and to dare him to trespass against
them. Since, so far as we know, there are no
saddle-deer in Alaska, and no deer-saddles to be
purchased anywhere; and since Marian was an
ordinary American girl, with a good degree of
common sense and caution, and not a heroine
at all in the vulgar sense of the word, she stood
exactly where she was and proceeded to examine
the herd through her field glass.</p>
<p>If she had hoped against hope that this was
not Scarberry’s herd at all, but some other herd
that was passing to winter quarters, this hope
was soon dispelled. The four deer upon the
ridge, having strayed some distance from the
main herd, were now only a few hundred yards
away. She at once made out their markings.
Two notches, one circular and one triangular,
had been cut from the gristly portion of the
right ear of each deer. This brutal manner of
marking, so common a few years earlier, had
been kept up by Scarberry, who had as little
thought for the suffering of his deer as he had
for the rights of others. The deer owned by
the Government, and Marian’s own deer, were
marked by aluminum tags attached to their ears.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_49">[49]</div>
<p>“They’re Scarberry’s all right,” Marian concluded.
“It’s his herd, and he brought them
here. If they had strayed away by accident
and his herders had come after them, they
would be driving them back. Now they’re just
wandering along the edge of the herd, keeping
them together. There comes one of them after
the four strays. No good seeing him now. It
wouldn’t accomplish anything, and I might say
too much. I’ll wait and think.”</p>
<p>Turning her deer, for a time she drove along
the crest of the ridge.</p>
<p>“I shouldn’t wonder,” she said to herself,
“if he’s already taken up quarters in the old
miner’s cabin down there in the willows on the
bank of the Little Soquina River. Yes,” she
added, “there’s the smoke of his fire.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_50">[50]</div>
<p>“To think,” she stormed, enraged at the cool
complacency of the thing, “to think that any
man could be so mean. He has thousands of
deer, and a broad, rich range. He’s afraid the
range may be scant in the spring and his deer
become poor for the spring shipping market, so
he saves it by driving his herd over here for a
month or two, that it may eat all the moss we
have and leave us to make a perilous or even
fatal drive to distant pastures. That, or to see
our deer starve before our very eyes. It’s
unfair! It’s brutally inhuman!</p>
<p>“And yet,” she sighed a moment later, “I
suppose the men up here are not all to blame.
Seems like there is something about the cold and
darkness, the terrible lonesomeness of it all, that
makes men like wolves that prowl in the scrub
forests—fierce, bloodthirsty and savage. But
that will do for sentiment. Scarberry must not
have his way. He must not feed down our
pasture if there is a way to prevent it. And
I think there is! I’m almost sure. I must talk
to Patsy about it. It would mean something
rather hard for her, but she’s a brave little soul,
God bless her!”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_51">[51]</div>
<p>Then she spoke to her reindeer and went
racing away down the slope toward the camp.</p>
<p>It was a strange looking camp that awaited
Marian’s coming. Two dome shaped affairs of
canvas were all but hidden in a clump of willows,
surrounded by deer sleds and a small canvas tent
for supplies—surely a strange camp for Alaskan
reindeer herders.</p>
<p>But how comfortable were those dome shaped
igloos! Marian had learned to make them during
that eventful journey with the reindeer
Chukches in Siberia.</p>
<p>Winter skins of reindeer are cheap, very
cheap in Alaska. Being light, portable and
warm, Marian had used many of them in the
construction of this winter camp. Her heart
warmed with the prospect of perfect comfort,
and drawing the harness from her reindeer, she
turned it loose to graze. Then she parted the
flap to the igloo which she and Patsy shared.</p>
<p>Something of the suppressed excitement which
came to her from the discovery of the rival herd
must still have shown in her face, for as Patsy
turned from her work of preparing a meal to
look at Marian she noticed the look on her face
and exclaimed:</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_52">[52]</div>
<p>“Oh! Did you see it, too?”</p>
<p>“I’m not sure that I know what you mean,”
said Marian, puzzled by her question. Where
had Patsy been? Surely the herd could not be
seen from the camp, and she had not said she
was going far from it; in fact, she had been
left to watch camp.</p>
<p>“I’ve seen enough,” continued Marian, “to
make me dreadfully angry. Something’s got to
be done about it. Right away, too. As soon
as we have a bite to eat we’ll talk it over.”</p>
<p>“I knew you’d feel that way about it,” said
Patsy. “I think it’s a shame that they should
hang about this way.”</p>
<p>“See here, Patsy,” exclaimed Marian, seizing
her by the shoulder and turning her about,
“what are we—what are <i>you</i> talking about?”</p>
<p>“Why, I—you—” Patsy stammered, mystified,
“you just come out here and I’ll show
you.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_53">[53]</div>
<p>Dragging her cousin out of the igloo and
around the end of the willows, she pointed
toward a hillcrest.</p>
<p>There, atop the hill, stood a newly erected tent,
and at that very moment its interior was lighted
by a strange purple light.</p>
<p>“The purple flame!” exclaimed Marian.
“More trouble. Or is it all one? Is it Bill
Scarberry who lights that mysterious flame?
Does he think that by doing that he can frighten
us from our range?”</p>
<p>“Bill Scarberry?” questioned Patsy, “who
is he, and what has he to do with it?”</p>
<p>“Come on into the igloo and I’ll tell you,”
said Marian, shivering as a gust of wind swept
down from the hill.</p>
<p>As they turned to go back Patsy said:</p>
<p>“Terogloona came in a few minutes ago. He
said to tell you that another deer was gone.
This time it is a spotted two-year-old.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_54">[54]</div>
<p>“That makes seven that have disappeared in
the last six weeks. If that keeps up we won’t
need to sell our herd; it will vanish like snow
in the spring. It can’t be wolves. They leave
the bones behind. You can always tell when
they’re about. I wonder if those strange people
of the purple flame are living off our deer? I’ve
a good mind to go right up there and accuse
them of it. But no, I can’t now; there are other
more important things before us.”</p>
<p>“What could be more important?” asked
Patsy in astonishment.</p>
<p>“Wait, I’ll tell you,” said Marian, as she
parted the flap of the igloo and disappeared
within.</p>
<p>A half hour later they were munching biscuits
and drinking steaming coffee. Marian had said
not a single word about the problems and adventures
that lay just before them. Patsy asked no
questions. She knew that the great moment of
confiding came when they were snugly tucked
in beneath blankets and deerskins in the strangest
little sleeping room in all the world. Knowing
this, she was content to wait until night
for Marian to tell her all about this important
matter.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_55">[55]</div>
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