"A. E. Merritt - Dwellers in the mirage" - читать интересную книгу автора (Merritt A. E)

"Yes. why?"

"I'll tell you after we've had breakfast," I said--I'm not so quick in
thinking up lies. "Rustle up a fire, Jim. I'll go down to the stream
and get some water."

"Degataga!"

I started. It was only in moments of rare sympathy or in time of peril
that he used the secret name.

"Degataga, you go north! You go if I have to march ahead of you to make
you follow. . ." he dropped into the Cherokee. . . . "It is to save
your spirit, Degataga. Do we march together--blood-brothers? Or do you
creep after me--like a shivering dog at the heels of the hunter?"

The blood pounded in my temples, my hand went out toward him. He
stepped back, and laughed.

"That's better, Leif."

The quick rage left me, my hand fell.

"All right, Tsantawu. We go--north. But it wasn't--it wasn't because of
myself that I told you I'd changed my mind."

"I know damned well it wasn't!"

He busied himself with the fire. I went after the water. We drank the
strong black tea, and ate what was left of the little brown storks they
call Alaskan turkeys which we had shot the day before. When we were
through I began to talk.




CHAPTER II.



RING OF THE KRAKEN


Three years ago, so I began my story, I went into Mongolia with the
Fairchild expedition. Part of its work was a mineral survey for certain
British interests, part of it ethnographic and archeological research
for the British Museum and the University of Pennsylvania.

I never had a chance to prove my value as a mining engineer. At once I
became good-will representative, camp entertainer, liaison agent