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Show 14 THE o A u "IS SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH, SUNDAY, DECEMBER 19, 1915 HERALD-REPUBLICA- N, IN the efficacy of the knout. Tvro died unaer it, others were injured for life, and the rest took the lesson to heart and ran away no more. The show was flying ere the fort was finished, and then it was time for furs. A heavy tribute was laid upon the tribe. Plows and lashings continued, and that the tribute should be paid the women and children were held as hostages and treated with the barbarity that only the fur thieves knew. Well, it had been a sowing of blood, and now was come the harvest. The fort was gone. In the light of its burning half the fur thieves had been cut down. The other half had passed under the torture. Only Subienkow remained, or Subienkow and Pig Ivan, if that whimpering, moaning thing.in the snow could be called Pig Ivan. Subienkow caught grinning at him. There was no gainsaying Yakaga. The mark of the lash was still on his face. After all, Subienkow could not blame him, but ho disliked the thought of what Y'akaga would do to him. He thought of appealing to Makamuk, the head chief, but his judgment told him that snch an appeal was useless. Then, too, he thought ILJi By JACK JL0MTOIN T w Tor by til CopyTUbt Herald ComcNiDy. All rlelits referred.) places had other names, and their distances were measured in slees. It was a vast region these trading savages came from, and a vaster region from which, by repeated trades, that these stone lamps and that steel knife had come. Subienkow bullied, and cajoled, bribed. ad Every far journey or strange tribesman was brought before him. Perils uncountable and unthinkable were mentioned, as well ns" wild beasts, hostile tribes, impenetrable forests and mighty mountain ranges. lint always from beyond came the rumor and the. tale of the end. Subienkow ha J trav- dream of an independent Poland, with a elled a Ion? trail of bitterness and hor- Kin? of Poland on the throne at War-saw- . ror, homing like a dove for the capital's Ah, there it was that the Ion? trail of Europe, nti'l here, further away began. Wei!, he had lasted longest. One than ever, in Ku.i5.Ian America, the by onp, beginning with the two executed trail reaped, lie sat in the snow, arnxs at St. Petersburg, he took up tli2 count of tied behind him, waiting the torture. He the parsing of those brave spirits. Here tared curiously before him at a huge Cos-eac- one had lem beaten to death by a jailer, prone in the snow, screaming iu and there, on that blood stained highway The men had finished handling the of the exiles, where they had ma relied for giant and turned him over to the women. endless months, beaten and maltreated by That they exceeded the fiendishness of their Cossack guard, another had dropped the men the man's frightful yells attested. by the way.. Always it had been savagery Subienko.T looked on ac shuddered. brutal, bestial savagery. They Lad died He was not afraid to die. He had car dear God, how they had died! of fever, nis lire too long in rus nanus on tun in thp minM nn,!cr the knout. The last weary trail from Warsaw to Nalato toj wo Lo,i t,?e4l nftrr (hc cscapCf thc at mere dying. Rut he cbjeetrd t,c with tJjp 0ssack,f anj hc lxoxie Lad to the torture. It nffenJM hi soul. won to Kamchatka with the stolen papers And thl offence, in turn, was not due to and the money of a traveller h had left . . . . , ' 1 V l. ) . 3 k, ag-on- y. Ya-ka- ga "I will give y0u your life, but you shall not be a slave," he announced. "More than "that." Subienkow played his game as coolly as if he were bartering for a fox skin. "It is a very great medicine. It has saved my life many times. I want a sled and dogs and six of your hunters to travel with me down the river and give me" safety to one day's 6leep from Miehaelovsky Redoubt." "You must live here and teach us all of your deviltries," was the reply. Subienkow shrugged his shoulders and remained silent. He blew cigarette smoke out on the icy air and curiously regarded what remaine'd of the big Cossack, which the children were now worrying. "That scar!" Makamuk said suddenly, pointing to the Pole's neck, where a livid mark advertised the slash of a knife in a Kamchatkan brawl. "The medicine is not good. The cutting edge s stronger than the medicine." "It was a strong man that drove the stroke." Subienkow considered. "Stronger than you, stronger than your strongest hunter, stronger than he." Again with the toe of his moccasin he touched the Cos- w-a- ( i medicine. The axe is heavy and sharp, Subienkow did not waste time in gath and I want no mistakes. ering the ingredients for his medicine "All that you have asked shall be! He selected whatsoever came handiest, as spruce needles, the inner bark of yours," Makamuk cried in a rush cf h ceptance. "Proceed to make your medi-- ! the willow, a strip of birch bark, and a cine." 