“But I mean to find out what it is.”
Tom compressed his lips and looked very determined. He began examining the lock of his repeating rifle, and then moved toward the doorway.
“What! You are going out there?” demanded Jack.
“I surely am. I mean to satisfy myself just what it is, or who it is, that is making that ghostly noise.”
“But it can’t be human,” urged Jack. And then, recollecting some ghost stories he had read, he continued: “It might ber-ber-blast you, or something.”
“Rubbish! I’ll blast it, if I can get hold of it!” declared Tom, who couldn’t help smiling, perplexed though he was, at Jack’s real alarm.
The boy’s hand was on the bar that held the door securely shut, when the voice arose once more. It was certainly not a little awe-inspiring. The mere facts that they could not tell with accuracy from just what direction it came, and also that they were the only living beings in that part of the country, made it all the more frightful. “Be-ware—be-ware-of-the-white-death-of-the-north!” came the voice. “Turn-back. Go-where-you-came-from. The-trail-leads-to-destruction-swift-and-terrible!”
Tom waited no longer. He flung open the door and rushed out into the darkness. Behind him came Jack, also armed, and trying desperately to keep his teeth from chattering. The Northern Lights were flashing and splashing the sky with their weird radiance, and the snow lay whitely all about the hut.
Had there been any man or animals within the cleared space, they must have been able to see their forms.
But nothing was to be seen.