The trader shook his head. But it was different with the Indian. His eyes came back to the woman’s face and he nodded.
“Sure. You know him bimeby,” he said quietly. “Maybe your man tell him all now. I tell him. He know this thing. Yes. Now I go. I go hunt all him Euralian mans. I find ’em. I kill ’em all up dead, same lak him kill up Pri-loo, an’ my good boss, Marty. I go now. Bimeby I come back, an’ I mak all good thing for little Felice. I not come back, then you mak raise ’em Felice lak your child. That so.”
CHAPTER VII
THE VENGEANCE OF USAK
The towering Alaskan hills overshadowed the broad waterway of the Hekor River. From the level of the water the shores rose up monstrously. There were precipitate, sterile, encompassing walls of granite that rose hundreds of feet without a break. And back of them, mounting by dizzy slopes, the great hills raised their snow-crowned crests till the misty cloud line enveloped them. The world was grey, and dark, and something overwhelming towards the headwaters of the great river. It was a territory barren of everything but the tattered clothing of scattered primordial forest bluffs clinging to sheer slopes, or safely engulfed in the shelter of deep, shadowed ravines. It was a scene of crude grandeur in which Nature had designed no place for man.
Yet man refused Her denial. Man with his simple skill and profound daring. No rampart set up by Nature was sufficient to bar the way.
A small kyak was driving against the stream of waters surging at its prow. It was driven with irresistible skill and power, for the man at the paddle was consuming with passionate desire and purpose. For days and days he had driven on up against a stream that was growing in speed with every passing mile. He knew the thing confronting him. He knew every inch of the great waterway’s rugged course. Every shoal, every rapid was an open book to him. So, too, were the shelters and easements where the stream yielded its strength. The man behind the paddle faced his task with the supreme confidence of knowledge and conscious power. And so he neared the canyon of the Grand Falls without the smallest perturbation.
A mere speck in the immensity of its surrounding the kyak glided on. Here it rocked on a ruffled surface, there it passed, perfectly poised, a ghostly shadow upon a smooth mirror-like surface. The dip of the man’s paddle was precise and rhythmic. Every ounce of strength was in every stroke, and every stroke yielded its full of propulsion. For Usak was a master of river craft, and understood the needs of the journey that still lay ahead of him.
His goal was still far off. It was less than a day since he had crossed the unmarked border which opened the gates of Alaska to him. He knew there must be more than another nightless day pass before he reached the toilsome portage where stood the mighty Falls which emptied themselves from the summit of the barrier which he had yet to scale. The goal he sought lay hidden away up amidst those high lands where the drainings of the snow-clad hills foregathered before hurling themselves to feed the river below. But time mattered nothing to his Indian mind. He asked nothing of the great world about him. He sought no favours or clemency. The spur of his savage heart drove him, and death alone could deny him. As he had already driven throughout the endless Arctic days so he would continue to drive until his task was accomplished.
The man’s dark face was hard bitten by his mood. Fierce resolve looked out of eyes that brooded as he gazed alertly over the waters. The soul of the man was afire with the instincts and desires of centuries of savage forbears, just as his mental faculties were similarly keyed for their achievement.