Chapter XXI: Fading Hopes

Just at dawn of a wonderfully crisp morning, Marian found herself following her reindeer over a trail that had recently been travelled by a dog team. She was just approaching the Trading Station where the questions that haunted her tired brain would be answered.

Since leaving the cabin in the forest above the rapids, she and Attatak had travelled almost day and night. A half hour for a hasty lunch here and there, an hour or two for sleep and for permitting the deer to feed; that was all they had allowed themselves.

An hour earlier, Marian had felt that she could not travel another mile. Then they had come upon the trail of the dog team, and realizing that they were nearing their goal, her blood had quickened like a marathon racer’s at the end of his long race. No longer feeling fatigue, she urged her weary reindeer forward. Contrary to her usually cautious nature, she even cast discretion to the winds and drove her deer straight toward the settlement. That there were dogs which might attack her deer she knew right well. That they were not of the species that attacked deer, or that they were chained, was her hope.

So, with her heart throbbing, she rounded a sudden turn to find herself within sight of a group of low-lying cabins that at one time had been a small town.

Now, as her aged host had said, it was a town in name only. She knew this at a glance. One look at the chimneys told her the place was all but deserted.

“No smoke,” she murmured.

“Yes, one smoke,” Attatak said, pointing.

It was true. From one long cabin there curled a white wreath of smoke.

For a moment Marian hesitated. No dogs had come out to bark, yet they might be there.

“You stay with the deer,” she said to Attatak. “Tether them strongly to the sleds. If dogs come, beat them off.”

She was away like an arrow. Straight to that cabin of the one smoke she hurried. She caught her breath as she saw a splendid team of dogs standing at the door. Someone was going on a trip. The sled was loaded for the journey. Was it the Agent’s sled? Had she arrived in time?

She did not have long to wait before knowing. She had come within ten feet of the cabin when a tall, deep-chested man opened the door and stepped out. She caught her breath. Instantly she knew him. It was the Agent.

He, in turn, recognized her, and with cap in hand and astonishment showing in his eyes, he advanced to meet her.

“You here!” he exclaimed. “Why Marian Norton, you belong in Nome.”

“Once I did,” she smiled, “but now I belong on the tundra with our herd. It is the herd that has brought me here. May I speak to you about it?”

“Certainly you may. But you look tired and hungry. The Trader has a piping Mulligan stew on the stove. It will do you good. Come inside.”

An Indian boy, who made his home with the Trader, was dispatched to relieve Attatak of her watch, and Marian sat down to enjoy a delicious repast.

There are some disappointments that come to us so gradually that, though the matters they effect are of the utmost importance, we are not greatly shocked when at last their full meaning is unfolded to us. It was so with Marian. She had dared and endured much to reach this spot. She had arrived at the critical moment. An hour later the Agent would have been gone. The Agent was her friend. Ready to do anything he could to help her, he would gladly have gone back with her to assist in defending her rights. But duty called him over another trail. He had no one, absolutely no one to send from this post to execute his orders.

“Of course,” he said after hearing her story, “I can give you a note to that outlaw, Scarberry, but he’d pay no attention to it.”

“He’d tear it up and throw it in my face,” asserted Marian stoutly.

“I’ll tell you what I’ll do,” said the Agent, rising and walking the floor. “There is Ben Neighbor over at the foot of Sugar Loaf Mountain. His cabin is only three days travel from your camp. He’s a good man, and a brave one. He is a Deputy Marshal. If I give you a note to him, he will serve you as well as I could.”

“Would we need take a different trail home?”

“Why? Which way did you come?”

Marian described their course. The Agent whistled. “It’s a wonder you didn’t perish!”

“Here,” he said, “is a rough map of the country. I will mark out the course to Ben’s cabin. You’ll find it a much safer way.”

“Oh, all right,” she said slowly. “Thanks. That’s surely the best way.”

She was thinking of the treasure left at the cabin. She had hoped to return by that route and claim it. Now that hope was gone.