'quantity of moss berries, which he made Subienkow concealed his elation. Hejthe hunters dig up for him beneath the was playing a desperate game and there snow. A few f rozen roots completed hi9 must be no slips. He spoke arrogantly, jsuppiy and tie led the way back to camp. "You have 'been slow My medicine is Makamuk and Y'akaga crouched beoffended. To make the offence clean yon side him, noting the quantities nnd kind? of ingredients he dropped into the pot of must give me your daughter." He pointed to the. girl, an nnwholesome boiling Water. a cast in one eye and a "You must be careful that the moss creature, Makamuk was berries go in first," he explained. bristling wolf tooth. "And oh, yes, one other thing the angry, but the Pole remained imperturbable, rolling and lighting another cigar- finger of a man. Here, Yckagi, let m ac-'suc- j 1 --- 2th cut off your finger." Put Y'akaga put his hands beTiind him ette. "Make haste," he threatened. "If you are not quick I shall demand yet more." In the silence that followed the dreary northland scene faded from before him, and he saw once more his native land, and Paris, and once, as he glanced at the wolf toothed girl, he remembered another girl, a singer and a dancer, whom he had known when first as a youth he came to Paris. and scowled. "Just a small finger,"- Sfibienkof? pleaded. "Yakaga, give him your finger," Makamuk demanded. "There be plenty of fingf.rs lying - around," Yakaga grunted, indicating the human wreckage in the snow of th; score of persons who had been toi":uied to death. "It must be the fingor of a lire man," the Pole objected. "Then shall you have the finger of a live man." Y'akaga strode over to the Cossack and sliced off a finger. "He is not yet dead," he annennced, flinging the bloody trophy in the snow at the Pole's feet. "Also it is good finger, because it is large." Subienkow dropped it into the fire under the pot and began to sing. It was a French love song that with great solemnity he sang into the brew. "Without these words I utter into it the medicine is worthless," he explained. "The words are the chiefest strength of it Pehold, it is ready." "Name me the words slowly, that I may know them," Makamuk commanded. "Not until after the test. When the axe flies back three times from my neck, then will I give you the secret of the words." "Put if the medicine is not good medi cine?" Makamuk queried anxiously. Subienkow turned upon him wrathfully. "My medicine is always good. However, if it is not good, then do by me as you have done to the others. Cut me up a bit at a time, even as you have cut him up." He pointed to the Cossack. "The medicine is now cool. Thus, I rub it on my neck, saving this further medicine." With great gravity he slowly intoned a line of the "Marseillaise," at the same time rubbing the villainous brew thoroughly into his neck. An outcry interrupted his play acting. The Eriant Cossack, with a last resurg ence of his tremendous vitality, had arisen to his knees. Laughter and criea of surprise and applause arose from the Nulatos as Pig Ivan, a screaming horror, began flinging himself about in the snow with mighty spasms. Subienkow was made fll by the sight, hut he mastered his qualms and made be'lieve to be angry. "This will not do," he said. "Finish him, and then we will make the test Here, you, Yakaga, cut his throat bo that his noise ceases." While this was being done Subienkow turned to Makamuk. "And remember, you are to strike hard. This is not baby work. Here, take the axe and strike the log so that I can see you strike like a man." Makamuk obeyed, striking twice, precisely and with vigor, cutting out a large bat-hndd- er 11 1 . " . n notion- pnrry spectacle the pain wouU make nfj AH h.,t him. He knew h would yell and stream hi.heart in studios and the