“Never saw him!”
“What? Never saw your grandfather? Say! That’s terrible. I had two of ’em. Grand old sports. Both gone now. Say! That’s great! And you’re going with me to hunt up your grandfather. That, why that’s like moving pictures. Going? Of course you’re going! Due to take off at nine a. m.” He slid off the stool, then held out a hand. “Glad to have met you. Meet you again right here at 8:30 tomorrow morning. Will you be here?”
Would she? If necessary she would form a one-man line and stand right here in the snow and cold until the sun rose and the clock said a half hour after eight.
Nothing very serious had happened to the blue and gray plane that was carrying Mary and her friends toward their home.
“A loose wire connection, that’s all,” the pilot explained as he read the worry wrinkles on the girl’s brow. “Have it fixed before you know it. And then—”
“Home,” Mary breathed. How she loved that word. Would she ever want to leave that home again?
A half hour later they were once again in the air. One more half hour and their skis touched the frozen surface of their own small lake.
“Welcome home,” Dave shouted as he came racing toward them. “Just in time for a feast. Tim Barber got a deer yesterday. We’re having a roast of it for dinner, your mother and—”
“And Madam Chicaski?”
“Oh, sure!” Dave laughed. “You couldn’t drive her away. And who’d want to? She’s been a splendid help to your mother, milked the cow, fed the horse, hauled wood, everything. And now,” he laughed, “I think she’s fixing to run a trap-line. From somewhere she’s dug out a lot of rusty traps and is shining them up.”
“Has she—” Mary hesitated.
“Revealed her secrets—copper kettle, golden candlesticks, all that? Not a word.
“But Mary,” Dave took both her hands. “How good it is to see you back.”
“I—I’m glad to be back, David,” Mary blushed in spite of herself.
“And how about me?” Bill demanded in a bantering tone. “You should be glad I’m back.”
“We are, Bill,” Mrs. Hughes said with a friendly smile. “Awfully glad to have you back.”
“But you’ll not have me long. Boo!” Bill shuddered. “I’m off with the wild birds for a warmer climate.”
“You’ll be back, Bill,” the elder McQueen rumbled. “You’ve been a pioneer for a summer. After that you may not want to be a pioneer, but you’ll be one all the same. The snow-peaked mountains, the timber that turns to green in spring and gold in autumn, the lure of gold, the call of the wild will bring you back.”
“I don’t know about that.” For once Bill’s face took on a sober look.
Turning about, Mrs. Hughes led them all, like a brood of chicks, to the cabin where the delicious odor of roast venison greeted their nostrils. Over that venison, now turning it, now testing, and now turning again, large, silent, mysterious, hovered Madam Chicaski.
“So you’re going to Nome by plane?” the eyes of Mrs. Maver, Florence’s gray-haired hostess at Anchorage, shone. “Going with the Bowmans? Why, that’s splendid. They are old friends of ours. We knew them before they went to Nome. I must have them over to dinner.” And she did.
“So you’re going north with us?” Mrs. Bowman, a round, jolly person, beamed on Florence as they entered the small parlor to await the announcement of dinner. “Never been there before, have you?”
“No, I—”
“You’ll enjoy it. Why, you’re just the sort of girl for that country. Healthy! Look at her cheeks, John,” Mrs. Bowman turned to her husband.
“You’d make a grand prospector,” Mr. Bowman, a large, ruddy-faced man, laughed. “Going after gold, I suppose.”
“I—I might,” Florence admitted timidly. “But first I must find my grandfather.”
“Your grandfather?” Mrs. Bowman stared at her. “Is he in Nome?”
“Yes, I—”
“Look, John!” Mrs. Bowman broke in excitedly. “This is Tom Kennedy’s granddaughter. She, why, she’s the living image of him!”
“You are right, my dear,” the husband admitted.
“Oh! And do I truly look like him?” Florence’s mind went into a wild whirl. “I am his granddaughter, but who’d have thought—”
“That we could tell it? That is strange. But such things do happen. Shall we be seated?” Mrs. Bowman took a chair.
“Let me tell you,” she leaned forward, “your grandfather is a wonderful man, truly remarkable.”
