The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1922-07-07
THE INDIAN DRUM
By William Macfiarg and Edwin Balmer
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her with his snowshoes. He moved
forward slowly; he could travel, If he
had wished, three feet to every two
that she could cover, but he seemed
not wishing for speed but rather for
delay. A deep, dull resonance was
booming above the wood; 1t doomed
again and ran into a rhythm. No
longer was 1t above; at least 1t was not
only above; it was all about them
here, there, to right and to left, before,
behind-the booming of the Drum.
Doom was the substance of that sound
of the Drum beating the roll of the
dead.
| Henry had stopped In front of her,
half turned her way; his body swayed
and bent to the booming Of the Drum,
as his swollen lips counted its sound
ings. She could see him plainly in the
moonlight, yet she drew nearer to him
as she followed his count. Twenty
one" he ted-''Twenty-two" The
drum was still going on. Twenty
four-twenty-five- Would
he count another?
| He did not; and her pulses, which
had halted, leaped with relief. He
moved on again, descending the steep
side Of little ravine, and she fol-
lowed. One of his snowshoes caught
in a protruding root and, instead of
slowing to free it with care, he pulled
it violently out, and she heard the dry,
seasoned wood crack. He looked down,
swore; saw that the wood was not
broken through and went on; but as
he reached the bottom of the slope, she
leaped downward from a little height
| behind him and crashed down upon his
trailing snowshoe just behind the heel.
The rending snap of the wood came
| beneath her feet. Had she broken
through his shoe or snapped her own?
She sprang back, as he cried out and
swung in an attempt to grasp her; he
lunged to follow her, and she ran a
few steps away and stopped. At his
| next step his foot eItangled in the
mesh of the broken snOwshoe, and he
stopped, cursing, to strip it off and
hurl it from him; then he tore off the
one from the other foot, and threw it
away, and lurched after her again; but
now he sank above his knees and foun-
dered In the snow. She stood for a
moment while the half-mad. half
| drunken figure struggled toward her
along the side of the ravine; then she
| ran to where the tree trunks hid her
from him. He gained the top Of the
slope and turned in the direction she
had gone; assured then, apparently,
that she had flown in fear of him, he
started back more swiftly toward the
beach. She followed, keeping out of
his sight among the trees.
| To twenty-six, he had counted-to
| twenty-siX, each time! That told that
he knew one was living among those
who had been upon the ferry! What
| one? 1t could only be one of two to
dismay him so; there had been only
| two on the ferry whose rescue he had
feared; only two who, living, he would
have let lie upon this beach which he
had chosen and set aside for his pa
troll while he waited for him to die
She forced herself on, unsparingly,
as she saw Henry gain the shore and
as, believing himself alone, he hurried
northward. She could not rest; she
could not let herself be exhausted.
raced him thus A dark shape-a fig
ure lay stretched upon the ice ahead !!
Beyond and still farther out, some
| thing which seemed the fragments of
| lifeboat tossed up and down where
| the waves Numbered and cleaned at
the edge of the foe.
Henry's pace quickened; hers quick
ened desperately, too. She left the
shelter of the trees and scrambled
down the steep pitch of the bluff,
shouting, crying aloud. Henry turned
about and saw her; he halted, and she
passed him with, rush and got be-
tween him and the form upon the ice,
before she turned and faced him.
Defeat-defeat of whatever purpose
| he had had--was his now that she was
there to witness what he might do; and
| in his realization of that, he burst out
| in oaths against her He advanced !;
she stood, confronting swayed
slightly in his walk and swung past
her and away; he went past those
things on the beach and kept on along
the ice hummocks toward the north.
She ran to the huddled figure of the
man in mackinaw and cap; his face
was hidden partly by the position in
which he lay and partly by the drift
| ing snow; but, before she swept the
snow away and turned him to her, she
knew that he was Alan.
She cried to him and, when he did
not answer, she shook him to get him
awake; but she could not rouse him.
she opened his jacket and felt within
his clothes; he was warm-at least he
| was not frozen within! No; and there
+, seemed some stir of his heartI She
tried to lift him, to carry him; then TO
drag him. But she could not; he fell
from her arms into the snow again,
and she sat down, pulling him upon
her lap and clasping him to her.
She must have aid, she must get him
to some house, she must take him out
of the terrible cold; but dared she
leave him? Might Henry return. if she
went away? She arose and looked
about. Far up the shore she saw his
figure rising and falling with his flight
over the rough ice. A sound came to
her, too, the low, deep reverberation of
the Drum beating once more along the
shore and in the woods and out upon
the lake; and it seemed to her that
Henry's figure, in the stumbling steps