Panther Eye

dra, the hills, everything, blotted out by a blinding, whirling blizzard. It was such a storm as one experiences only in the Arctic. The

ssed of singular presence of mind, he settled himself in the lee of a snow bank and waited. In time, a pencil of yellow light came jabbing its way through the leaden darkness. His comp

piled in ridges. Ten, fifteen, twenty feet high, these ridges extended down the hillsides and along the tu

Johnny when the tunnel was finished

wiped out every trace of his struggle with the men and every track of the cat. But the native village? Might he not discov

w sixty or seventy. What could this mean? Could it be that the men who had attacked him but a few days before were among these new arrivals? At first, he was tempted to turn back. But

wn the snow-packed streets

soon seated on the sleeping platform of the large igloo, with the chief sit

kche," sa

Too many! Too many,"

ted for hi

you think? Want'a dance and sing all a times these Chukche. No want'a hunt.

y can live off the whit

shot him a s

," he

plenty grub now. Many white men. Many months all a time work, no come op

, "What you think? Twenty igloo mine. That one chief mine. Many igloos not mine. No

the families of the village; that the others were under another chief; that he could tell them to hun

eside them with the notion that they would be able to trade for or beg the food which he had stored in his ware

od ones too-high power hunting rifles for big game-lever action, automatic. In every igloo he found men stretched out asleep, and this on

the igloos did he see a single person resembling, in the least

omewhere in these hills there was hiding away a company of Orient

hen, on coming out of his storeroom, he fou

-cow," the

(enough), s

sack fl

y, closing and l

thin an hour. With him was a boy. Between them they carried t

an said, point

to barter for the tusk. He yielded. The

more of the natives came sneaking about the cab

skeleton form into the igloos of the improvid

ew deer might be obtained, he began trading sparingly with the coast natives. They had little to trade, and the little he could spare would only postpone th

day. Indications were that in a very few days they would be mining the mother-lode from that digging and would be storing away pure gol

ad located some immense tusks of extinct monsters, a short distance inland. He begged Johnny to go with hi

sun to-morrow, I

" said Pant, when t

want to," s

he three men started on their

ch of tundra. At the distant border of the tundra towered high cliffs, flanked

rk creatures moving among the rocks. The distance was too gre

s for Pant's companionship, that, after arriving at the cliffs, he

hispered the words as if afraid the extinct monster

low candle which gave forth

gh the vaulted cavern. Johnny could not help feeling that there were more than three men in th

sudden indistinguishable sound. Johnny thought it like the dropping of a smal

was like two steps taken in the dark. At the same instant, f

f natives." It was Pant. "When I knock the candle

e place where Pant's face should be. He caug

ht," he

spiral curve toward the floor and flickered