<h2 id="c8"><br/>CHAPTER VIII <br/>TROUBLE FOR PATSY</h2>
<p>Hardly had Marian left camp when troubles
began to pile up for Patsy. Dawn had not yet
come when she heard a strange ki-yi-ing that
certainly did not come from the herd collies,
and she looked out and saw approaching the
most disreputable group of Eskimos she had
ever seen. Dressed in ragged parkas of rabbit
skins, and driving the gauntest, most vicious
looking pack of wolf dogs, these people appeared
to come from a new and more savage world
than hers. A rapid count told her there were
seven adults and five children.</p>
<p>“Enough of them to eat us out of everything,
even to skin boots and rawhide harness,” she
groaned. “If they are determined to camp
here, who’s to prevent them?”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_72">[72]</div>
<p>For a moment she stood there staring; then
with a sudden resolve that she must meet the
situation, she exclaimed:</p>
<p>“I must send them on. Some way, I must.
I can’t let them starve. They must have food,
but they must be sent on to some spot where
they have relatives who are able to feed them.
The safety of the herd depends upon that. With
food gone we cannot hold our herders. With no
herders we cannot hold the deer. Marian
explained that to me yesterday.”</p>
<p>Walking with all the dignity her sixteen years
would permit, she approached the spot where the
strangers had halted their dogs and were talking
to old Terogloona. The dogs were acting
strangely. Sawing at the strong rawhide bonds
that held them to the sleds, they reared up on
their haunches, ki-yi-ing for all they were worth.</p>
<p>“They smell our deer,” Patsy said to herself.
“It’s a good thing our herd is at the
upper end of the range!” She remembered
hearing Marian tell how a whole herd of five
thousand deer had been hopelessly stampeded
by the lusty ki-yi-ing of one wolf dog.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_73">[73]</div>
<p>“The reindeer is their natural food,” Marian
had explained. “If even one of them gets loose
when there is a reindeer about he will rush
straight at him and leap for his throat.”</p>
<p>“That’s one more reason why I must get
these people to move on at once,” Patsy whispered
to herself.</p>
<p>To Terogloona she said: “What do they
want?”</p>
<p>Terogloona turned to them with a simple:
“<i>Suna-go-pezuk-peet?</i>” he asked, “What do
you want?”</p>
<p>With many guttural expressions and much
waving of hands, the leader explained their
wishes.</p>
<p>“He say,” smiled Terogloona, “that in the
hills about here are many foxes, black fox,
red fox, white, blue and cross fox. He say,
that one, want to camp here; want to set traps;
want to catch foxes.”</p>
<p>“But what will they eat?” asked Patsy.</p>
<p>Terogloona, having interpreted the question,
smiled again at their answer:</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_74">[74]</div>
<p>“They will eat foxes,” he answered quietly
and modestly.</p>
<p>For a moment Patsy looked into their staring,
hungry, questioning eyes. They were lying,
and she knew it, but remembering a bit of advice
of her father’s: “Never quarrel with a
hungry person—feed him,” she smiled as she
said to Terogloona:</p>
<p>“You tell them that this morning they shall
eat breakfast with me; that we will have pancakes
and reindeer steak, and tea with plenty
of sugar in it.”</p>
<p>“<i>Capseta! Ali-ne-ca! Capseta!</i>” exclaimed
one of the strangers who had understood the
word sugar and was passing it on in the native
word, <i>Capseta</i>, to his companions.</p>
<p>It was a busy morning for Patsy. There
seemed no end to the appetites of these half
starved natives. Even Terogloona grumbled at
the amount they ate, but Patsy silenced him
with the words:</p>
<p>“First they must be fed, then we will talk
to them.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_75">[75]</div>
<p>Troubles seldom come singly. Hardly had
the last pancake been devoured, than Terogloona,
looking up from his labors, uttered an exclamation
of surprise. A half mile up from the camp
the tundra was brown with feeding reindeer.</p>
<p>“Scarberry’s herd,” he hissed.</p>
<p>“Oh!” exclaimed Patsy. “They dare to do
that? They dare to drive their deer on our
nearest and best pasture? And what can we do
to stop them? Must Marian’s mission be in
vain? Must she go all that way for nothing?
If they remain, the range will be stripped long
before she can return!”</p>
<p>Pressing her hands to her temples, she sat
down unsteadily upon one of the sleds of the
strangers.</p>
<p>She was struggling in a wild endeavor to
think of some way out. Then, of a sudden, a
wolfdog jumped up at her very feet and began
to ki-yi in a most distressing fashion.</p>
<p>Looking up, she saw that three of Scarberry’s
deer, having strayed nearer the camp than the
others, had attracted the dog’s attention. Like
a flash, a possible solution to her problem popped
into Patsy’s head.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_76">[76]</div>
<p>With a cry of delight she sprang to her feet.
