Stampede blazed
away with his forty-five, and Alan felt the thrill of it and emptied the
magazine of his gun, the detonations of revolver and rifle drowning the
chorus of sound that came from the range. A second rocket answered them.
Two columns of flame leaped up from the earth as huge fires gained
headway, and Alan could hear the shrill chorus of children's voices
mingling with the vocal tumult of men. All the people of his range were
there. They had come in from the timber-naked plateaux and high ranges
where the herds were feeding, and from the outlying shacks of the
tundras to greet him. Never had there been such a concentration of
effort on the part of his people. And Mary Standish was behind it all!
He knew he was fighting against odds when he tried to keep that fact
from choking up his heart a little.
He had not heard what Stampede was saying--that he and Amuk Toolik and
forty kids had labored a week gathering dry moss and timber fuel for the
big fires. There were three of these fires now, and the tom-toms were
booming their hollow notes over the tundra as Alan quickened his steps.
Over a little knoll, and he was looking at the buildings of the range,
wildly excited figures running about, women and children flinging moss
on the fires, the tom-tom beaters squatted in a half-circle facing the
direction from which he would come, and fifty Chinese lanterns swinging
in the soft night-breeze.
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