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Updated: June 22, 2025
The reindeer Chukches, whose sled deer they had borrowed, might be upon them at any moment, and that, Johnny felt sure, would result in an unpleasant mixup. Yet he had been utterly unable to get the little Oriental girl and Iyok-ok to go on. Why? He could only guess. There were a great many other things he could only guess at.
"Long before the Eskimos of Alaska thought of herding the reindeer, short-haired deerskin and soft, spotted fawn-skins were traded across Bering Straits and far up along the Alaskan coast. These skins came from the camps of the Reindeer Chukches of Siberia.
She was seated in her igloo sewing a garment of eider duck skins, when three rough-looking Chukches entered and, without ceremony, told her by signs that she must accompany them. She was conducted to the largest igloo in the village. This she found crowded with natives, mostly men. She was led to the center of the floor, which was vacant, the natives being ranged round the sides of the place.
They hastened away to seas unknown, not to return for months. The little mail steamer came hooting its way around the Point. It brought a letter of the utmost importance to Marian. While in Nome the summer before she had made some hasty sketches of the Chukches, natives of the Arctic coast of Siberia, while they camped on the beach there on a trading voyage in a thirty-foot skin-boat.
And the Russian, why was he traveling so far north? What possible interests could he have here? Was he, too, planning to cross the Strait to America? Or was he in search of wealth hidden away in this frozen land? "The furs! I'll bet that's it!" Johnny slapped his knee. "This Russian has come north to demand tribute for his government from the hunting Chukches.
Their grimy hands itched for a touch of that flying girlish figure. Though she was a good quarter mile in the lead she was hampered by the articles she carried. Certain young Chukches, too, were noted for their speed. Could she make it?
He was inclined to believe that he had had much to do with that harpoon episode as well as the murder attempted by the reindeer Chukches. "By Jove!" the American boy suddenly slapped his knee. "The knife, the two knives exactly alike. One he tried to use in the street fight at Vladivostok; the other he must have given to the reindeer Chukche to use on anyone who might follow him."
This really being the signal for greater speed, the deer had bolted across the tundra, at last spilling Johnny and his load of Chukche plunder over a cutbank. This procedure did not please the Chukches, and Johnny was not given a second opportunity to drive.
Instantly her eyes searched the frowning faces about her for a clue to this move. She soon found it. In the throng, she recognized five of the reindeer Chukches, members of that band which had attempted to murder Johnny Thompson and herself. Their presence startled her.
"Boiling hooch." Johnny knew in a moment what she meant. "Hooch" was whisky, moonshine. Many times he had heard of this vicious liquor which the Eskimos and Chukches concocted by boiling sourdough, made of molasses, flour and yeast.
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