Chapter XIV: Mysterious Music

Two days later Marian and Attatak found themselves tramping slowly along behind their tired deer. It was night. Now and again the moon shot a golden beam of light across their trail. For the most part that trail was dark, overshadowed by great spruce and fir trees that stood out black against the whiteness of the snow, each tree seeming a gown clad monk—silent witnesses of their passing.

There was now a definitely marked trail. An ax cut here and there on a tree told them this trail had been made by men, and not by moose and caribou. They had seen no traces of man. No human habitation had sent its gleam of light across their trail to bid them welcome. Scarcely knowing whether she wished to see the light of a cabin, Marian tramped doggedly on. It was long past camping time, yet she feared to make camp. Several times she had caught the long drawn howl of a wolf, faint and indistinct in the distance.

With a burst of joy and hope she thought of the progress they had made. The tramp across open tundra had been fearfully hard. They had, however, reaped from it a rich reward; the river they had found was larger than the other and its surface had offered an almost perfect trail. It flowed north by west instead of southwest. It took them directly on their way. Even now Marian was wondering if this were not the very river at whose junction with the great Yukon was located the station they sought to reach before the Government Agent had passed.

“If it is,” she murmured, “what can hinder us from making the station in time?”

It seemed that there could be but one answer to this; yet in the Arctic there is no expression that is so invariably true as this one: “You never can tell.”

Then, suddenly, Marian’s thoughts were drawn to another subject. A peculiar gleam of moonlight among the trees reminded her of the purple flame. At once she began wondering what could be the source of that peculiar and powerful light; who possessed it, and what their purpose was in living on the tundra.

“And Patsy?” she questioned herself, “I wonder if they are troubling her. Wonder if they are really living off our deer. I wish I had not been obliged to leave our camp. Seems that there were problems enough without this. I wish—”

Suddenly she put out one hand and stopped her deer, while with the other she gave Attatak a mute signal for silence.

Breaking gently through the hushed stillness of the forest, like a spring zephyr over a meadow, there came to her ears a sound of wonderful sweetness.

“Music,” she breathed, “and such music! The very music of Heaven!”

Moments passed, and still with slightly bowed heads, as if listening to the Angelus, they stood there, still as statues, listening to the strange music.

“The woods were God’s first temples,” Marian whispered.

For the moment she lived as in a trance. A great lover of music, she felt the thrill of perfect melody breaking over her soul like bright waves upon golden sand. She fancied that this melody had no human origin, that it was a spontaneous outburst from the very heart of the forest; God himself speaking through the mute life of earth.

When this illusion had passed she still stood there wondering.

“Attatak, what day of the week is this?”

For a moment Attatak did not answer. She was counting on her fingers.

“Sunday,” she said at last.

“Sunday,” Marian repeated. “And that is a pipe organ. How wonderful! How perfectly beautiful! A pipe organ in the midst of the forest!”

“And yet,” she hesitated, scarcely daring to believe her senses, “how could a pipe organ be brought way up here?”

“But it is!” she affirmed a few seconds later. “Attatak, you watch the deer while I go ahead and find out what sort of place it is, and whether there are dangerous dogs about.”

Her wonder grew with every step that she took in the direction of the mysterious musician. As she came closer, and the tones became more distinct, she knew that she could not be mistaken.

“It’s a pipe organ,” she told herself with conviction, “and a splendid one at that! Who in all the world would bring such a wonderful instrument away up here? Strange I have never heard of this settlement. It must be a rather large village or they could not afford such an organ for their church.”

As she thought of these things, and as the rise and fall of the music still came sweeping through the trees, a strange spell fell upon her. It was as if she were resting upon the soft, cushioned seat of some splendid church. With the service appealing to her sense of the artistic and the beautiful, and to her instinct of reverence; with the soft lights pervading all, she was again in the chapel of her own university.

“Oh!” she cried, “I do hope it’s a real church and that we’re not too late for the service.”

One thought troubled her as she hurried forward. If this was a large village, where were the tracks of dog teams that must surely be travelling up the river; trappers going out over their lines of traps; hunters seeking caribou; prospectors starting away over the trail for a fresh search for the ever illusive yellow gold? Surely all these would have left a well beaten trail. Yet since the last snow there had not been a single team passing that way.

“It’s like a village of the dead,” she mused, and shivered at the thought.

When at last she rounded a turn and came within full sight of the place from which the enchanting tones issued, the sight that met her eyes caused her to start back and stare with surprise and amazement.

She had expected to find a cluster of log cabins; a store, a church and a school. Instead, she saw a yawning hole in a bank of snow; a hole that was doubtless an entrance to some sort of structure. Whether the structure was built of sod, logs, or merely of snow, she could not guess. Some thirty feet from this entrance, and higher, apparently perched on the crust of snow, were two such cupola affairs as Marian had seen on certain types of sailing vessels and gasoline schooners. From these there streamed a pale yellow light.

“Well!” she exclaimed. “Well, of all things!”

For a moment, undecided whether to flee from that strange place, she stood stock still.

The organ, for the moment, was stilled. The woods were silent. Such a hush as she had never experienced in all her life lay over all. Then, faint, indistinct, came a single note of music. Someone had touched a key. The next instant the world seemed filled with the most wonderful melody.

“_Handel’s Largo_,” she whispered as she stood there enchanted. Of all pipe organ music, she loved Handel’s Largo best. Throughout the rendering of the entire selection, she stood as one enchanted.

“It is enough,” she said when the sound of the last note had died away in the tree tops. “It’s all very mysterious, but any person who can play _Handel’s Largo_ like that is not going to be unkind to two girls who are far from home. I’m going in.”

With unfaltering footsteps she started forward.