Chapter XX

The simple words, so moving and mysterious in the half-light, lifted Dorothy to the skies, out of the storm and the night, the despair and the terror never to descend again; yet she knew no particular sense of amazement other than that of her own blindness in failing to guess Pete’s identity long since. There was not one fraction of an instant’s doubt or question of the simple declaration. Before the undulation of the deep tone was dead in the air, she knew, as well as she knew the fact of her own life, that the man spoke true. For all his face and form were utterly different, his hands and voice and carriage wholly changed, this was Peter Newhall, her husband, in the flesh.

There was no time to dwell upon the wonder of it. She saw a swift shadow at the edge of the fire’s glow—something that moved like a stalking wolf toward Peter—and she cried sharply in warning. At the same instant she sprang from her own place in an instinctive effort to protect her husband from that stealthy, murderous assault.

Her cry reached Peter not an instant too soon. Because his nerves were sound, and the ravages of his youthful dissipations wholly repaired, he was able to act upon that warning in the twinkle of an eye. There was no time for thought; as if by instinct he leaped aside, his quick eye caught sight of the figure that was even now poised to strike, and his powerful muscles made swift and tremendous response. Pavlof, faithful to the last to his demigod, had drawn a knife that flashed in a shining arc and started to save the situation in his own way; but Peter’s rifle swung in his arms and the heavy barrel struck the leaping figure with shattering force. He crumpled in the moss, for the time being impotent and unconscious.

It seemed to Peter that the Russian’s hand moved toward his hip; and he wisely decided to take the offensive. The rifle leaped to his shoulder, and the long, strong finger curled about the trigger, ready to exert the little, deadly ounce of pressure at the needed instant. Whatever murderous instincts had been wakened in Ivan were speedily repressed. Once before he had seen that rifle at that same shoulder—the day his life had been menaced by the charging she-bear—and he remembered the sureness of aim, the lightning swiftness of fire. That deadly combination could not fail at this close range.

“I don’t trust this bunch,” Peter said roughly. “Put up your hands, Ivan. I’m not going to take a chance.”

Ivan obeyed promptly; Peter was in a deadly mood. The Mongol was a brave man and a sportsman, yet he did not even attempt his old, grim smile of bravado. “You seem to hold the cards,” he said simply.

“I’m going to continue to hold them, too.” Peter gave a quick glance in search of Sarichef, finding him, appalled and terrified, in the shadows beside the dugout. The latter had left his rifle with the supplies in the dugout; and no shadow of opportunity remained in which to seize it and use it in his master’s behalf. He threw up his hands at Peter’s command.

Next Peter located Fortune Joe, also obscured in the shadows, and called him to his side. “Search all these fellows for weapons,” he ordered simply, “and pile ’em up in front of me. Get Ivan’s pistol first.”

Joe obeyed promptly, and at Peter’s command carried down the sacks of supplies that had been prepared for to-morrow’s journey and loaded them in the dory. The weapons were similarly disposed of. Then, shielding Dorothy behind him, he backed down to the water’s edge.

He helped the girl into the bow seat; then while he stood guard Joe shoved off. As the boat was lifted on the first, little wave he himself sprang in. Joe grasped his oars.

“Can we make it out?” Peter asked quietly of his oarsman. There was a tremor in his voice now; but it was nothing to cost Joe his confidence in him, or Dorothy her faith. The native knew him as a strong leader, a worthy representative of a great race. To Dorothy came the certain knowledge that as long as her hand lay in his, no rough seas need appall her, no moaning darkness fill her with fear. With such companionship as they had, as existed everywhere between well-mated men and women of their race, what heathen hordes could conquer them, what lesser breeds despoil them of their dominance!

Joe dipped his oars. “It’s a strong wind, but fair,” he said laconically.

* * * * *

It was a strong wind, but fair, that blew them down the Peninsula. Many the time they were menaced by reefs and up-jutting sea crags; often they were harassed by storms and obliged to seek shelter in the deep-cut bays, and more than once it seemed beyond belief that they would not be instantly overwhelmed. But always Fortune Joe’s good seamanship, assisted by Peter’s good nerve and strong muscles, brought them safely through.

It was a long, difficult, dangerous journey; but these were voyagers not to be despised. Dorothy, the daughter of a strong breed, had always had a potential strength with which to meet such tests as this, and with Peter beside her, the old curse of fear was largely lifted. Even if they had had to go the whole long way to the nearest settlement they would have overcome the dangers, won their race with winter, and come through. As it happened, the sea gods were favorable to their venture, and halfway out they encountered a sturdy launch sent from Unalaska to their rescue.

The _Warrior_ had not gone down, after all. She had broken her wheel on the way to shelter that first day and, helpless against the storm, had been blown through the chain of islands and far out into the Pacific. Ultimately she had encountered a ship, had been helped into port, and had arranged by wireless for a rescue party to go in search of her passengers marooned on the mainland.

Ivan and his two followers had already vanished into the interior, probably on their way to some of the Esquimo villages beyond the bays, when the rescue ship touched at the scene of the late camp. Peter’s return home, his wife beside him, was accomplished in good time, and here both are hidden in the maze of human event. The straw that the guide Pete had cut for the wilderness beds was blown away on the winds, the cooking rack grew weather-beaten and was at last blown down, and the alder thickets spread and encompassed the camp. Soon there was little sign that human beings had ever passed that way. The caribou fed at the very mouth of the dugout, only occasionally stopping to sniff, in wonder, at the rain-beat ashes of the fire; the wolverine hunted with unabated ferocity along the creek bed; and sometimes the great, surly Alaskan grizzly wandered through the camp, wondering, no doubt, what manner of his brethren had once had their lair on this lonely beach and why they had gone away. The waves still broke and rolled on the shore, but no one looked across them for a returning ship; and the wind blew, but no one was appalled by its raving. Only the white cross, seemingly spared by the forces of the elements, still endured,—a white emblem of eternity, perhaps a landmark for natives beating down the coast in their skin boats.

