THE SUNDAY FICTION MAGAZINE, MARCH 4, 1917
the two satellites. It was. good fun. The
"au,tt11 oears nadn't eaten him. Neither
;Vaa any ferocious seal attacked the
-party,, Miss Jordan had forgotten the
little notation in the red notebook.
-; The grinding Ice battered against th
bluff oak bows of the Caliban and
, creaked and hissed alongside. Ahead
- and behind, fog blotted out everything.
Sometimes a great jutting granite head
land would rear its menacing bulk out of
the swirling fog wraiths, and Gaylord,
rushing to the ehartroom, would an
nounce that it was Tangent Point or one
' of the Thetis Islands, and that it was of
J au"l black basalt, with pre-Cambrian
stratifications. He lectured Jeanne seri
jously upon the glacial theory, the ethnol
. ogy of the Eskimo and the arts of an
1 tiquity. . "'
. -
cFARLANE told her of Broadway.
me scandals of the unnor
'and of his intention to make her the
4 heroine of the novel he proposed to write.
ueanne listened, smiled, murmured that
It was Just perfectly lovely-and prompt
ly forgot all about it. But she thrilled
over: gray headed Craig's recital of his
fight with shark; to a lagoon near Ta-
""- aeemea so romantic, so grim
jwlth the accretions of years, travel and
f self -made opportunities.
.-The triangle bade fair to become a
quadrangle when Jeanne remembered
, the notation anent bears and seals In the
little notebook. After that she snubbed
I Gaylord and McFarlane and glowered at
: CraJc. Whv Kn i .
- , . uc possessea tne
.sense to marry a woman who would
share his pleasures, no matter how little
.appeal they held for her? She mentally
! excoriated Mrs. Craig of the long dis
jtance solicitude.
r . And then the errant TVn rtA'
w v iVW-
Ha.env1a.lr- -nilw1 : . .
' .,. giTOi ice legions in
front of the struggling Caliban and
(rwept her to. anchorage in Kinzie Bay.
- - Hardly had the anchor gone out in
side of. the protecting arm of Caribou
iCape before Oonagiak clambered aboard
ylth his snaggle toothed likeness of the
i v The images stood
in rows, their backs
against the gold
plated walls, like the
effigies of the emi
nent dead in a statu
ary hall.
Frost Devil. The gaping mouth was
freshly anointed with jellied blood, and
the feet were newly blackened with wood
ashes. Gaylord went into-ecstasies over
the image, and talked at length about
the ruggedness and naive - charm of
aboriginal art. He purchased it at last,
with scrap Iron and looking glasses.
Oonagiak's success, heralded broad
cast through the cluster of igloos, start
ed a" veritable run on the trading mer
chandise of the Caliban. It elicited every
treasure of the Kinzie Bay Eskimo col
ony. The rumor of-the profligate white
men who gave real iron nails and pink
. beads in exchange for such trifles as jas
per and ivory reached the senile ears of
Aganyik's father. The old man had lost
faith in the red image of the Frost Devil.
Since its advent into th village a salmon
run had failed, and two young men had
fallen victims to a wounded she-bear.
The red metal was clearly bad medicine.
So he dragged it forth and laboriously
conveyed It to the deck of the Caliban.
It created a sensation. McFarlane -proclaimed
it copper and declared the
stones were garnets. Gaylord examined
it more intently. On its purchase he ex
hausted all his red cloth, nails and look
ing glasses. Aganyik's plump person
had been the indirect means of making
her father wealthy!
Teeshwinah had not labored in vain.
Gaylord sought him out.4 Through an in
terpreter he asked concerning the ante
cedents of the red Frost Devil. The scar- '
faced one smiled blandly and proclaimed
that he had made it. Questions failed to
shake him. Then Gaylord offered him
ten. nails and a kettle to say heididn't
make it. The scar-faced husband - of
Aganyik smiled again. He didn't make
it, he said. He had found ft it was
there with many others. They were all
in the great rock igloo. On the rock f
igloo, he declared, were great plates of
the same red metal, and the plates were
studded with winking eyes of red and
green. It was three sinipahs, or sleeps,v
he said, away from Kinzie Bay. The
four moons story was a hoax, to avert
suspicion. He had
spent the' time trad
ing and hunting
around i Dftm'an-ntf
Bay. He had trailed a wounded musk ox,
he declared, for three sleeps, to the south
west. It was a country where bad medi
cine reigned. The Eskimos didn't go
there. The yellow haired manitou held
out in the wind swept bay. White faced
men like the bargainer had lived there
once. They remained there now, with
the yellow hair still on their skulls. At
night they danced in the blue light of
the moon. It was all bad medicine, very
bad medicine. He wouldn't go back.