year?, with us V, Ivan wan yellin; and , f. -ftlIlrtt f hev. 1,.,. been- hemmed tin. He knew he would pray, and hep, and en- - . . . his . I l' raidfsi J tt wi' nrrhn treat, even as Pig Ivan aDd the others; i life with blood. Everybody had killed. that had gone before. This would not bej lie liad killed that traveller for his passni'e. To pass out jrravely and cleanly, He had proved that he was a man with a smile and a jest ah, th.it would j ports. scr-arnin- ?.; T 1 - - j officers in a sm?le day He had had to son I tippet by the pans of the prove himself in order to win. a place flesh, to stTcech and fibber like an ape, to fur thieves. He had had to hate .is among the win that place. Behind him, lay the tou-an- d years long road across all Siberia and Itussia. He could not escape that way. The only way was ahead, across the dark and icy sea of Debring to Vlaska. I he way nad led from savagery to deeper fate. 1'rom the bepinnin at Warsaw, at (savagery. On the scurvy rotten snips of the fur thieves, out of food and out of Kamchatka, ou the crazy boats of the furj water, buffeted by the interminable thieves, fate had been driving hirn to this! storms of that stormy sea, men had be- end. Without doubt in the foundational come animals. Thrice he had sailed east th world was graved this end for him from Kamchatka. And thrice, after all e, for hiui, who was so fine and manner of hardship and suffering, the whtrc nerves scarcely sheltered under his survivors had come back to Kamchatka. kin. who was a dreamer and a poet and There had been no outlet for escape, and an artist. JJefore he, as he, was dreamed; he could not go back the way he had of it had been determine'! that the quivercome, for the mines and the knout awaiting bundle of sensitive ness that constitntcd ed him. him should be doomed to live in raw and Again, the fourth and last time, he bad howling savagery and to die in this far sai'o.1 east. He had been with those who land of tight, ia this dark place beyond first found the fabled Seal Islands; buL tlie la boundaries of the world. ho had not returned with them to share He sighed. So that thing before him, the wealth of furs Sa the mad orgies of that thing that screamed, was Pig Ivan Kamchatka. He had f worn never to go Pig Ivan the giant, the man with- back. He L.new that to winto those dear out cerves, the man of iron, the Cosack capitals of Europe he must go on. So he turned freebooter of the seas, who was as had changed ships and remained in I hlesmatic as an ox, with a nervous the dark new land. Ilis comrades were teni so low that what was pain to ordiSlavonian hunters and Russian advennary men was scercely a tickle to him. turers, Mongols and Tartars and Siberian Wei!, well, trust these Xnlato Indians to aborigines, and through the tavages of find Pig Ivan's nerves and trace them to the new world they had cut a path of the roofs of his quivering soul! They were blood. They had masewcred whole Tilcertainly doing. Listen to that! A yell lages that refused to furnish th? for txib-utmore hideously awful than any that had and they, in turn, had been masgon be.re ripped and tore tarougu sacred by whole chip's companies. He, iJubienkow'.H consciousness. It was fear-- ' with one Finn, had been the sole surviv- mi, it was inconceivable, that a man ; ors of such a company. They had spent ccu'd suffer, so much and yet live. Pi; n winter of solitude nnd starvation on a Current. Iran was paying for his low order of , lonclj Aleutian isle, and their rescue in Paddling in Skin Canoe Against a Five-Kn- ot nerves. Already be had lasted twice as' the spring by another fur .ship had been white skinned men, blue of eye and fair of bursting his bonds and dying fight- sack,. who was now moaning and slubberL Ion? ns any of the others, and still his one hance in a thov of hair, who fought like devils and who ing. Such an end would be quick. Put ing from a featureless face, a grisly specIlut always the terrible savagery had sought gre.it !;inrs shrieked Lis nsony. always for furs. They were to he could not break his bonds. Caribou tacle, no longer conscious, yet in whose ' hummed linn in. 1'assing troin ship to st-f- ar, far to the cast. No one thongs were stronger than he. Still de- dismembered body the pain racked life Subienkow felt that he could not stand fchipt and cer rcfufciniJ to rcttirn, he Lad s them t was