Constable Sloan had finished preparing the evening meal of beans, pemmican and biscuit, and the boys joined the rest of the party, conversation giving way, for the time, to other exercises of the jaws.
Immediately after the meal was over everyone retired in their sleeping bags, except Toma, who was left to guard Mukwa, the Eskimo captive, for the first part of the night. The wind had been steadily rising and now was howling at terrific speed across the frail tents, carrying a burden of fine snow along with it.
Dick Kent dozed to the droning rattle of the icy particles upon the tent walls. Sandy already was fast asleep. It was frightfully cold, and Dick dared not peep out of his sleeping bag without something over his ears. Uncovered, they would have been frozen in a few seconds. As he lay thinking over the events of the day, he could hear faintly the voice of Toma as he endeavored to quiet some whimpering dogs. Finally those sounds, too, died away and nothing remained except the whistle of the driving gale, which soon lulled Dick to sleep.
It seemed to Dick he had been asleep only a moment when he awakened suddenly, all senses alert, an unmistakable scream of anguish echoing in his ears. Holding his breath, he listened, but the sound was not repeated. He tried to recollect if he had been dreaming and was sure he had not. No, from a sound slumber something had awakened him—something whose peril he sensed subconsciously, and which set his heart pounding faster. An instant longer he listened, then, drawing his hood about his head, he wriggled part way out of his sleeping bag.
The wind was blowing almost as hard as before he had gone to sleep, but now and again it died down. During one of these lulls, Dick heard a groan. With a start, he jumped up. He must find out that it was not merely his imagination before he awakened the others. They needed sleep. Cautiously, he grasped his rifle and crawled to the opening of the tent. He drew back the tent flap and looked out. Toma’s tent was the point that attracted his attention first. Everything plainly visible under the midnight sun, Dick could see that the tent’s flap was closed. Then, out of the corner of one eye he detected a movement. A dark blotch appeared on the snow in front of Toma’s tent where the Eskimo captive had been left, well tied with thongs. The dark blotch moved again. With a cry of consternation, Dick suddenly galvanized into action and sprang forward. He found Toma lying in the snow, a spear protruding from one of his thighs, and a red stain in the snow under the young Indian’s head.
“What’s wrong?” came Corporal McCarthy’s call, as he awakened and hurried out upon hearing the sound of Dick’s voice.
“Toma has been wounded!” cried Dick.
“Is the Eskimo gone—the captive?” McCarthy answered his own question by snatching back the flap of Toma’s tupik. Yes, Mukwa was gone!
A little later, a cup of tea having completely revived him, Toma told his anxious listeners what had happened.
“I can hear nothing but wind,” he said in his quaint throaty dialect. “I am sit in tent—Eskimo back inside. I think about my home, my mother. I dream. Think no harm come out of storm. Then I jump to see face looking at me. That fella throw spear. Hit me in leg. Somebody hit me on head same time. All get black like night. Me think Mukwa’s friends come git him.”