The Project Gutenberg eBook of Arctic angels
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Title: Arctic angels
Author: A. DeHerries Smith
Release date: April 25, 2024 [eBook #73460]
Language: English
Original publication: New York, NY: The Butterick Publishing Company, 1928
Credits: Roger Frank and Sue Clark
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ARCTIC ANGELS ***
A Story of the Northwest Mounted
By A. DeHerries Smith
ARCTIC ANGELS
-------------
Howls floated out on the thin Arctic air, filling rock-walled Kannequoq
Inlet with dirge-like notes. A dozen gaunt huskies padded to and fro
near the red boulders to which they were tied; they eyed one another in
murderous speculation, straining uselessly at the tethering sticks
fastened to their shaggy necks.
Occasionally one of the animals halted its ceaseless trotting, squatted
and, elevating a long wolf snout, sent out another wail to echo and
re-echo back from the granite cliffs.
“Rotten! Rotten! Rotten!” Sergeant Richard Cleaver muttered to himself,
striding up and down the narrow confines of the Mounted Police
detachment building. “That brute Scarth is torturing those dogs just
for pure devilment; can’t be any other reason that I can see. For five
cents I’d go down there and shoot up the whole works.”
Peering through one of the little windows, he gazed down at the
trader’s roof, set on a lower rock ledge, and then at the whimpering
blurs beyond. A moon faced halfbreed, lounging in the post doorway,
glanced up at the huskies and spat contemptuously. Apparently the man
saw something humorous in the situation. Yellow teeth showed
momentarily when the native tore off another mouthful of tobacco from a
black plug.
Thin columns of smoke continued to well up undisturbed from the huddle
of skin _tupiks_, sheltering beneath the cliffs from the ever present
winds. But beyond the curling smoke there was no movement; none of the
Eskimo inhabitants took any notice of the starving animals’ plea for
food.
With a curse, the sergeant swung away from the window to glare at
Constable Timothy Noonan’s thick frame stretched on his bunk.
“Helluva lot you care, you fat lobster!” Cleaver threw out at the
slumbering man’s round, freckled face. “You don’t give a hoot about the
prestige of the service, do you? Said you’d never make a dog man, and
that goes! Blah!”
An angelic smile stole across the sleeper’s features. He rolled over
lazily, grunting his contentment. Sergeant Cleaver snorted and stamped
out of the cabin, crashing the door behind him.
* * * * *
Sergeant Cleaver shrugged his khaki service tunic up on wide shoulders,
staring across the inlet at the precipitous coastline beyond. Already
the brown hillsides were showing red where the lichens were commencing
to take on their summer hue. There was a faint hint of green at the
blue white glacier’s foot. A brilliant sun shone down out of an
amazingly blue sky.
“Spring, all right,” he mumbled to himself as gray eyes roved over the
ice pans and bergs tinkling together in the bay. “Another eight months’
winter over, and I ought to be tickled pink. Damn Scarth and his dogs,
anyhow!”
The supply ship would probably be coming in another month or so, but he
couldn’t go out on leave with all these sick and starving Eskimos on
his hands, the sergeant ruminated, when his gaze swung about to the
huddle of _tupiks_. Had to look after the poor devils somehow.
“I’ll make him feed those dogs, at any rate,” he said with sudden
decision.
Quick fingers fastened the glinting brass buttons of the faded tunic,
as soft stepping sealskin boots carried him downward in long strides.
A sudden chorus of expectant howls broke out from the watching huskies
when Cleaver passed Scarth’s fish cache, and swung in at the trader’s
open door.
The sergeant’s keen ears picked up a low whistle when he stepped into
the post’s dim interior and stood, motionless, waiting for his eyes to
become accustomed to the gloom.
“That you, Uluk?” he queried, blundering forward.
Twin grunts answered and, following the direction, he made out two
lounging blurs behind the wood heater’s rounded shape.
“Look here, Scarth, you’ll have to feed those dogs,” Cleaver announced,
pushing forward until he was looking down at the trader’s narrow face
and flickering eyes.
“Huh—huh,” Scarth grunted, giving the faintly grinning Uluk a soft kick
on the leg with his sealskin mukluks. “What the heck am I goin’ to feed
’em on, eh? You Arctic angels goin’ to tumble down a bunch of manna,
eh?”
The trader’s narrow shoulders quivered slightly. To cover the motion he
jumped erect, pulling up his ever slipping and dirty mackinaw shirt. A
yellow hand waved toward his empty shelves.
“Yes, I know you’re traded out,” Sergeant Cleaver agreed, ignoring the
tone as he followed the gesture. “No grub left. You can fish though,
can’t you?”