“He—he is?” Florence stared. “I thought—”
“That he was just an old sourdough prospector,” Mr. Bowman put in. “Not a bit of it. He is a prospector, has been for thirty-five years. Found gold once and lost it again to save his partner’s life. Yes, a prospector, but a long beard, hair to the shoulders, beer guzzler always dreaming about the past? Not a bit of it! Tom Kennedy is young, young as a boy. Keen as any youngster, too.”
“And clean,” Mrs. Bowman put in. “Never drinks a drop. I don’t think he even smokes.
“Just now,” her voice dropped to conversational tone, “he’s doing a truly wonderful thing. He’s got the notion that our young people are growing soft.”
“They are, too,” Mr. Bowman grumbled.
“Tom Kennedy’s trying to bring back some of our glorious past, dog-teams, long, moonlit trails, the search for gold. He’s trying to interest the young people in all that,” added Mrs. Bowman.
“He’s doing it, too,” Bowman nodded his head. “Look at the dog race. They really think they’ll win,” he laughed good-naturedly. “Of course they won’t. Smitty Valentine’s going to beat ’em, by an hour or two. Good thing to have them try, though.”
“You see,” Mrs. Bowman explained, “we have an annual dog race. It ends with a big feast in honor of the winner. Your grandfather has gotten the young people interested in that race, made them think they can win. They’ve put their best dogs together into a team. A boy named Jodie Joleson is going to drive it. I surely wish they could win. But this man, Smitty Valentine, who is backed by all the pool halls and men’s clubs in town, has won so many years hand running, that we’ve lost track.”
“Belongs to the Sourdough Club,” Bowman explained. “Sort of old timers’ club.”
“And now these young people have what they call the ‘Fresh Dough Club’ of young timers,” Mrs. Bowman laughed.
“And now I think you may all come in and sit down at the table.” It was their hostess who brought to an end this—to Florence—amazing revelation.
“So that is what he’s like,” she whispered to herself. “How strange! How wonderful! And yet—”
It was a sober Florence who, after sending word to her cousins regarding this, her proposed journey, climbed aboard the large gray monoplane. “This,” she was thinking, “is to be my most exciting adventure. I wonder how it will end?” How indeed? Seldom does a girl go in search of her grandfather. And how her ideas of that grandfather had changed! She had always known, in a sketchy manner, the story of her grandfather’s life. A big, boisterous, fun-loving youth, little more than a boy, he had loved and married a beautiful, frail girl from a proud well-to-do family. That girl became Florence’s grandmother.
Tom Kennedy was not loved by his wife’s parents. They made life hard for him. When at last life under his own roof became unbearable, he had found escape by joining the gold rush to Alaska.
Alaska brought more hardships, cold, hunger, and disappointment. And after that, months on the way, a letter reached him, saying that his wife was dead and that, without his consent, her parents had adopted his only child, a girl. That girl had been Florence’s mother.
From that day, Tom Kennedy was lost to the outside world. “But Alaska,” Florence thought, with a tightening at the throat, “Alaska, it would seem, came to know and love him. And now—”
Ah, yes—and now. She had always thought of Tom Kennedy as a typical prospector, like Malcomb Dale, who had lured Bill from his ranch. And now here he was, not rich, but loved and respected. She was going to him. The large gray plane, drumming steadily onward, carried her over broad stretches of timber, frozen lakes, arms of the sea, on and on and on, toward Tom Kennedy, her grandfather. And how would he receive her?
The answer to this question came when, four days later, a little breathless, but quite determined, she stood at the door of a weather-beaten cabin, on the outskirts of Nome.
“Come in!” a large, hearty voice roared.
It was with uncertain movements that she lifted the iron latch, pushed the door open and stepped inside.
“I—I beg your pardon, Miss.” A tall man, with keen gray eyes that matched his well-trimmed beard, rose hastily to his feet. “I thought it was one of the boys. And it’s you, a stranger and a girl.”
“Not a stranger,” the girl’s voice was low with emotion. “I—I am Florence Huyler, your granddaughter.”