the word that vising, another thought came to him. He clung and wa.s loath to go. "Also, the th e (Wack-offerings mu-- h I,uger.! come to the ship that explored south. All1 had .,Pcn been passed along. signed for Makamuk and that an inter- - medicine was weak. For at that place Whv didn't Ivan die? He would zo mad Iown the Alaska coast they had encoun It was a hard school. One could not prefer who knew the coast dialect should there were no berries of a certain kind, of if that scroamins did not cease. iItlt tered nothing but hosts of savages. Every learn geography very well through the be brought which I have seen you have plenty in this . . . . (anchorage among the Wetliu; islands or?j medium of strange dialects from dark "Oh, Makamuk," he said, "I am not country. The medicine here will be (under the frowning cliffs of the mainland minds that minzled fact and fable and minded to die. I am a great man, and it strong." He Rudolph Subienkow, would Irtve bishad mrant a battle or a storm. Either that measured distances by "sleeps" thatiwere foolishness for me to die. In truth', "I will let you go down river," - said nails torn out by the roots, his finger ends) the gales blew, threatening destruction, or varied according to the difficulty of the I shall not die. I am not like these other sled and the dogs and sliced off in strips, thin strips, a section the war canoes came off, manned by howl- going. Put at last came the whisper that carrion" he looked at the thing that once Makamuk, "and the to six the hunters give you safety shall with the war paint on their Subienkow courage. In the east lay a had been Pig Ivan and stirred it con- at a time, his nose . He almost ing savages, gave faces, who came to learn the bloody virmen temptuously with hi3 toe "I am too wise shrieked Limself at thought of the hor- tues of the sea rovers gunpowder. South, great river where were these blue-eye- d 'Yon slow," was the cool rejoinder. The river was called the Yukon. South of to die. Pehold, I have a great medicine. "You are, committed an offence against have rors awaiting him. And there wa.s Yak- south they had coasted, clear to the myth-Isn- d Michaelovski Redoubt Since I emptied another I alone know this medicine. of California. Here, it was said, great river which the Russians knew as am not going to die I shall exchange this my medicine in that you did not at once aga awaiting him, too, grinning at Lim accept my terms. Pehold, I now demand even now in anticipation Yakaga, whom were pani3ii adventurers wno nau iougutlthe Kwikpak. Then arose Malakoff, the medicine with you." one hundred beaver skins." their way up from Mexico.. He had had Russian half breed, to lead the wildest "What is this medicine?" Makamuk more. I want only last week he had kicked out f the hopes of those Spanish adventurers. Es- and "I want one hunsneered.) (Makamuk most ferocious of the hell's broth of demanded. he of whose had fish." (Makamuk dried laid the dred and face upon pounds fort, caping to them, the rest would have been mongrel adventurers who had crossed from is a strange medicine." 'Subienkow nodded, for fish were "It plentiful and cheap.) lash of his dog whip. Yakaga would at- easy a year or more, what did it matter Kamchatka. Subienkow was his lieu- debated with himself for a moment, as if one for me and one for two want tend to him. Doubtlessly Y'akaga was more or less, and he would win to Mexico; tenant. They threaded the mazes o? the loath to part with the secret. "I will tell "I furs and sjeds, And fish. my rifle must be my and Europe would be his. great delta of the Kwikpak, picked up the then a A little bit of this medicine rubbed returned you. me. raving for him more refined tortures, Put theyship, to If you do not like the had met no Spaniards. Only had first low hills on the northern bank, and on the skin makes the skin hard like rock, : in a little while the price will more exquisite nerve racking. Ah that they encountered the same impregnable for half a thousand miles in skin canoes, hard like iron, so that no cutting weapon price grow." must have been a good one. from the way wall of savagery. The denizens of the loaded to the gunwales with trade goods can cut it. The blow of a cutstrongest whispered to the chief. Ivpn screamed. The squaws bending confines of the world, painted for war, and ammunition, fought their way against