"Maybe."
"Second, he drops a harpoon into my igloo and tries to harpoon me and blow me up."
"Maybe."
"And now he puts a revolver to my head and pulls the trigger. Still you say 'No kill.' What shall I make of that?"
"Canak-ti-ma-na" (I don't know), said the Eskimo. "No kill, that's all."
Johnny was too much astonished and perplexed to say anything further. The two sat there for some time in silence. At last the Eskimo rose and made his way toward the entrance.
Johnny flashed his light about the place. He was looking for his sack of gold. Suddenly he uttered an exclamation and put out his hand. What it grasped was the envelope he had seen in the Russian's pocket at Wo Cheng's shop, the envelope of diamonds. And the diamonds were still there; he could tell that by the feel of the envelope.
Hastily searching out his now insignificant treasure of gold, Johnny placed it with the envelope of diamonds in his inner pocket and hurried from the mine.
Darkness again found him musing over a seal oil lamp. He was not in a very happy mood. He was weary of orientalism and mystery. He longed for the quiet of his little old town, Chicago. Wouldn't it be great to put his feet under his old job and say, "Well, Boss, what's the dope to-day?" Wouldn't it, though? And to go home at night to doll up in his glad rags and call on Mazie. Oh, boy! It fairly made him sick to think of it.
But, at last, his mind wandered back to the many mysteries which had been straightened out not one bit by these events of the day. Here he was traveling with two companions, a Jap girl and an Eskimo. Eskimo? Right there he began to wonder if Iyok-ok, as he called himself, was really an Eskimo after all. What if he should turn out to be a Jap playing the part of an Eskimo? Only that day Johnny had once more come upon him suddenly to find him in earnest conversation with the Jap girl. And the language they had been using had sounded distinctly oriental. And yet, if he was a Jap, how did it come about that he spoke the Eskimo language so well?