<h2 id="c10"><br/>CHAPTER X <br/>A STARTLING DISCOVERY</h2>
<p>To Attatak, whose mind was filled with the
weird tales of the spirit world, to enter a cave
away on this unknown mountain side was a far
greater trial than it was to Marian. Cold,
blizzards, the wild beasts of timberlands—these
she could face; but the possible dwelling place
of the spirits of dead polar bears and walruses,
to say nothing of old women who had died
because they had disregarded the incantations
of witch doctors, “Ugh!”—this was very bad
indeed.</p>
<p>Marian felt the native girl tremble as she
took her arm and led her gently forward into
the dark depths of the cave.</p>
<p>The entrance was not wide, perhaps twelve
feet across, but it was fully as high as it was
broad.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_88">[88]</div>
<p>“Our deer can come in, too,” whispered
Marian, “if it goes back far enough.”</p>
<p>“If there are no wolves,” said Attatak with
a shudder.</p>
<p>“Wolves?” Marian had not thought of that.
“You wait here,” she whispered. “I’ll go for
the rifle.”</p>
<p>“No! No!” Attatak gripped her arm until
it hurt. “I will go, too.”</p>
<p>So back out of the cave they felt their way,
now tripping over rocks that rolled away with
a hollow sound like distant thunder, now brushing
the wall, till they came at last to the open air.</p>
<p>Marian hated all this delay. Famished with
hunger, chilled to the very marrow, and weary
enough to drop, she longed for the warmth of
the fire she hoped they might light, for the food
they would warm over it, and the comforting
rest that would follow. Yet she realized that
the utmost caution must be taken. Wolves, once
driven from a cave, might stampede their reindeer
and lose them forever in the mountains.
Without reindeer they should have great trouble
in getting back to camp; the Agent would go
on his way ignorant of their dilemma; their
pasture land would be lost, and perhaps their
herd with it.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_89">[89]</div>
<p>The rifle securely gripped in the hands of
Attatak, who was the surer shot of the two,
they again started into the cave. Strange to
say, once the rifle was in her grasp, Attatak
became the bravest of the brave.</p>
<p>Marian carried a candle in one hand, and in
the other a block of safety matches. The candle
was not lighted. So drafty was the entrance
that no candle would stay lighted. Each step
she hoped would bring them to a place where
the draft would not extinguish her candle. But
in this she was disappointed.</p>
<p>“It’s a windy cavern,” she said. “Must be
an entrance at each end.”</p>
<p>Calling on Attatak to pause, Marian struck a
match. It flared up, then went out. A second
one did the same. The third lighted the candle.
There was just time for a hasty glance about.
Gloomy brown walls lay to right and left of
them, and the awful gloom of the cave was
most alarming.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_90">[90]</div>
<p>Glancing down at her feet, Marian uttered a
low exclamation of surprise. Then, with such a
definite and direct puff of wind as might come
from human lips, the candle was snuffed out.</p>
<p>“Wha—what was it?” Attatak whispered.
She was shaking so that Marian feared she
would let the rifle go clattering to the rocky floor.</p>
<p>“Nothing,” Marian answered. “Really nothing
at all. The ashes of a camp-fire, and I
thought—thought,” she gulped, “thought I saw
bones in the ashes!”</p>
<p>“Bones?” This time the rifle did clatter to
the floor.</p>
<p>“Attatak,” Marian scolded; “Attatak. This is
absurd!”</p>
<p>Groping in the dark for the rifle, she grasped
a handful of ashes, then something hard and
cold that was not the rifle.</p>
<p>“Ugh!” she groaned, struggling with all her
might to keep from running away.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_91">[91]</div>
<p>Again she tried for the rifle, this time successfully.
She gave it to Attatak, with the admonition:</p>
<p>“<i>Ca-ca!</i>” (Do take care!)</p>
<p>“<i>Eh-eh</i>,” Attatak whispered.</p>
<p>Stepping gingerly out of the ashes of the mysterious
camp-fire, they again started forward.</p>
<p>The current of air now became less and less
strong, and finally when Marian again tried the
candle it burned with a flickering blaze.</p>
<p>A glance about told them they were now
between narrow dark walls, that the ceiling was
very high, and there was nothing beneath their
feet but rock.</p>
<p>The yellow glow of light cheered them. If
there were wolves they had made no sound; the
gleam of their eyes had not been seen. If the
spirits of the men who had built that long extinguished
fire still haunted the place, the light
would drive them away. Attatak assured Marian
of that.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_92">[92]</div>
<p>With one candle securely set in a rocky recess,
and with another close at hand, Attatak was
even willing to remain in the cave while Marian
brought the reindeer in a little way and carried
the articles necessary for a meal to the back
of the cave.</p>
<p>“There is no moss on this barren mountain,”
Marian sighed. “Our reindeer must go hungry
to-night, but once we are off the mountain they
shall have a grand feast.”</p>
<p>By the time they had made a small fire on the
floor of the cave and had finished their supper,
night had closed in upon their mountain world.
Darkness came quickly, deepened tenfold by the
wild storm that appeared to redouble its fury at
every fresh blast. The darkness without vied
with the bleakness of the cave until both were
one. Such a storm as it was! Born and reared
on the coast of Alaska, Marian had never before
experienced anything that approached it in its
shrieking violence. She did not wonder now
that the mountains appeared to smoke with
sweeping snow. She shivered as she thought
what it would have meant had they not found
the cave.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_93">[93]</div>
<p>“Why,” she said to Attatak, “we should have
been caught up by the wind like two bits of snow
and hurled over the mountain peak.”</p>
<p>The two girls walked to the mouth of the
cave and for a moment stood peering into the
night. The whistle and howl of the wind was
deafening. “Whew—whoo—whoo—whe-w—w-o—,”
how it did howl! The very rock
ribbed mountain seemed to shake from the violence
of it.</p>
<p>“<i>Eleet-pon-a-muck</i>,” (too bad), said Attatak
as she turned her back to the storm.</p>
<p>For Marian, however, the spectacle held a
strange fascination. Had the thing been possible,
she should have liked nothing better than
leaping out into it. To battle with it; to answer
its roar with a wild scream of her own; to whirl
away with it; to become a part of it; to revel
in its madness—this, it seemed to her, would
be the height of ecstatic joy. Such was the call
of unbridled nature to her joyous, triumphant
youth.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_94">[94]</div>
<p>It was with reluctance that she at last turned
back into the depths of the cave and helped
Attatak unroll the bedding roll and prepare for
the night.</p>
<p>“To-morrow,” she whispered to Attatak before
she closed her eyes in sleep, “if the storm
has not passed, and we dare not venture out,
we will explore the cave.”</p>
<p>“<i>Eh-eh</i>,” Attatak answered drowsily.</p>
<p>The next moment the roaring storm had no
auditors. The girls were fast asleep.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_95">[95]</div>
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