Again the elements ruled supreme; the snow lay untracked by human footprints from sea to sea, the wind swept unchecked by any human habitation. Yet their victory would be short-lived. As Peter had prophesied, in time even this storm-swept, savage land would be drawn into man’s dominions. Peter himself would return some time. There was one duty still unperformed.

The matter was called to his attention the second night after they had boarded the rescue ship from Unalaska. He had stood on the deck with Dorothy, watching the eerie trail where the churning propeller set the sea alight; and the girl seemed wandering in a dream-world of her own. “There’s just one thing that isn’t clear,” she told him, in the low voice that had haunted him throughout the years of his exile. “You remember the _séance_—I asked to speak to you. The message that came through was what made me decide to marry Ivan. It was ‘Change the name’—just that: ‘Change the name.’ What do you make of it, Peter?”

He turned to her, and she saw that he was smiling cryptically. “The message was logical enough, Dorothy,” he said, “if you want to believe.”

“But you were there, in the circle——”

“You didn’t ask, in so many words, to speak to me. If you did, Fortune Joe didn’t get it straight. Surely you remember how bewildered he was, how he seemed at a loss. He didn’t get any results until you told him that you wanted to speak to _the man who lay in that grave_. And if you want to, you can believe the message came from him!”

He knew by the touch of her hand and the luster in her eyes that she was deeply moved. “To change the name on the cross!” she exclaimed.

“Of course. But perhaps it was just something telepathic, coming from me. Sometime we’ve got to go back and do it; it’s only decent. Besides we want to visit again the land that brought us our happiness—cruel and savage place though it is. Dorothy, what matters and what doesn’t no one really knows; and who can say but that false inscription on the cross matters more than nations or worlds to the man who lies beneath? We’ll rub out the name Peter Newhall, and write in Big Chris Larson. Then maybe he can sleep in peace.”

With Big Chris Larson the drama began; with him it ends.

THE END

Books by
EDISON MARSHALL

THE VOICE OF THE PACK

“An unusually good tale of the West. The story is a woods-man’s idyll, rich in its fidelity to the truth, and throbbing with the reverent love for nature.”—_The New York Times._

THE STRENGTH OF THE PINES

“The story is exciting in the extreme. Bruce Duncan encounters savage beasts as well as savage men . . . but no story would be complete without its golden thread of love, and this golden thread gleams through all with wonderful sweetness.”—_The Boston Transcript._

THE SNOWSHOE TRAIL

“Here is a living story of the snow-covered wilds of British Columbia that holds the attention unflaggingly, and by atmospheric touches constitutes itself as something more than a tale of adventure well told.”—_The Philadelphia Ledger._

SHEPHERDS OF THE WILD

“Edison Marshall has combined cleverly his knowledge of animal lore and an ability to write a swashbuckling story with its usual condiments of romance, forest fires and sudden death.”—_The Philadelphia Ledger._

THE SKY LINE OF SPRUCE

A splendid story of adventure, with its scenes laid in the Canadian Northwest. As always, Mr. Marshall draws the wilderness and its life with a sure and sympathetic touch.

* * * * *

BOSTON LITTLE, BROWN & COMPANY PUBLISHERS

Books by
EDISON MARSHALL

THE ISLE OF RETRIBUTION

“The Arctic is a new region for Mr. Marshall to describe, but he is artist enough to make us realize its beauty and its terror. We feel the loneliness of those seas which see one ship a year, of the mountains and glaciers, the sparse timber, the trap lines, and the wonder and terror of the strong Arctic animals. We thrill still to Ned’s struggle with the Arctic wolf, and we do not forget the dreariness and desolation of the white land where the great Kodiac bear is monarch. Mr. Marshall has never told a better story than this of the evolution of the rich clubman into the wilderness fighter.”—_The Boston Transcript._

THE LAND OF FORGOTTEN MEN

Edison Marshall is at his best when describing a struggle. In this story there is a double struggle—the fight of man to survive in one of the world’s most barren regions and the equally desperate battle of two strong men of different blood for the woman that each loves well. “East is East, and West is West”—and here they meet with results that are dramatic. Mr. Marshall’s many readers will find “The Land of Forgotten Men” one of his most stirring stories of adventure in the great out-of-doors.

THE HEART OF LITTLE SHIKARA AND OTHER STORIES

Contains the story that won the O. Henry Memorial Award for the best short story of 1921.

“Ernest Thompson Seton, a quarter-century ago, taught the world that there was such a thing as a realistic animal story. It is an unforeseen pleasure suddenly to renew that old but unforgotten thrill in these stories by Edison Marshall, who writes with that same unique blend of intuitive understanding and first-hand knowledge of the wild.”—_The New York Herald._

* * * * *

BOSTON LITTLE, BROWN & COMPANY PUBLISHERS

TRANSCRIBER NOTES

Misspelled words and printer errors have been corrected. Where
multiple spellings occur, majority use has been employed.

Punctuation has been maintained except where obvious printer
errors occur.

[The end of _The Land of Forgotten Men_, by Edison Marshall.]