“Nothin’ doin’,” Scarth laughed. “That’s a native’s job. Think I’m
goin’ to have the Esks see me an’ lose my white man’s rep? Not so’s
you’d notice it.”
“Well, what about Uluk?”
“Uluk?” Scarth replied, a note of feigned astonishment in his tone.
“Why, the lad’s half white, ain’t he? Got to look after his rep too.
Don’t want to have the Esks see him workin’. No, sir.”
The halfbreed grinned faintly in response to the trader’s nudge.
“Well if it wasn’t for the fact that you’d report it and I’d be
replying to fool questions from headquarters for the next two years,
I’d shoot your blasted huskies,” Cleaver rumbled.
He wheeled away, pacing up and down the post’s earthen floor, followed
by two pairs of amused eyes. Only just enough dog feed left to keep the
police huskies going until the supply ship got in, the Mountie
reflected. Out of the question to feed Scarth’s animals on his team
rations. And the hungry Eskimos had eaten their sled dogs long since.
“Hey!” Scarth’s thin voice came suddenly. “Lookit, Cleaver. That skin
boat of your’n is the only thing left in Kannequoq that’ll float.
There’s walrus out there on the floes. Red meat. Why don’t you go out
an’ belt one down for the Esks? I’ll buy the scraps for the dogs. How’s
that?”
Again Cleaver sensed thinly covered insult in the little man’s tones
and again he ignored it. Under other conditions he would have quickly
removed the sneer from that weasel face, but now only one thought
pulsed through his brain—how to feed the Eskimos and those yowling
brutes up on the rocks.
* * * * *
Followed by twin grins of satisfaction, the Mountie padded to the door
to stare out across the ice filled inlet. Yes, there were walrus out on
the float ice; he had seen them through the glasses. It was as much as
a man’s life was worth, though, to venture out among those razor edged
pans in a frail skin boat.
Cleaver clenched brown fists, swung away from the post and, padding
across the ice polished rocks, reached the first of the _tupiks_.
For a moment he stood with one hand on the caribou skin that served for
a door, his sunburned face wrinkled in disgust. Abominable odors
floated out on the crisp air from the _tupik_; the stench of unwashed
humans, half tanned deerskins, moldy furs.
Cleaver pulled out a handkerchief and, holding it across his mouth and
nostrils, ducked his long body and came upright in the _tupik_. The
foul smelling interior was littered with the Eskimos’ priceless
possessions; they were too far gone now with the coast sickness to
care. Wooden pans sewn with rawhide, and stone cooking pots were thrown
about in confusion. The floor was a wild jumble of feverish natives
rolling about on bearskins, sealing spears, snowshoes and mukluks.
“By Christopher, they’ve got to have red meat or they’ll all kick out,”
the Mountie said to himself, staring down on the emaciated, yellow
faces. “Guess I’ve got to do it.”
“Oh, Kanneyok,” Cleaver called in the Innuit tongue. “I come bearing a
message. Listen well, O you people of the ice.”
Three tousled heads were elevated for a moment above the skins; a thin
arm waved to signify that the message had been heard.
“Thus and thus,” the sergeant called in Innuit through his
handkerchief. “There must be red meat or you will all pass to the
shadow hills. Therefore, because the great white king does not forget
his people, I and the fat one go to hunt walrus. With the new sun we
bring meat. I have spoken.”
Faint clucking sounded when the Eskimos passed this satisfying
information along. A chorus of grunts.
“That’s the way to shoot it to ’em,” Scarth’s nasal tones came suddenly
from the doorway. “You police sure knows your onions. Fall for this
white king stuff, don’t they? But, by cripes, you’d better make good,
Cleaver, or the Esks’ll give you the hee-haw from Alaska to Greenland—”
“_Anumlatciaq tamna oomiak!_” a laughing voice broke in on Scarth in
the Eskimo tongue.
There followed a crisp oath from the trader, the sound of a blow, and a
yelp from Uluk.
“_Anumlatciaq tamna oomiak!_ The skin boat it never goes out!”
Cleaver translated the halfbreed’s phrase slowly, subconsciously aware
that the sick Eskimos had heard and understood the words. Several of
them were sitting upright, bony faces staring over at the door flap.
“By God, I’ve stood all I’m going to take from you and that grinning
breed of yours!” the Mountie roared, gripped by long suppressed
passion.
One leap carried him across the littered _tupik_. Two hard hands
fastened on Scarth’s scrawny throat. The sergeant dragged the little
man out into the glaring sunshine, shook him viciously for a long
moment, and then sent him spinning with a well placed kick.
The trader was on his feet again in a moment, close set eyes darting
fire. He opened his slit of a mouth; then thinking better of it, he
wheeled away and padded off for the post, mumbling to himself.
Cleaver watched him pass out of sight; then once more he ducked back
into the _tupik_, calling:
“Oh, Kanneyok, I have made a true talk; I am a redcoat and you are the
children of the great white king. The skin boat goes out. There will be
red meat before the sun comes again. I have spoken.”
“_Ai! Ai!_”
A chorus of grunts answered him, but Cleaver sensed that the natives’
tones lacked conviction. Swearing softly to himself, the Mountie
plunged out into the clean air and made his way up to the detachment
building.
* * * * *
“Ain’t no way for a buck to talk to his superior, but that was a damn’
fool play,” Constable Noonan offered from his perch on the bunk. “You
got us in dutch, Sergeant dear. We’ll never be able to handle the Esks
again if we falls down on this job, an’ I got a hunch that’s what Mr.
Scarth is after. Suit his tradin’ fine if the natives go wild an’
woolly. I ain’t no Sherlock Holmes, but if this ain’t a plant I’m a
Hindoo philosopher.”
“Oh, shut up!” Cleaver put in irritably. “I’ve got enough on my hands
without scrapping with you. We’re going out in the skin boat in the
morning, ice or no ice, and we’re going to bring back a walrus. I’ve
given the king’s word for that. It’s getting dark. Any intention of
feeding the dogs tonight?”
“Thought you said I weren’t no dog man—”
“You’ve got enough brains to feed them some tallow, at any rate,” the
sergeant cut in on him. “Go out, Timothy Noonan, or I’ll throw you
out!”
Constable Noonan dodged about the heater, grabbed his parka off a peg
and slid through the door. Once outside he listened for a moment to the
ice pans’ tinkling and the mournful wailing of Scarth’s huskies. Then
with an expressive shoulder shrug, Noonan made his way up to the little
storehouse.
The key grated in the lock, and with that well known sound eager whines
burst from the dogs penned in the corral. Scarth’s starving brutes
heard those expectant whimpers and filled the night air with agonized
howling.
It was a good three hours later when Noonan pushed in the door of the
detachment building and grinned over at his chief. Cleaver was
stretched on his bunk, khaki shirted, body bathed in yellow lamplight,
and deep in “Soldiers Three”. The sergeant threw the book down and
glared at the rubicund face.
“Look here, you nighthawk,” he called. “Haven’t you got any savvy at
all? You stay away from that girl, or I’ll—”
“Nix on the gentle sentiment tonight,” the constable broke in. “Love’s
off; murder’s on. Been prowlin’. We won’t possess any skin boat in the
mornin’; the Esks will have it that the great white king ain’t the
caribou’s chin whiskers no longer, an’ Scarth will be known as the very
strong man from here to Hoboken.”
“What’s the matter with you?” Cleaver boomed, jerking bolt upright.
“Scarth wouldn’t dare break up that boat; not after that three months I
got him for monkeying with our schooner last year.”
“Oh, you’d be surprised!” Noonan mocked his superior. “There’s more
ways of killin’ a polar bear than choking it with chocolate eclairs.
Climb into your parka an’ mukluks an’ we’ll take in the movie. It’s a
real fifty cent show. Come on.”
* * * * *
Mumbling uncomplimentary things regarding his companion’s mentality,
Cleaver vaulted off the bunk, pulled on his sealskin boots and parka,
and followed Noonan’s squat figure out into the night.
A bright moon bathed Kannequoq Inlet, flooding the open spaces with
soft radiance, softening the rugged coast’s raw contours. The two men
stood motionless, ears filled with the subdued tinkling of the ice pans
and the distant honking of some migrant geese seeking open water.
Noonan caught the other man’s sleeve and pointed down to Scarth’s
trading post. Cleaver nodded. Yes, the lights were out—and for the
first time in a month the unfortunate huskies had ceased howling. He
turned to peer down at the constable, but Tim avoided the glance,
padding off and beckoning his comrade to follow.
Swinging wide of the settlement below, the little man made his way over
the moonlight bathed ridges until at length he arrived at one of the
giant boulders that studded the beach. Beyond him, and less than a
dozen yards away, the police skin boat lay overturned on the white
sands.
“Well?” the sergeant’s glance read as he lowered himself to the cold
shingle alongside his comrade.
Noonan made no offer to enlighten him, signaling for silence.
The sergeant and the constable lay motionless, staring up at the stars.
All at once the constable twisted over on his face, when Cleaver’s hard
hand gripped his thick arm.
A new sound had been added to the faint night noises. Both Mounties
knew what it was; the soft slithering of sealskin boots over the rocks.
Then suddenly two upright figures were blurred against the ice filled
waters when Scarth and the halfbreed stepped down from the rocks and
padded over to the skin boat. Each man was leading a number of the
trader’s huskies.
“_Pst!_”
Noonan pulled Cleaver’s head down to him, whispering:
“You’ve seen hungry dogs up here chewin’ the rawhide lashings off
sleds, ain’t you? You’ve seen ’em eatin’ the sides outa skin houses,
an’ gnawin’ old sealskin boots? Sure. Well, now they’re changin’ the
diet; goin’ to scoff our old skin boat.”
Cleaver’s right hand jerked back toward his revolver holster, but
before it reached the weapon Tim’s fingers fastened on his wrist.
“Not yet! Not yet!” Tim Noonan urged. “See the whole show. Comic’s
comin’. Savvy what it is, Dick? We’ve given the king’s word that
there’ll be red meat for the sick Esks in the mornin’ an’ Scarth has
passed the talk around that there won’t be any. If there ain’t no meat
our name is mud, frozen mud at that. An’ how the heck can we get walrus
without a boat?”
Cleaver glared down at the constable’s grinning face. What was he
repeating that for, and why the blazes was he so happy about it?
The sergeant wrenched his hand free, thrusting the revolver forward. At
the same moment a low oath sounded from one of the two men, and
Cleaver’s trigger finger relaxed.
* * * * *
Scarth tugged the lines off the dogs he was leading, kicking one of the
starving brutes toward the walrus hide covering the _oomiak_. But
instead of rushing forward and tearing at the skin the dog squatted on
the shingle, staring up at its master. Three more of the released
huskies lay down and curled up for immediate sleep. Some of the others
commenced to wander along the beach. None of the animals took the least
notice of the skin boat.
Scarth’s rumbled cursing and the halfbreed’s clucking sounded dimly in
the sergeant’s ears as he rolled over to stare in amazement at the
bursting Noonan.
“Oh, my fat sides,” Tim groaned. “Seventeen dried fish, eleven tins of
bully beef, five lumps of tallow, an’ a chunk of pemmican as big as a
battleship. An’ they polished off the whole works. An’ now Scarth’s
offerin’ ’em a dried up old walrus skin for dessert. A dog’s life,
that’s what it is.”
Sudden realization stabbed Cleaver’s mind. Tim had sneaked out and fed
Scarth’s starving huskies so that they would not attack the skin boat!
“Listen,” Noonan’s voice came again. “Yesterday a big floe grounded
beyond the point. There was a walrus on it as big as the side of a
house. Uluk shot it. Get the idea? With the skin boat gone we couldn’t
pull the Arctic angel stuff, and when we fell down on the job Scarth
would lug in his walrus an’ get the glad hand from the Esks. Cripes,
you’re in a hurry, eh?”
Cleaver had vaulted from the icy ground with a catlike leap. As Noonan
lumbered to his feet he heard Scarth’s surprised cry and the
halfbreed’s yelp of dismay.
The trader threw himself face down on the beach when the white faced
sergeant raced across the slippery shingle. A single lunge brought
Scarth to his feet.
Then sounded the slithering of Noonan’s mukluks on the shingle as the
little man raced after the grunting halfbreed.
“I take it all back about the dogs, Timsy,” Cleaver yelled at the
flying figure. “Damn it, I’ll recommend you for corporal’s stripes for
this!”
“Keep ’em!” Noonan’s voice panted. “I’m the detective sergeant of this
man’s army, an’ that’s good enough for me. All right, you blubber
chewer, try a taste of that!”
_Whug! Whug!_
Cleaver laughed softly, turning back to the squirming Scarth.
“Look here, you insignificant fragment of decayed whale meat,” he
growled at the trader. “You’re too small to pound, but I have something
nice in store for you. It’ll be daylight in an hour. You and the breed
will cut up that walrus and bring it down here. Then you’ll keep on
making soup for the Esks until they’re well again. On top of that
you’re going to wash all their clothes and clean up the _tupiks_.
That’s slow motion death, if you ask me. Not a word, you rat. Move!”
As he shoved Scarth forward, Cleaver saw his comrade come upright and
fan himself vigorously. Surrounding him were four of the satiated
huskies. They sniffed gratefully at Noonan’s legs.
THE END
[Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in the November 15, 1928 issue
of Adventure magazine.]
*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ARCTIC ANGELS ***
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