ting weapon is a vain thing against it. Yakagahow can I know your medicine is current f a river that ran A hone knife becomes likea piece of mud, "Put nn had driven them back from the shores. the five-knnvrr Jitm strrnpr1 lint It 3 'At last when....one, boat was cut off and from two to ten miles wide in a channel and it will turn the edge of the iron knives true medicine?" Makamuk asked. hnA many fathoms deep. Malakoff decided to clapping of hands. Subienkow saw-thPftrrim.nfi tl "It is very easy. First, I shall go into rnn we have Drought among you. What will woods" the monstrous thing that had been perpe- abandoned the quest and sailed back to the build the fort at Nulato. Subienkow you give me for the secret of . the medPut he quickly icine?" Again Yakaga whispered to Makamuk, urged to go further. trated, and began to laugh hysterically. north. IS. he had reconciled himself to Nulato. The long "I (will give you your life," Makamuk who made a suspicious dissent. The Indians looked at Lira in wonderment The years had passed. In Michael"You can send twenty hunters with me," winter was coming on. It would be made answer through the interpreter. served under Tebenkoff when that he laujih- - Put Subienkow ovski Redoubt was built. He had spent Subienkow went on. "You see, I must get jbetter to wait. Early the following sumSubienkow laughed scornfully. could not stop. two jears in the Kuskokwim country. 'mer, when the ice was gone, he would "And you shall be a slave in my house the berries and the roots with which to make the medicine. Then, when you have of work his he month the and the in Two summers, June, disappear up Kwikpak until you die." Thi would never do TTe mr froTV.1 'had managed to le at the head of Kotre- - way to the Hudson Pay Company's posts the two sleds and loaded on them brought The Pole langhed more scornfully. himself, the spasmodic twitchings slowly !bue Sonnd. Here, at this time, the tribes Malakoff had never heard 'the whisper fish the the beaver skins and the rifle, and "Untie my hands and feet and let us and when you have told off the six hunt dying away He strove to think of other assembled for barter. Here were to bejthat the Kwikpak' was the Yukon, and talk," he said. things, 3nd began reading back in his own! found spotted deer skins from Siberia, Subienkow did not tell him. The chief made the sign, and when he ers who will go with me then, when all walrus skins Came the building of the fort Itwas was loosed Subienkow rolled a cigarette is ready, I will rub the medicine on my life. He remembered his mother and his! iTory from the the Arctic, strange stone enforced labor. The tiered walis of logs and lighted it. neck, so, and lay my neck there on that father and the little spotted pony and the1 from the shores inof trade from tribe to tribe, arose to the sighs and groans of the "This is foolish talk." said Makamuk. log. Then can your strongest hunter take lamps, lVench tntor who had taught him danc - no one passing knew whence, and once a hunting Xulato Indians. The lash was laid upon "There is no such medicine. It cannot the axe and strike" three times on my neck. ing and sneaked him an old worn copy of knife of English make; and here. Subien-Yoltair- their backs, and it wa the iron hand of be. A cutting edge is stronger than any You yourself can strike the three times." Makamuk stood with gaping mouth, Once more he saw Paris and kow knew, was the school in which to the freebooters of the'sea that laid on the medicine." met he For Eskimos, lash. There were Indians that ran away, The chief was incredulous, and yet he drinking in this latest and most wonder geography. dreary London and gay Vienna and Rome. llearn Norton from from Sound, King Island and when they were caught they were wavered. He hed seen too many deviltries ful deviltry of the fur thieves. And once more he saw that wild group of and St. Lawrence Island, from Cape brought back and sprcadengled before the of the fur thieves that worked. He could Put first," the Tole added, hastily, youths who had dreamed, even as he, the Prince of Wales and Point Parrow. Suchfort, where they, and their tribe learned doubt. jjbolly become the veriest Least ah, that was what wai so terrible. There had leen no change to escape. From the beginning, when he dreamed the fiery dream of Poland's independence, he v- . . i. t I V - .1 r ! f Fen.