CHAPTER VII
THE VISIT TO THE CHURCHES
It was with a feeling of strange misgiving that Marion found herself entering the native village of East Cape. Questions continually presented themselves to her mind. What of the bearded stranger? Was he the miner who had demanded the blue envelop? If it were he, if he appeared and once more demanded the letter, what should she say? For any proof ever presented to her, he might be the rightful owner, the real Phi Beta Chi. What could she say to him? And the natives? Had they heard of the misfortunes of the people of Whaling? Would they, too, allow superstitious fear to overcome them? Would they drive the white girls from their midst?
An interpreter was not hard to find at East Cape. Many of the men had sailed on American whalers. They were told by one of these that there was but one man in all the village who ever attempted the dangerous passage of the straits—one O-bo-gok.
O-bo-gok was found sitting cross-legged on the sloping floor of his skin igloo, adjusting a new point to his harpoon.
"You tell him," said the smiling college-boy, "that we want to go to Cape Prince of Wales. Can he go to-morrow?"
The interpreter threw up his hands in surprise, but eventually delivered his message.
The guide, a swarthy fellow, with shaggy, drooping mustache and a powerful frame, did not look up from his work. He merely grunted.
"He say, that one, no can do," smiled the interpreter.
The college-boy was not disturbed. He jingled some coins in his hand.
The man, dropping his harpoon, began to talk rapidly. He waved his hands. He bobbed his head. At last he arose, sprang from the sleeping-compartment, and began to walk the space before the open fire. He was still talking.
When, at last, he had finished and had thrown himself once more upon the floor of the sleeping-room, the interpreter began:
"He say, that one, he say, 'Want 'a go Cape Prince Wales two month, three month, all right, mebby. Go now? Not go.' He say, that one, 'Want 'a go now; never come back.' He say, that one, 'Two, three, four days come ice. Not plenty ice,' say that one '—some water, some ice. See water. Too much water. Want 'a cross. No cross. Quick starve. Quick freeze. No good that one.'
"He say, that one, 'Tide-crack Spirit all a time lift ice, push ice, this way, that way. Want 'a kill man. No can do.'
"He say, that one, 'Great dead whale spirit want 'a lift ice, want 'a throw ice, this way, that way, all way. Want 'a kill man. Man no go Cape Prince Wales.'
"He say, that one, 'Want 'a go Cape Prince Wales, mebby two month, mebby three month. Mebby can do. Can't tell.' He say, that one."
The college-boy smiled a grim smile and pocketed his gold.
"Which all means," he said, "that the ice is not sufficiently compact, not well enough frozen together for the old boy to risk a passage, and that we'll be obliged to wait until he thinks it's O.K. Probably two or three months. Meanwhile, welcome to our village! Make yourselves at home!" He threw back his shoulders and laughed a boyish laugh.
"Oh!" exclaimed Marion, ready to indulge in a childish bit of weeping.
"Yes," smiled the boy, "but think of the sketches you'll have time to make."
"No canvas," she groaned.
"That's easy. Use squares of this seal-skin the women tan white for making slippers."
"The very thing!" exclaimed Marion. She was away at once in search of some of this new style canvas, quite forgetting the peril of natives, the danger of the food-supply giving out, the probability of an unpleasant meeting with the bearded stranger, in her eagerness to be at work on some winter sketches of these most interesting people.
In a land so little known as this, one does not seek long for opportunities to express strange and unusual things. Marion had not been established a week with Lucile in an igloo, generously provided by the chief of the village, before an unusual opportunity presented itself.
The young college fellow, whom they had come to call "Phi," in lieu of a better name, had hired three natives with dog-teams. With these he had freighted all available supplies from the wreck to the village. Among these supplies was found a well-equipped medicine-chest. During her long visits in out-of-the-way places, Marion had learned much of the art of administering simple remedies. She had not been in the village three days before her fame as a doctor became known to all the people.
She had learned, with a feeling of great relief, that the bearded stranger, who had posed as a witch-doctor, had gone away from the village. Whether he had gone toward Whaling, or south to some other village, no one appeared to know. Now that he had departed, it seemed obvious that she was destined to become the village practitioner.
It was during one of her morning "clinics," as she playfully called them, that a native of strange dress brought his little girl to her for treatment. The ailment seemed but a simple cold. Marion prescribed cough medicine and quinine, then called for the next patient. Patients were few that morning. She soon found herself wandering up the single street of the village. There she encountered the strange native and his child.
"Who are they?" she asked of a boy who understood English.
"Reindeer Chukches."
"Reindeer Chukches?" she exclaimed excitedly. "Where do they live?"
"Oh, mebby fifteen miles from here."
"Are there many Reindeer Chukches?"
"Not now. Many, one time. Now very few. Not many reindeer. Too not much moss. Plenty starve. Plenty die."
"Ask the Chukche," Marion said eagerly, "if I may go home with him to see his people."
The boy spoke for a moment with the grave-visaged stranger.
"He say, that one, he say, 'Yes,'" smiled the boy.
"Tell him I will be back quickly." Marion was away like a shot.
Tearing into their igloo, she surprised Lucile into a score of activities. The medicine-chest was filled and closed, paints stowed in their box, garments packed, sleeping-bags rolled up. Then they were away.
Ere she knew it, Lucile was tucked in behind a fleet-footed reindeer, speeding over the low hills.
"Now, please tell me where we are going?" she smiled at Marion, who sat before her.
"We are going to visit the most unique people in all the world—the Reindeer Chukches. They are almost an extinct race now, but the time was when every clump of willows that lined the banks of the rivers of the very Far North in Siberia hid one of their igloos, and every hill and tundra fed one of their herds. And I am to paint them. Think of it! a new type of native!"
"Yes, but," Lucile smiled doubtfully, "supposing the ice gets solid while we're gone. Suppose Phi takes a fancy to cross without us? What then?"
Marion's face sobered for a moment. But the zeal of a born artist and explorer was upon her. "Oh, fudge!" she exclaimed; "it won't. He won't. I—I—why, I'll hurry. We'll be back at East Cape in no time at all."