But when Oonagiak. the skulker, had
made a Frost Devil, he had to do like
wise. So he took a red Frost Devil from
the rock igloo. There were others there.
But he wouldn't go back. The bad medi
cine had made the salmon run fail and
had brought wailing into the village.
GAYLORD returned to the Caliban.
He' stood long before-the black vel
vet table whereon stood the Koqnagoyiak
of Teeshwinah. Then he called in Mc
Farlane. "Have you ever studied mythology V
he asked. "Particularly Norse mythol
ogy'?" "A smattering, I guess," assented McFarlane.-
"What mythical character does that
look like to you?" he queried.
McFarlane stared with knitted brows
at the red image. "Jupiter, by Jove!"
he exclaimed. "The beard and shoulders
and the club!"
"Almost," assented the young scien
tist. "It's Thor! The breast plate when
deciphered reads 'Decks awash.' It was
the pirate slogan of the Black Vikings.
They were a sort of secret order, back
in the era of Eric the Red and Lief the
Lucky. I have no doubt that they con
tinued their explorations westward from
Greenland. And here is their handiwork,
in the likeness of the patron of their
wanderings."
"Copper, too!" exclaimed McFarlane.
"Copper and garnets, or some such
stone." ,
"Goldf corrected Gaylord quietly.
"Gold and rubies! It's Unnaturally red, I
must admit But iron will do that. The
rock seams are full of iron. The red
metal of the Frost Devil is gold. And
the stqnes well, I applied the Montrau
falne ruby test this afternoon. It's guar-
anieea to corrode garnets. These didn't
corrode. .They're genuine rubies. And
they came from the Red Valhalla!"
"The Red Valhalla!"
"Yes." assented Gaylord. "It was
thought to be farther east. Lamson
.. places it In northern Greenland, and Fre
niere in Labrador. It was the-orse El
I Dorado. It was first discovered by Elfric
Vie Angry back in the tenth century'.
He brought back several nuggets. Then
he set out again on a more pretentious
expedition. Said that the gold was there
in huge seams and nuggets. Described it
as redder than bronze. It seems the old
Viking hasn't lied." And he tapped the
shoulder of the gold image!
."How far is it from here?" queried
McFarlane. His eyes biased with excite
ment and his voice trembled. "I suppose
we we'll go after rit?"
"Certainly," said Gaylord. "You
and I." . ;
N It was easy to obtain the necessary In
formation. From .Kinxie Bay they
threaded west, with Teeshwinah as guide
and two light "kayaks" trailing behind.
They doubled deviously, with Teesh
winah stressing the necessity of averting
suspicion.- For him to go again into the
land of bad medicine might mean more
woerfor the tribe. And more woe meant
his doom. '
When the last precautionary detour
had been made they were facing the
driving sleet of a freshening northeast
w ind. And -Kinzie Bay was to the west
of them.
Hour after hour they struggled along'
over vast snow hummocks and fields of
chaotic ice cliffs. Teeshwinah clucked to
the dogs and glanced apprehensively
over his shoulder. Jaylord and McFar
lane traveled In silence. Each dreamed
of the wealth before them, of the svb
etantial golden hoard attested by - the
miniature Thor of the Black Vikings.
The shimmer of the red gold was like the
light in her hair!
They slept that night in the lee of a
granite needle, in a little snow igloo that
Teeshwinah had constructed. The gale,
shrieking down from the pole, blew with
frigid breath upon the igloo and wailed
mockingly away Into the night Gaylord
and McFarlane couldn't sleep. They
wondered what the party back on the
Caliban were doing, and what would be
the measure of their surprise when the
pair who had gone out ostensibly to
photograph glaciers returned with for
tunes in red gold and ruddy rubies.
The iquat Eskimo guide stared wide
eyed against the snow wall, where the'
flame from the blubber-fed moss wicks
caused it to melt When the vehemence of
the gale increased he shrank back toward
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