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Page 38
His quick ear detected a faint splitting noise, like the crack of young
ice in forming, under his feet. In an instant he realized their danger.
At the time he had reached a hollow in the perilous slope. The dogs
ahead, with quick instinct, retreated and crouched at his feet in the
sheltering cradle.
Ootah saw Koolotah turn and look inquiringly upward. The next moment,
driven downward by the wind, a mass of clouds, glittering with bleached
moonfire, rolled over the slopes and hid Koolotah. Ootah only heard
his voice.
Then the glacial mountainside to which he clung trembled. A terrific
crash, like that of cannon, followed. The very mountain seemed to
shake. For a brief awful spell everything was still--then, with an
appalling thunder, the ice split and began to move. The moon
reappeared and Ootah--in a tense moment--saw chasms widening about him
on the glistening slope. He heard the deafening echoing explosions of
splitting ice in the distance . . . With fierce ferocity he
instinctively fastened one bleeding hand to an icy projection above
him, with the other he held with grimly desperate determination to the
sled . . . In the next dizzy instant he felt the icy floor beneath him
lurch itself forward and downward . . . before his very eyes he saw
Koolotah and his team--not twenty feet below--wiped from existence by
the descending glacier to which he clung and in the hollow crevice of
which he found security . . . In a second's space he caught a clear
vision of tremendous masses of green and purple glaciers being ground
to fine powder in their swift descent on all sides of him, . . . he
saw the feathery ice fragments catch fire in the moonlight, . . . he
heard the elemental roar and grinding crash of ice mountains sundering
in a titanic convulsion . . . then he lost hearing . . . In that same
sick bewildering moment of preternatural consciousness he thought
wildly of Annadoah . . . he saw her appealing wan face amid the blur of
white moonlight . . . he knew she needed food . . . and he felt an ache
at his heart . . . he called upon the spirits of his ancestors. Then
the silvery swimming world of white dust-driven fire became suddenly
black--and the earth seemed removed from under him.
In the village the natives were awakened from their lethargic sleep by
the far-away crash of the avalanche. Their faces blanched as they
thought of the hunters. "The hill spirits have smitten! _Ioh_!
_Ioh_!" they moaned. In her igloo Annadoah, who had waited with
sleepless anxiety, wept alone. Of all in the village only the heart of
one, Maisanguaq, was glad.
VII
"_The utter tragedy of her devotion to the man who had deserted her,
and the utter hopelessness of his own deep passion, blightingly,
horribly forced itself upon him . . . Ootah asked himself all the
questions men ask in such a crisis . . . and he demanded with wild
weeping their answer from the dead rejoicing in the auroral Valhalla.
But there was no answer--as perhaps there may be no answer; or, if
there is, that God fearing lest, in attaining the Great Desire, men
should cease to endeavor; to serve and to labor has kept it locked
where He and the dead live beyond the skies._"
The moon dipped behind the horizon. For five sleeps naught had been
heard from Ootah and his companion. Inetlia, the sister of Koolotah,
followed in turn by some of the other women, visited the igloo of
Annadoah. Upon her couch of moss Annadoah lay, and over her a cover
given by Ootah and lined with the feathers of birds.
"'Twas thou who sent Ootah to the mountains," one complained. "May the
ravens peck thine eyes!" cried another. Annadoah shook her head sadly
and wept.
"'Twas thou who chose Olafaksoah, the robber from the south, that thou
mightest be his wife; and 'twas thou, his wife, who beguiled the men
and robbed thy tribe. Did we not give away our skins, and didst thou
not make garments for Olafaksoah? And do we not now shudder from the
cold? 'Twas thou who put the madness into the head of Ootah, the
strongest of the tribe. Many are the maidens who are husbandless and
yet Ootah pined for thee. Why didst thou not choose Ootah? Then he
would have remained and prevented the thievery of the strangers, we
should not have been robbed, and he would not have had to go far unto
the mountains, where the spirits have struck him in their wrath? Nay,
nay, thou didst make the men of our tribe sick with thoughts of thee.
They have quarrelled among themselves. And before the white men came,
did they not reproach us, their wives and their betrothed, with thy
name and the vaunted skill of thee? Thou art as the woman with an iron
tail, she who killed men when they came to her, their skins flushed
with love. Thou destroyest men! Thou didst send Ootah and Koolotah to
the mountains! And they have perished! _Ioh-h_! _Ioh-h_!"
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