As he thrust his toe into a crack and braced his elbows, he peered up the snowy slope to the cliffs above. All was bathed in a glorious moonlight, but not a creature stirred. He watched for fully five minutes with no result. When about to drop to the snow again, he thought he detected a movement to the left of where he had been looking. Fixing his eyes on that point, he watched. Yes, there it was; something was pa.s.sing out from behind a rock. A gasp escaped his lips.

What appeared to be a gigantic golden coated cat had moved stealthily out upon the snow, and was gliding toward the upper cliffs.

"Whew!" Johnny wiped the cold perspiration from his brow. Still he stared.

The creature moved in a leisurely manner up the hill until it disappeared around the cliffs.

Johnny looked to the right and down the hill. The light of the clubroom was still burning. He beat a hasty retreat.

It was a surprised and startled group that looked him over as he appeared at the door, ragged, bruised and b.l.o.o.d.y. Eagerly they crowded about to hear his story.

When he had washed the blood from his face and drawn on clean shirt and trousers, he took a place by the open fire and told them--told them as only Johnny could.

"Well, what do you make of it?" He threw back his head and laughed a frank, boyish laugh, as he finished. "Some wild and woolly adventure, eh?

Who were those little men? And what does it all mean?"

"Means the natives are getting superst.i.tious about our effect on the spirits of their dead whales and are planning to treat us rough,"

suggested Dave.

"Natives!" exploded Jarvis, "Them ain't any natural 'eathen. Them's 'eathen frum further down the sea. I 'ates to think what a 'ard lot they is. Dave and me's seen a 'eap further north than this. 'E's got spies everywhere, this 'eathen 'as."

"Struck me a little that way too," smiled Johnny. "That fellow I tore the clothes off was wearing silk undergarments. Show me the Chukche who wears any at all, let alone silk."

"Sure!" exclaimed Jarvis.

"But if they're around here, why don't we see them?" objected one of the miners.

"The big cat's 'ere. Johnny saw 'im," scoffed Jarvis. "You 'aven't seen 'im, 'ave you? All that's about ain't seen. Not by a 'ouse full."

"What about the big cat?" exclaimed Johnny. "I thought I was seeing things."

"E's a Roosian tiger," stated Jarvis. "I've seen the likes of 'im fur north of here."

"To-morrow," said Johnny, "we'll take a day off for hunting. Big, yellow cats and little yellow men are not good neighbors unless they've agreed in advance to behave. Move we turn in. All in favor, go to bed."

A moment later the clubroom was deserted.

CHAPTER IV

CHUKCHE TREACHERY

The proposed hunt for "big yellow cats and little yellow men" did not come off, at least not at the time appointed. Morning found the tundra, the hills, everything, blotted out by a blinding, whirling blizzard. It was such a storm as one experiences only in the Arctic. The snow, fine and hard as granulated sugar, was piled high against the cabin. The door was blocked. Exit could be had only through a window.

Dave Tower, in attempting to make his way to the storeroom to secure a fresh supply of canned milk and evaporated eggs, found himself hopelessly lost in the blinding snow clouds. Possessed of singular presence of mind, he settled himself in the lee of a snow bank and waited. In time, a pencil of yellow light came jabbing its way through the leaden darkness. His companions had formed themselves in a circle and, with flash lights blinking here and there, sought and found him. After that, they remained within doors until the storm had spent its fury.

It was a strange world they looked upon when, after three days, they ventured out once more. The snow was piled in ridges. Ten, fifteen, twenty feet high, these ridges extended down the hillsides and along the tundra.

Through one of these, they tunneled to Mine No. 2, making an enclosed path to the mine from the cabin.

"From now on, let her blow," laughed Johnny when the tunnel was finished; "our work will go on just the same."

When the men were all back at work, Johnny thought once more of the big yellow cat and the little yellow men. The storm had wiped out every trace of his struggle with the men and every track of the cat. But the native village? Might he not discover some trace of his a.s.sailants there? He resolved to visit the village. Since his men were all employed, he would go alone.

An exclamation of surprise escaped his lips as he rounded the point from which the rows of dome-like igloos could be seen. Where there had been nineteen or twenty homes, there were now sixty or seventy. What could this mean? Could it be that the men who had attacked him but a few days before were among these new arrivals? At first, he was tempted to turn back. But then there came the reflection that Nepossok, the old chief who made this his permanent home, was friendly to him. There would be little chance of treachery in the broad light of day.

He hurried on and walked down the snow-packed streets of a northern nomad village.

Reaching the old chief's tent, he threw back the flaps and entered. He was soon seated on the sleeping platform of the large igloo, with the chief sitting solemnly before him and his half naked children romping in one corner.

"Many Chukche," said Johnny.

"Il-a-hoite-Chukche. Too many! Too many," grumbled the old man.

Johnny waited for him to go on.

Twisting the string of his muckluck (skin boot), the old man continued: "What you think? Want'a dance and sing all a times these Chukche. No want'a hunt. No want'a fish. Quick come no cow-cow (no food). Quick starve. What you think?"

"Perhaps they think they can live off the white man," suggested Johnny.

The old man shot him a sharp glance.

"Eh--eh," he grunted.

"But they can't," said Johnny firmly. "You tell 'em no can do. White man, plenty grub now. Many white men. Many months all a time work, no come open water. No come grub. Long time, no grub. See! You speak Chukche, this."

"Eh--eh," the old man grunted again. Then as a worried expression came over his face, "What you think? Twenty igloo mine. That one chief mine.

Many igloos not mine. No can say mine. T'other chief say do. Then do. Not do, say mine. See? What you think?"

From the old chief's rather long speech, Johnny gathered that Nepossok was chief over only twenty of the families of the village; that the others were under another chief; that he could tell them to hunt and fish, to be prepared for a food scarcity later, but that they would do as they pleased about it.

Johnny left the igloo with a worried expression on his face. If these natives had moved to this village close beside them with the notion that they would be able to trade for or beg the food which he had stored in his warehouse, they were doomed to disappointment. And having been disappointed, doubtless they would become dangerous.

This last conclusion was verified as he went the rounds of the village peering into every igloo. There were rifles in each one of them, good ones too--high power hunting rifles for big game--lever action, automatic. In every igloo he found men stretched out asleep, and this on a splendid day for hunting. They were but waiting for the night, which they would spend in wild singing, tom-tom drumming and naked dances.

Johnny did not find the people he had come to seek. In none of the igloos did he see a single person resembling, in the least degree, the little yellow men who had attacked him on the hill.

All this but confirmed his own opinion and that of Jarvis, that somewhere in these hills there was hiding away a company of Orientals, spies of their government, perhaps. But where could they be?

Johnny was not surprised, two days later, when, on coming out of his storeroom, he found a dark-faced and ugly Chukche looking in.

"Plenty cow-cow," the man grimaced.

"Ti-ma-na" (enough), said Johnny.

"Wanchee sack flour mine."