“Take her out,” he ordered, without a shadow of softening. “Set her somewhere near by in the bluff. Maybe the folk across the river will come along and find her when they see the fire. If they don’t, well, maybe the—wolves will.”
Usak gazed about him in a hopeless amazement. He was standing before the smoking remains of Marty Le Gros’ Mission. He had hastened home from the farm which lay several miles away to the east. In the midst of his work amongst his herd of reindeer he had suddenly observed the smoke cloud lolling heavily upon the near horizon, and without a moment’s hesitation he had abandoned the new-born fawn he was attending to ascertain its cause.
He had been filled with alarm at the sight. There was nothing he knew of in the neighbourhood to fire but the bluff that sheltered the Mission and the house itself. So he had come at once at a speed that only he could have achieved.
His worst fears were realised. It was not the sheltering bluff. That was still standing. It was the house itself, that home which had been his shelter as well as that of those others.
For some moments he contemplated the scene without any attempt at active investigation. It almost seemed as if his keen wit had somehow become dulled under the shock of his discovery. Just at first it was the fire itself that pre-occupied. Somehow he did not associate it with disaster to the occupants. That did not occur to him. Doubtless at the back of his mind lay the conviction that the missionary, and Pri-loo, and little Felice had crossed the river and gone to McLeod’s store for shelter. That was at first.
A light breeze drifted the smoke down upon him. For a moment he was enveloped in it. Then it passed. A fresh current of wind—a cross current—drifted it back whence it came, and the man which the passing of the smoke revealed had somehow been transformed.
Amazement was no longer in his black eyes. They were alight and burning with a passion of anxiety. That cloud of smoke had borne upon his sensitive nostrils the smell of burning flesh.
Usak moved up to the charred walls. They were hot and smoking. Most of them were in a state of wreckage, for the roof had fallen and many of the logs had crashed from the tops of the walls. He passed round them, a swift-moving, silent figure seeking access where the smouldering fire would permit. The back door of the kitchen-place was impossible. Flames were still devouring that which remained. The windows were surrounded with hot, fiery timbers. The front door giving on to the sitting room alone seemed possible. But here again was fire, though it had almost burnt out.
But the man’s mood was not such as to leave him standing before obstacles. In his half savage heart was a native terror of fire. But just now all that was completely overborne by emotions that were irresistible. The smell of burning flesh was strong in his nostrils, he even fancied he could taste something of it on his lips.