The effect on the old man was strange. Taking a step backward, he drew a hand across his face, then spoke as in a dream:
“My granddaughter? No! It cannot be. And yet, it could be so. I had a wife. She was beautiful.... I loved her.... She died.... All this was long ago. I could not go back. The call of gold got me, and—
“So you are my granddaughter,” his voice changed. The notion seemed unreal but pleasing to him. “My granddaughter! How strange!”
“They say,” Florence tried to smile, “that we look alike.”
“That so?” Tom Kennedy looked at her long and earnestly. “Big for a girl,” he murmured. “You look strong as a man.”
“I am,” Florence admitted frankly.
At that, Tom Kennedy looked at himself in a glass by the window. “Yes,” his eyes brightened, “yes, we do look alike. Welcome, child! Welcome to your grandfather’s cabin.” Seizing her hand, he held it for a moment with a grip that hurt.
“One more member for that gang of young pirates that haunt this cabin of mine,” he laughed. “You must meet them all, meet them and get to know them. They’re a fine lot, my gang. First thing I know you’ll be their leader, I’m bound. You’re a Kennedy and that means a lot.”
“Yes,” Florence replied with a smile, “I am sure it means a very great deal.”
And so it was that Florence found her grandfather, and at once a whole new wonderful life opened up for her.
“Such a delicious odor!” Florence exclaimed. With the prompt reactions of buoyant youth, she made herself at home in her grandfather’s cabin. Now, being hungry, she began sniffing the air.
“Mulligan stew,” the old man explained. “It’s done to a turn. Never a better one made. Prime young reindeer meat, bacon, evaporated potatoes, fresh onions, a spoonful of dried eggs, a pound of red beans, pepper, salt, fresh seal oil. Guess that’s about all there is in it. Hungry?” he smiled down at her.
“I’m always hungry,” Florence smiled.
Taking a huge bowl from the cupboard in the corner, Tom Kennedy filled it to the brim. Into an equally huge cup was poured steaming black coffee. “We’re healthy up here,” he explained. “We can take it straight.”
“So can I,” Florence gulped down a burning draught.
“Um—um,” she breathed a moment later as she tasted the stew. “I can cook a little, but not like that.”
“It comes,” said the old man, his words slow and melodious, “comes with time. I’ve been in the North thirty-five years.” The expression on his face changed. His thoughts, Florence told herself, must be far away.
She tried to read those thoughts, to discover whether they had to do with his boyhood days and his frail, child-wife who had died long ago, or with gray mountains, long trails, whirling snow and the lost mine.
Her thoughts were suddenly broken in upon by a breezy figure who appeared to have been blown through the door by a gust of wind.
A ruddy-faced youth, he was, garbed in a blue drill parka that looked like a slip-over dress, corduroy trousers and sealskin boots.
“Hi, Pop!” he exclaimed, not seeing the girl. “Great stuff today. Did fifty miles an’ cut twenty minutes off the time. I—
“Hey, you! Stay out!” he shouted suddenly as a half dozen great gray-brown beasts came tumbling into the room. They struck the young man with such force that he was suddenly thrown into the corner where Florence sat.
“I—I beg pardon,” he stammered. “I didn’t know—”
“Jodie, meet my granddaughter, Florence Huyler.” Wrinkles of amusement appeared about Tom Kennedy’s eyes.
“Your—your granddaughter!” the young man’s eyes opened wide. “Why, Pop, we didn’t know you had a living relative!”
“Neither did I, son. Not until just now. She dropped down from the sky.
“Jodie, here,” Tom Kennedy turned to Florence, “is the uncrowned king of Alaskan dog-mushers.”
“Yeah,” Jodie drawled, “crown’s likely to get a trifle tarnished before I get to wear it.”
“Jodie Joleson,” there was a ring of enthusiasm in the girl’s voice. “I’ve heard of you.”
“Where?” he stared.
“Anchorage.”
“Way down there! How fame does travel,” he replied in mock seriousness.
“Tell me, Grandfather,” Florence faced about. “Did a girl ever win your dog race?”
“What? A girl?” the old man stared.
“Of course not,” Jodie answered for him.
“Why so certain?” Florence gave the young man a look.
“Well, you see—see,” he hesitated, “it’s a long race, hundred miles and back. How could she?”
“I—I was just wondering. You see, I’m new to the country,” Florence half apologized. There remained in her eyes, quite unobserved by her companions, a peculiar gleam that might mean almost anything.
The days that followed were the strangest, most thrilling of Florence Huyler’s young life. Because she was Tom Kennedy’s granddaughter, she was taken at once into the very heart of the young set of Nome. A bright, jolly, carefree, healthy crowd she found them to be. She might, had she so chosen, have risen at once to a place of leadership among them. She did not choose. A natural, friendly girl, she loved being a member of some jolly gang, but being their leader, ah! that was quite another matter. She was not ambitious in this way.
She might, had she wished it, have been wined and dined from morning to night, for, of all the sociable, good-time-loving people, the dwellers of Alaska belong at the top. This she did not choose. From time to time she joined in some quiet evening affair. For the most part, two subjects held the center of her every waking thought, her grandfather and the coming annual dog race.
On stormy days she enjoyed lying stretched out on a couch before the glowing fire, while Tom Kennedy in his low, musical voice that rumbled like a drum, told of his days on Arctic trails. Always and always she listened for the story that would, she knew, hold her spellbound, the story of his lost mine. Day after day passed and he made no mention of it. More than once she bit her lips to keep from suggesting it. Always her question remained unasked. She could wait.
On bright days she might have been seen trotting along after Jodie Joleson’s dog sled. At first the boy appeared to resent that. She could almost hear him say, “A girl! Sooner or later she’ll go too far, play out, then I’ll have to haul her home.”
To his vast astonishment and final utter admiration, he found that she did not tire.
Florence, as you will know if you have read about her, was far from a weakling. From a small child she had gloried in strength and health. No slender waist line acquired on a diet of pickles and nut sundaes for her. She gloried in all of life, good things to eat, long nights of sleep, and now, most of all, long, long trails.
One day, when a storm was coming in from the northwest, Jodie deliberately took the trail that leads up the coast, then over the bitter wind-blown flats of Tissue River.
By the time they reached those flats, the whole narrow valley was a mad whirl of snow. Without a word to the girl, Jodie headed his dogs straight into the storm and shouted one word:
“Mush!”
Magnificent beasts that they were, they sprang into the harness. Their speed redoubled, they leaped forward.
Plop-plop-plop, went Jodie’s skin boots on the hard-packed snow. Fainter, yet unmistakable, came the girl’s trotting footsteps behind him.
The storm grew wilder. The team, striking a stretch of glare-ice, was blown straight across it to pile up in a heap on the other side. Without a word Jodie disentangled them. Then, turning to the girl, he said, “Cheek’s froze. Take off your mitten and thaw it out with your hand.”
“Thanks,” Florence smiled as best she could. “Yours too are frozen. If you don’t mind, I’ll do yours first.”
His hand went hastily to his cheek, then he chuckled, “O. K. You win.”
Five minutes more and they were again battling the storm.
For two full hours, with the wind tearing at their parkas and the frost biting their cheeks, they battled onward. Then, of a sudden, the dogs took a sharp turn, climbed a ridge, dropped down into a valley, and they were out of the storm.
“You—you’re a better man than I am, Gungadin!” Jodie panted.
“Do you really think I’m good?” there was a note of suppressed eagerness in the girl’s voice.
“Sure you are!” the boy exclaimed. “Of course you are. Why?”
“Oh! I was just thinking,” she evaded. “You—you know, everybody wants to be good at things,” she added rather lamely. “But look!” she exclaimed, “your face is frozen again!”
“So is yours. My turn for thawing out.” His mitten was off, his warm hand on her cheek.
And thus Florence won Jodie’s complete approval.
That night the girl learned the joyous comfort of a long-haired deer skin sleeping-bag in a road house bunk. She slept the sleep of the just while the storm roared on.
Next day, with the wind down and the sun creeping low above the jagged outline of snow-topped mountains, they journeyed slowly homeward, Florence, Jodie, and the racing team.
Of all the girls in the Fresh-Dough Club, Florence liked Alene Bowman best. Alene was quiet and, for a girl of the North, very modest. She was greatly interested in the social events of the season and especially in the annual dog race.
“There’s one thing I’d like to ask you,” Florence said to her, the day after her return from that trip up the coast. “What do you think would happen if a girl entered the race?”
“What?” Alene stared for a space of ten seconds. “Why, nothing, I guess. This is the North, you know. You thinking of going in?”
“No-o,” Florence spoke slowly. “Of course, I wouldn’t go in against Jodie, unless—”
“Unless you felt sure he couldn’t win and that perhaps you could,” Alene suggested.
“Yes—yes, that’s just it!” the large girl exclaimed. “It means a great deal to you young folks, that race.”
“A terrible lot.”
“And if I should go in and win—”
“You’d be the girl of the hour. Then, why, we’d ride you in triumph on our shoulders.”
“Good, broad shoulders,” Florence smiled. “And you don’t think of me as an outsider?”
“Certainly not. Anyone related to Pop Kennedy just couldn’t be an outsider. Besides, you’re a member of the club, aren’t you?”
“Thanks—I—I just sort of wanted to know. I’ll be going.” Florence turned away.
“No. Wait. There’s something father told me last night. You pass it on to Jodie if I don’t see him first. Tell him to keep a good watch on his dogs. There are things they do, you know, dope them or something, that slows them up.”
“But that old-timer rival of his, Smitty, wouldn’t do that?” Florence was shocked.
“No. Not Smitty. He’s a real sport. Win fair or not at all. So are the others going in, Scot Jordan and Sinrock Charlie. They’ll play fair.”
“Then what—?”
“There are some foreigners, quite a lot of them, all through the North, Syrians, Russians, and Japs. They are gamblers by trade. They’re getting up books on the race. They’re gambling heavily on Smitty to win. And father says there’s nothing they won’t do.”
“All right, I’ll tell Jodie.”
“That,” Florence thought, as she made her way home, “is all the more reason why we should have another team in the field. But where is it to come from?” Where indeed? In these days when both passengers and freight are carried by airplanes, really fine dog teams are becoming all too rare in the North. This Florence had learned from Tom Kennedy’s own lips.
Strangely enough, as if an answer to a prayer, in the van of a storm, the very team blew into town that same afternoon. Florence first saw them as they came tumbling over a high snow bank at the outskirts of the city. The sled as well as its driver piled up with the dogs. When Florence had helped them to right themselves, she found herself staring in admiration at a beautiful Eskimo girl, garbed in a handsome fawn skin parka, and at the grandest team of gray Siberian wolfhounds she had ever seen.
“Your dogs?” she managed to ask.
“No—me,” the girl showed all her fine teeth in a smile. “My brother’s dogs. Il-ay-ok my brother.”
“You mean Mr. Il-ay-ok is your brother?” Like a flash Florence saw the little man dressed in white man’s clothes on the dock at Anchorage.
“Il-ay-ok my brother,” the girl nodded.
“And these are his dogs?”
“Yes! Sure! Sure! His dogs. You wan-to ride?”
“Yes—yes, I’d love to.”
When Florence had found what she wanted she was a fast worker. This girl At-a-tak, she learned, had driven in from Cape Prince of Wales. She would stay in Nome with friends until her brother returned by airplane from his journey. Yes, she would be pleased to loan her brother’s dog team to the big white girl until they were needed. How long would that be? She did not know.
Florence had learned from her friends at Nome that Il-ay-ok had gone on an important commission in the interest of his people. She knew, too, that it had to do with reindeer. The Bowmans had told her this much. They had assured her also that, though they were large herders of reindeer, they were entirely in sympathy with Il-ay-ok and his purposes.
“Those men who are trying to edge in on the reindeer business,” Mr. Bowman had said with a gesture of disgust, “are rank outsiders. They know nothing of native problems and care less. They will rob the people of their last reindeer if they can.”
Knowing all this, Florence, whose sympathy went out freely to all simple, kindly people, wished Mr. Il-ay-ok a successful conclusion of his mission and a speedy journey home. For all that, she could not help hoping that he might not arrive until after the race was over, for now, with this wonderful team at her command, she was resolved to spend many hours each day on the trail and, if occasion seemed to warrant it, to venture in where no girl had dared venture before.
Two hours later she was again at Alene Bowman’s door. “Don’t tell a soul!” she implored, after she had told how she had come into possession of the gray team. “Not a single soul.”
“Not a single soul,” Alene echoed. “Cross my heart and hope to die.” And Alene could keep a secret.
Every day after that Florence, behind her superb team, went for a “ride.” Each time she purposely drove through a well-populated section of the city. Always she wore a heavy deer skin parka and remained as far as eyes could see her seated on her sled with her team trotting along at a leisurely pace.
All was changed when at last a hill had hidden her from view. Leaping from her sled, she threw off the heavy parka, drew on a thin calico one and a squirrel skin cap and, seizing the handles of the sled, screamed:
“Mush! You mush!” This shout acted on the dog team like an electric shock. They shot away with the speed of the wind.
They were wise, were these dogs. Not four days had passed when her shout was no longer needed. Once the last house had disappeared from sight, Gray Chief, her dog leader, began cocking his ears. The instant her costume change was complete, without a word from the young driver, he was away.
“We’ll win,” she hissed more than once through tight-shut teeth. “Win it we must.”
At times she found Jodie looking at her in a strange way. Did he suspect her purpose? Did he imagine she would enter the race against him if his chances were good? She was very fond of Jodie. Not for all the world would she offend him. But she would not tell him of her plans, at least not for the present.
“Grandfather,” she said once when the two were alone, “is there a time limit for entering the race?”
“Entries must be in at noon of the day before the race,” he replied.
“Good!” the word escaped unbidden from her lips. He gave her a strange look, but said never a word.
That same day he told her the story of his lost mine, told how he and his partner had worked their way back, back, back into the mountains, how, having found traces of gold, they had built a cabin and how they had worked day after day until the strike came, when they found nuggets as large as marbles, a very few nuggets but promise of many more.
“That very night,” his voice dropped, “Joe was taken sick. It was serious. I made a sled and hauled him out. That was a battle. I froze, starved, and fought my way and,” his voice dropped, “and lost. Partner died. Never found the mine again.”
“Perhaps someone else found it,” she suggested.
“Nope,” there was a suggestion of mystery in his voice. “We hid it. Joe and I hid that mine.”
After that day, more than ever before, the girl wanted to go in search of that mine. Go where? Ah! that was the question.
The answer came two days later and in a rather strange manner. A young scientist, a member of the Geological Survey, showed her a series of enlarged photographs taken from the air.
“They cover hundreds of square miles back there in the great unknown,” he explained. “See! Rivers, lakes, tundra, mountains, everything.”
“Everything!” the girl had been struck with an idea. “Loan them to me for an hour.”
“Right,” the young man agreed. “Two hours if you like.”
Fifteen minutes later she tore into Tom Kennedy’s cabin acting like a mad person. Pushing a table into the kitchen, throwing chairs on the bed in the small back room, she at last cleared the living room floor. Then, while her grandfather stared she thumb-tacked sheet after sheet of paper to the floor until there was no longer room to stand.
“There,” she panted. “There it all is, mountains, lakes, rivers, tundra, everything. Here is Nome,” she pointed. “There is Sawtooth Mountain. Now, where was your mine?”
For a full quarter hour, as the tin clock in the corner ticked the minutes away, the gray-haired prospector’s eyes moved back and forth across that map, then, with a sudden gasp, he exclaimed:
“There it is! Right there. Well up on the middle fork of that river. I’d swear to it if it was the last word I ever said. Girl, you’re a wonder!” Suddenly he threw his long arms about her and kissed her on the cheek.
“Soon as that race is over we’re off,” he shouted, fairly beside himself with joy.
“Yes,” she agreed, “the race and then the long, long trail. Mountains, rivers, sunshine, storms, camp beneath a rocky ledge or in the midst of dark spruce trees. On and on, and then—”
“The mine,” he murmured. There was new fire in his fine old eyes.
In the meantime, life was not dull on “Rainbow Farm,” as Mary had lovingly named their little claim in the happy Matamuska valley. As winter came blowing in from the north, some settlers, discouraged by the too frank breezes that swept through their green log cabins, sold out and sailed for home. From these Mark purchased two fine flocks of chickens. These called for a snug log cabin chicken house, more work, and added hopes for the future.
