CHAPTER VIII
TROUBLE FOR PATSY
Hardly had Marian left camp when troubles began to pile up for Patsy. Dawn had not yet come when she heard a strange ki-yi-ing that certainly did not come from the herd collies, and she looked out and saw approaching the most disreputable group of Eskimos she had ever seen. Dressed in ragged parkas of rabbit skins, and driving the gauntest, most vicious looking pack of wolf dogs, these people appeared to come from a new and more savage world than hers. A rapid count told her there were seven adults and five children.
“Enough of them to eat us out of everything, even to skin boots and rawhide harness,” she groaned. “If they are determined to camp here, who’s to prevent them?”
For a moment she stood there staring; then with a sudden resolve that she must meet the situation, she exclaimed:
“I must send them on. Some way, I must. I can’t let them starve. They must have food, but they must be sent on to some spot where they have relatives who are able to feed them. The safety of the herd depends upon that. With food gone we cannot hold our herders. With no herders we cannot hold the deer. Marian explained that to me yesterday.”
Walking with all the dignity her sixteen years would permit, she approached the spot where the strangers had halted their dogs and were talking to old Terogloona. The dogs were acting strangely. Sawing at the strong rawhide bonds that held them to the sleds, they reared up on their haunches, ki-yi-ing for all they were worth.
“They smell our deer,” Patsy said to herself. “It’s a good thing our herd is at the upper end of the range!” She remembered hearing Marian tell how a whole herd of five thousand deer had been hopelessly stampeded by the lusty ki-yi-ing of one wolf dog.
“The reindeer is their natural food,” Marian had explained. “If even one of them gets loose when there is a reindeer about he will rush straight at him and leap for his throat.”
“That’s one more reason why I must get these people to move on at once,” Patsy whispered to herself.
To Terogloona she said: “What do they want?”