The next instant she was her usual, calm self.</p>
<p>“Terogloona,” she said steadily, “come into
the tent for a moment. I have something I
wish to ask you.”</p>
<p class="tb">The task which Marian had set for herself,
the scaling of the mountain to the dark spot
in its side, was no easy one. Packed by the
beating blast of a thousand gales, the snow
was like white flint. It rang like steel to the
touch of her iron shod staff. It was impossible
to make an impression in its surface with the
soft heel of her deerskin boots. The only way
she could make progress was by the aid of
her staff. One slip of that staff, one false step,
and she would go gliding, faster, faster, ever
faster, to a terrible death far below.</p>
<p>Yet to falter now meant that death of another
sort waited her; death in the form of increasing
cold and gathering storm.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_77">[77]</div>
<p>Yet she made progress in spite of the cold
that numbed her hands and feet; in spite of
her wildly beating heart; regardless of the
terror that gripped her. Now she had covered
half the distance; now two-thirds; now she
could be scarcely a hundred yards away. And
now she saw clearly. She had not been mistaken.
That black spot in the wall of snow
was a yawning hole in the side of the mountain,
a refuge in the time of storm. Could she
but reach it, all would be well.</p>
<p>Could she do it? From her position the way
up appeared steeper. She thought of going
back for the reindeer. Their knife-like hoofs,
cutting into the flinty snow, would carry them
safely upward. She now regretted that she had
not driven one before her. Vain regret. To
descend now was more perilous than to go
forward.</p>
<p>So, gripping her staff firmly, pressing her
breast to still the wild beating of her heart, and
setting her eyes upon the goal lest they stray
to the depths below, she again began to climb.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_78">[78]</div>
<p>Now she began going first to right, then to
left. This zig-zag course, though longer, was
less steep. Up—up—up she struggled, until
at last, with an exultant cry of joy, she threw
herself over a broad parapet of snow and the
next instant found herself looking down at a
world which but the moment before had appeared
to be reaching up white menacing hands
at her. Then she turned to peer into the dark
depths of the cave. She shivered as she looked.
Her old fancies of fairies and goblins, of strange,
wild people inhabiting these mountains, came
sweeping back and quite unnerved her.</p>
<p>The next moment she was herself again, and
turning she called down to Attatak:</p>
<p>“Who-hoo! Who-hoo! Bring the reindeer
up. Here is shelter for the night.”</p>
<p>An inaudible answer came floating back to
her. Then she saw the reindeer turn about and
begin the long, zig-zag course that in time
would bring them to the mouth of the newly
discovered cave.</p>
<p>“And then,” Marian said softly to herself.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_79">[79]</div>
<p>She was no longer afraid of the dark shadows
behind her. In the place of fear had come a
great curiosity. The same questions which have
come to all people throughout all time upon discovering
a strange cave in the mountains, had
come to her. “Am I,” she asked herself, “the
first person whose footsteps have echoed in those
mysterious corridors of nature, or have there
been others? If there have been others, who
were they? What were they like? What did
they leave behind that will tell the story of their
visit here?”</p>
<p>Marian tried to shake herself free from these
questions. It was extremely unlikely that any
one, in all the hurrying centuries, had ever
passed this way. They were on the side of a
mountain. She had never known of a person
crossing the range before. So she reasoned, but
in the end found herself hoping that this cave
might yield to her adventure loving soul some
new and hitherto inexperienced thrill.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_80">[80]</div>
<p>In the meantime she heard the labored breathing
of the reindeer as they toiled up the mountainside.
They would soon be here. Then she
and Attatak would make camp, and safe from
the cold and storm, they would sleep in peace.</p>
<p>A great wave of thankfulness swept over her,
and with the fervent reverence of a child, she
lifted her eyes to the stars and uttered a prayer
of thanksgiving.</p>
<p>When the wave of emotion had passed, curiosity
again gripped her. She wished to enter
the cave, yet shrank from it. Like a child
afraid of the dark, she feared to go forward
alone. So, drawing her parka hood close
about her face to protect it from the cold, she
waited for Attatak’s arrival.</p>
<p>Even as she waited there crept into her mind
a disturbing question:</p>
<p>“I wonder,” she said aloud, “I do wonder
how Patsy is getting along with the herd?”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_81">[81]</div>
<div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />