The Purple Flame Part 11

"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 pa.s.sed, 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 G.o.d'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; G.o.d himself speaking through the mute life of earth.

When this illusion had pa.s.sed 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, cus.h.i.+oned 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 pa.s.sing that way.

"It's like a village of the dead," she mused, and s.h.i.+vered 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 cl.u.s.ter 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.

CHAPTER XV AN OLD MAN OF THE NORTH

Having walked resolutely to the black hole in the snow bank, Marian looked within. There was no door; merely an opening here. A dim lamp in the distance sent an uncertain and ghostly light down the corridor. By this light she made out numerous posts and saw that a narrow pa.s.sage-way ran between them.

There was something so mysterious about the place that she hesitated on the threshold. At that moment a thought flashed through her mind, a startling and disheartening thought.

"Radio," she murmured, "nothing but radio."

She was convinced in an instant that her solution of the origin of the wonderful music was correct.

The persons who lived in this strange dwelling, which reminded her of pictures she had seen of the dens and caves of robbers and brigands, had somehow come into possession of a powerful radio receiving set. Somewhere in Nome, or Fairbanks, or perhaps even in Seattle-a noted musician was giving an organ recital. This radio set with its loud speaker had picked up the music and had faithfully reproduced it. That was all there was to the mystery. There was no pipe organ, no skillful musician out here in the forest wilderness. It had been stupid of her to think there might be.

This revelation, for revelation it surely seemed to be, was both disappointing and disturbing. Disappointing, because in her adventure-loving soul she had hoped to discover here in the wilderness a thing that to all appearances could not be-a modern miracle. Disturbing it was, too, for since a mere instrument, a radio-phone, has no soul, the character of the person who operated it might be anything at all. She could not conceive of the person who actually touched the keys and caused that divine music to pour forth as a villain. Any sort of person, however, might snap on the switch that sends such music vibrating from the horn of the loud speaker of a radiophone.

For a full five minutes she wavered between two courses of action; to go on inside this den, or to go back to Attatak and attempt to pa.s.s it un.o.bserved.

Perhaps it was the touch of a finger on what she supposed to be a far off key-the resuming of the music; perhaps it was her own utter weariness that decided her at last. Whatever it was, she set a resolute foot inside the entrance, and the next instant found herself carefully picking her way down the dark pa.s.sage toward the dim lamp.

To her surprise, when she at last reached the lamp that hung over a door, she found not an oil lamp, but a small electric light bulb.

"Will marvels never cease?" she whispered.

For a second she hesitated. Should she knock? She hated spying; yet the door stood invitingly ajar. If the persons within did not appear to be the sort of persons a girl might trust; if she could see them and remain un.o.bserved, there was still opportunity for flight.

Acting upon this impulse, she peered through the crack in the door.

Imagine her surprise upon seeing at the far end of a long, high-ceilinged, heavily timbered room, not a radio horn, but a pipe organ.

"So," she breathed, "my first thought was right. That enchanting music _was_ produced on the spot. And by such a musician!"

Seated with his side toward her, was the bent figure of an old man. His long, flowing white beard, his snowy locks, the dreamy look upon his face as his fingers drifted back and forth across the keys, reminded her of pictures she had seen of ancient bards playing upon golden harps.