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Johnny would stand little show with him in a duel, good as his automatic was. But the man came on with a jaunty swing that somehow was reassuring. Who could he be? As he came close, he dropped his rifle on his sled and approached with empty hands. "I am Iyok-ok," he said in good English, at the same time thrusting out his hand. "I was an American soldier, an Eskimo.
"Now," said Johnny, seating himself on a rusty pan, as the Russian went shuffling out of the mine, "tell me why you didn't let me kill him." "Can't tell," was Iyok-ok's laconic reply. "Why?" "Not now. Sometime, maybe. Not now." "Look here," said Johnny savagely, "that man has tried to kill me or have me killed, three times, is it not so?" Iyok-ok did not answer.
But the time had come to act. "Well, then," Johnny grunted, whipping out his automatic, "for your sake I'll do it." Three times the automatic barked its vicious challenge. The mob paused and waited silently. Out of this silence there came a voice. It was the voice of Iyok-ok by Johnny's side. Through cupped hands, he was speaking calmly to the natives.
I'll have to wait or go on alone, that's all." He entered the igloo, and tried again to become interested in his book, but his mind kept returning to the strange friendship which had grown up between the three of them, Iyok-ok, the Jap girl and himself. The Jap girl had proved a good sport indeed. She might have ridden all the time, but she walked as far in a day as they did.
Mingled with these were picks, pans, steam thawers, windlasses, and great piles of sluice timber. All these last named were for mining placer gold. "Quartz too?" asked Johnny. "Plenty of quartz," grinned Iyok-ok. "Come out here, I will show you." They stepped outside.
It fairly made him sick to think of it. But, at last, his mind wandered back to the many mysteries which had been straightened out not one bit by these events of the day. Here he was traveling with two companions, a Jap girl and an Eskimo. Eskimo? Right there he began to wonder if Iyok-ok, as he called himself, was really an Eskimo after all.
It was not his own suit; it had been borrowed from his host, a husky young hunter of East Cape. But that was not his reason for smiling. He was amused at the thought of the preposterous misunderstanding which his traveling companions had concerning him. Only the day before he had exclaimed: "Iyok-ok, I believe I have guessed why the Russian wants to kill me." "Why?"
"See that old man there?" he asked Hanada, whom he still called Iyok-ok when speaking to him. "Communism isn't so bad for him after all." Hanada squinted at him curiously without speaking. "Of course, you know," said Johnny, "what these people have here is the communal form of government, or the tribal form. Everything belongs to the tribe. They own it in common.
Dismissing this question, his mind dwelt upon the events of the past few days. Twice he had been begged not to kill the Russian. This last time he most decidedly would have been justified in putting a bullet into the rascal's brain. He had been prevented from doing so by Iyok-ok. Why? "Anyway," he said to himself, yawning, "I'm glad I didn't do it. It's nasty business, this killing people.
"He thinks I am a member of the United States Secret Service." "Well? The boy had looked him squarely in the eye as much as to say, "Who could doubt that?" At first Johnny had been inclined to assure Iyok-ok that there was no truth in the assumption, but the more he thought of it, the better he was satisfied with things as they were.
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