“More of that devil’s work, I suppose,” said the boy after some considerable thought. Then quickly, “I wonder if Bekothrie was at home.”
The girl sprang to her feet. The knowledge that her father and Roy were expected back that evening had entirely slipped from her mind. She stood rigidly erect, thinking desperately. What should she do? Perhaps the trader or her father had been injured by the explosion, perhaps both. She must go to the Fort to discover by their living presence that they were safe. Snatching her coat from where it hung, she drew it on without further delay or thought.
The boy watched her breathlessly, wide-eyed.
“I’m going to the Fort, dear,” she said gently but firmly. “Like a good, brave boy you will stay here. I shall not be long away.”
David caught his breath sharply, but smiled back manfully with a palpable effort to hide his fears.
Without pausing for further speech the girl stepped into the night, into the solitude and darkness, and with anxious heart passed swiftly along. Suddenly there broke forth upon the intense silence a loud, long-drawn howl. Kasba’s blood ran cold. Again that dismal howl. From its great resemblance to a dog’s she knew it for the voice of a wolf, and one suffering from hunger—its presence so near the Fort told her that—yet no thought of turning back beset her.
Awed and breathless she paused on the overhanging rocks at the back of the Fort, straining her eyes to distinguish between the conglomeration of buildings beneath her, which loomed up indistinctly; but there was just sufficient light from the stars to enable her to see that one of them was missing, that Roy’s dwelling had tumbled down. The space it had occupied was lumbered with a disorderly pile of logs. “Good heavens!” came from the girl’s lips—she was speaking distractedly.
So intent was she on trying to divine what had really happened that she shrieked aloud when something approached and touched her. It was Minnihak, Roy’s Eskimo guide. Perceiving who it was, Kasba clutched him excitedly by the arm and eagerly questioned him as to her father and Roy’s whereabouts. Failing to make him understand in Chipewyan she essayed in English, but only to meet with the like unsatisfactory result; the bewildered native shook his head, for he was conversant with neither language. The girl’s feelings on first perceiving the Eskimo were of surprised relief, but her fears were instantly goaded to the utmost the moment she found she was unable to make herself understood. The suspense was appalling. Conjecturing evils of the very worst type, the girl was moved by an irresistible impulse to approach and search the ruins. Neglecting all precautions, regardless of all peril to herself, she flew down the uneven track, with an instinct that was truly marvellous avoiding the boulders and holes. A few moments and she was beside the mass of logs.
An awful accident must have happened to bring about the ruinous condition of the trader’s dwelling.
“What should she do?” she again asked herself. “What could she do? Where was her father, where Roy?”