-itiv- - chip. e. ! . ! i t j - I.- ot n-If- e I , i'des, e. l2t - "What do you want with the girl?" a.uk asked. "To go do"n the river with me." Subienkow glanced her over critically. "She will make a good wife, and it is an honor worthy of my medicine to be married to your blood." Again he remembered the singer and dancer and hummed aloud a song she had taught him. He lived the old life over, but in a detached, impersonal sort of way, looking at the memory pictures of his own life as if they were pictured in he chiefs a book of anybody's life. voice, abruptly breaking the silence, startled him. "It shall be done," said Makamuk. "The girl shall go down the river with you. Put be it understood that I myself strike the three blows with the axe on your neck." "Put each time I shall put on the medicine," Subienkow answered, with a show of ill concealed anxiety. "You shall put the medicine on after each blow. Here are the hunters who shall 6ee you do not escape. Go into the forest and gather your medicine." Makamuk had been convinced of the worth of the medicine by the pole's rapacity. Surely nothing less than the greatest of medicines could enable a man in the shadow of death to stand up and drive an old woman's bargain. "Resides," whispered Yakaga, when the Pole, with his guard, had disappeared among the spruce trees, "when you have learned the medicine you can easily de- fr" -- stroy him." ."Put how can I destroy him?" Makamuk argued. "His medicine will not let me destroy him." "There will be some part' where he has not rubbed the medicine," was Yakaga's reply. "We will destroy him through that part. It may be his ears. Very well; we will thrust a spear in one ear and' out the other. Or it may be his eyes. Surely the medicine will be much too strong to rub on his eyes." The chief nodded. "You are wise, Y'akaga. If he possesses no other devil things we will "It is well." Subienkow looked about him at the circle of savage faces, that somehow seemed to symbolize the wall of savagery that had hemmed him about ever since the Tsar's police had first arrested him in Warsaw. "Take your axe, Makamuk, and stand so. I shall lie down. When J 'raise my hand, strike, and strike with all your might. And be careful that no one stands behind you. The medicine is good, and the axe may bounce from off my neck and right out of your hands." He looked at the two sleds, with the dogs in harness, loaded with furs and fish. His rifle lay on top the beaver skins. The six hunters who were to act as his guard stood by the sleds. "Where is the girl?" the Pole demanded. "Bring her up to the sled before the test goes on. When this had been carried out, Subien kow lay down in the snow, resting his head on the log like a tired child about to sleep. He had lived so many dreary yeara that he was indeed tired. "I laugh at you and your strength, O Makamuk," "Strike, and strike he-sai- d. hard !" He lifted his hand. Makamuk swung the axe, a broad axe for the squaring of logs. The bright steel flashed throuch the frosty air, poised foi: a perceptible instant aboTe Makamuk's head, then descended Clear upon Subienkow's bare neck. thr' gh flesh and hone it cut its way, biting deeply into the log beneath. The amazed savages saw the head bounce a yard awi.y from the blood spouting trunk. There was a great bewilderment and silence, while slowly it began to dawn in their minds that there had been no medicine. The fur thief had outwitted them. Alone of all their prisoners he had escaped the torture. That had been the stake for which he played. A great roar of laughter went up. Makamuk oowed his head in .shame. The fur thief had fooled him. He had" lost face'before all his people. Still they continued to roar out their laughter. Makamuk turned and with bowed head stalked away. He knew that thencefortk he would no longer be known as Makamuk. He would be Lost Face the record f his shame would be with him until he died, and whenever the tribes gathered in the spring for the salmon or in the summer for the trading the story would pass hack and forth across the camp fires of how the fur thief died peaceably at a single stroke by the hand of Lost Face. "Who was Lost Face?" he could hear in anticipation some insolent young buck demand. "Oh, Lost Face," would be the answer, "he who once was Makamuk, in the days before he cut off the fur thief '0 lhead." - |