He had already begun the eternal round of thoughts that will revolve through a fellow's brain at night, when he heard a sound—the soft crush of a skin boot in the snow it seemed. He listened and thought he heard it again, this time more distinctly, as if the person were approaching his igloo. A chill crept up and down his spine. His right hand involuntarily freed itself from the furs and sought the cold hilt of the Russian knife. He had his army automatic, but where there are many ears to hear a shot, a knife is better.
"What an ideal trap for treachery, this igloo! A villain need but creep through tent-flaps, pause for a breath, then stealthily lift the deer skin curtain. A stab or a shot, and all would be ended." These thoughts sped through Johnny's mind.
Scarcely breathing, he waited for other signs of life abroad at that hour of night—a night sixteen hours long. He heard nothing.
Finally, his mind took up again the endless chain of thought. He had arrived safely at Khabarask, the terminus of the Russian line. Here he had remained for three days, half in hiding, until the "Reindeer Special" had completed its loading and had started on its southern journey to the waiting doughboys. During those three days he had made two startling discoveries; the short Russian of the broad shoulders and sharp chin, he of the envelope of diamonds, was in Khabarask. Johnny had seen him in an eating place, and had had an opportunity to study him without being observed. The man, he concluded, although a total stranger in these parts, was a person of consequence, a leader of some sort, accustomed to being obeyed. There seemed a brutal certainty about the way he ordered the servants of the place to do his bidding. There was a constant wrinkle of a frown between his eyes. A man, perhaps without a sense of humor, he would force every issue to the utmost. Once given an idea, he would override all obstacles to carry it through, not stopping at death, or at many deaths. This had been Johnny's mental analysis of the character of the man, and at once he began to half hate and half admire him. He had lost sight of him immediately, and had not discovered him again. Whether the Russian had left town before the native band did, Johnny could not tell. But, if he had moved on, where did he go?
The other shock was similar in character. The woman who had bought furs for the North had also been in Khabarask. Whether she was a Japanese Johnny was not prepared to say, and that in spite of the fact that he had studied her carefully for five days. She might be a Chukche who, through some strange impulse, had been led south to seek culture and education. He doubted that. She might be an Eskimo from Alaska making her way north to cross Behring Strait in the spring. He doubted that also. Finally she might be a Japanese woman, but in that case, what could be the explanation of her presence here, some two hundred miles north of the last vestige of civilization?
Now, not ten feet from the spot where Johnny lay in an igloo assigned for her private use by the natives, that identical girl slept at this moment. Only four hours before, Johnny had bade her good night, after an enjoyable repast of tea, reindeer meat and hard bread prepared by her own hand over a small wood fire. It was she who was his fellow passenger, whose igloo he had erected, close to his own. Yes, there was mystery enough about the whole situation to keep any fellow awake; yet Johnny hated himself for not sleeping. He felt that the time was coming when he would need stored strength.
He had half dosed off when a sound very close at hand, within the walls of canvas he thought, started him again into wakefulness. His arm ready and free for action, he lay still. His breathing well regulated and even, as in sleep, he watched through narrow slit eyes the deer skin curtain rise, and a head appear. The ugly shaved head of a Chukche it was; and in the intruder's hand was a knife.
The knife startled Johnny. He could not believe his eyes. He thought he was seeing double; yet he did not move.
Slowly, silently the arm of the native rose until it hung over Johnny's heart. In a second it would—
In that second something happened. There came a deadly thwack. The native, without a cry, fell backward beyond the curtain. His knife shot outward too, and stuck hilt downward in the snow.