voices. Deadly and thrilling, it was a message
that set Alan into action. Rossland had been
killed under a flag of truce, and even the men under
Graham had something like respect for that symbol.
He could expect no mercy—nothing now but
the most terrible of vengeance at their hands, and
as he dodged back from the window he cursed Sokwenna
under his breath, even as he felt the relief of knowing
he was not dead.
Before a shot had been fired from outside, he was
up the ladder; in another moment he was bending over
the huddled form of the old Eskimo.
“Come below!” he commanded. “We
must be ready to leave through the cellar-pit.”
His hand touched Sokwenna’s face; it hesitated,
groped in the darkness, and then grew still over the
old warrior’s heart. There was no tremor
or beat of life in the aged beast. Sokwenna was
dead.
The guns of Graham’s men opened fire again.
Volley after volley crashed into the cabin as Alan
descended the ladder. He could hear bullets tearing
through the chinks and windows as he turned quickly
to the shelter of the pit.
He was amazed to find that Mary Standish had returned
and was waiting for him there.
In the astonishment with which Mary’s unexpected
presence confused him for a moment, Alan stood at
the edge of the trap, staring down at her pale face,
heedless of the terrific gun-fire that was assailing
the cabin. That she had not gone with Keok and
Nawadlook, but had come back to him, filled him with
instant dread, for the precious minutes he had fought
for were lost, and the priceless time gained during
the parley with Rossland counted for nothing.
She saw his disappointment and his danger, and sprang
up to seize his hand and pull him down beside her.
“Of course you didn’t expect me to go,”
she said, in a voice that no longer trembled or betrayed
excitement. “You didn’t want me to
be a coward. My place is with you.”
He could make no answer to that, with her beautiful
eyes looking at him as they were, but he felt his
heart grow warmer and something rise up chokingly
in his throat.
“Sokwenna is dead, and Rossland lies out there—shot
under a flag of truce,” he said. “We
can’t have many minutes left to us.”
He was looking at the square of light where the tunnel
from the cellar-pit opened into the ravine. He
had planned to escape through it—alone—and
keep up a fight in the open, but with Mary at his side
it would be a desperate gantlet to run.
“Where are Keok and Nawadlook?” he asked.
“On the tundra, hurrying for the mountains.
I told them it was your plan that I should return
to you. When they doubted, I threatened to give
myself up unless they did as I commanded them.
And—Alan—the ravine is filled
with the rain-mist, and dark—” She
was holding his free hand closely to her breast.