Every one settled down to the routine of winter’s work, all but Madam Chicaski. She did the most unusual things and obtained the most astonishing results. Having polished and oiled her large pile of rusty traps, she one day threw them, a full hundred pounds, over her ample back, then disappeared over the nearest hill. She remained away until long after dark. Mary was beginning to worry about her when, all bent over with fatigue, but smiling as ever, she appeared empty-handed at the door.
After consuming a prodigious amount of cornmeal mush, she sat dreaming by the fire.
“Renewing her youth,” Mary whispered.
Mark nodded and smiled.
What was their surprise when three days later she appeared with five foxes, four minks and a dozen muskrats, all prime furs.
“For you a good long coat,” she held the muskrat skins before Mary’s eyes. “Bye and bye many more.
“And for you perhaps a cape,” she held up the mink skins as she nodded to Mrs. Hughes. “Who knows? The minks, they are harder to catch.”
“And the fox skins?” Mark asked.
“To buy more traps, always more traps,” was the big woman’s enthusiastic response.
“There is money in it,” Mark said to Dave McQueen next day.
“Yes, if she’ll show us the tricks,” Dave agreed.
“She will,” Mark declared. And she did. As Mark followed her about he saw how she cut snow thin as cardboard for concealing the traps, how she scattered drops of oil about to supply a scent leading to the traps, how she discovered a mink’s run at a river’s brink, and many other little secrets of the trapping world.
Soon both Mark and Dave were full-fledged trappers with trap lines running away and away into the hills.
Mary too was contributing her bit to the family’s wealth. The number of Speed Samson’s hunting trips with his airplane increased. He had come to relish the food served at Rainbow Farm. Knowing that his clients would enjoy it as well, and at the same time be charmed by the life there, he made a practice of dropping down upon their small lake. More often than not he brought his own supply of meat. A hunk of venison, a loin of a young moose, a leg of wild sheep, even brown bear steak went into pot or roasting pan to reappear as the deliciouspiece de resistanceof a bountiful meal. His clients got in the way of leaving a folded bank note beneath each plate. In this way Mary began to accumulate quite a considerable little hoard.
At last, in a spending mood, she took the train at Palmer and rode all the way to Anchorage. There she made a surprising and, to her, rather disturbing discovery.
Having mailed a letter, she stood looking over the low railing into the rear of the postoffice when her eye was caught by a pile of second-class mail. It was in sacks, but the half-open sacks presented a strange picture. Out of one a beautiful doll appeared to be struggling. From a second a toy train, apparently at full speed, had been arrested in midtrack, while from another cautiously peeped a woolly teddybear.
Leaning forward, Mary read the address on one sack. “Wales, Alaska. Where is that?”
“Cape Prince of Wales, on Bering Straits above Nome,” said the postmaster.
“Way up there!” Mary was surprised. “Christmas presents. Will they get there in time?”
“In time for the 4th of July,” was the reply. “Some teacher up there asked friends to contribute to his tree for Eskimo children. These sacks arrived too late for the last boat. Cost a small fortune to send them by air mail, so here they stay.”
“Oh, that—” Mary exclaimed, “that’s too bad. Think what all those presents would mean to the cute little Eskimo children!”
“Oh, sure, but that’s what you get in the North.” The postmaster dismissed the matter at that. But for Mary, forgetting the appealing doll, the rushing train that did not rush, and the peeping bear, was not so easy.
“If only Florence had known they were here!” she thought as she turned away. “Perhaps they had not yet arrived. Anyway—”
Anyway what? She did not exactly know. She wished that she might own an airplane all her own and go where she chose in this great white world of the North. This, she knew, was only a mad dream, so taking the train for home, she settled down to the business of feeding chickens, gathering eggs, and assisting in the preparation of delicious meals.
And then one bright, clear day something very strange happened. In a cutter drawn by two prancing horses, Mr. Il-ay-ok, the Eskimo, appeared at their door.
“Excuse, please,” the little man bowed low. “Mr. Speed Samson, he comes to this place very soon. Is it not so?”
“I—I don’t know,” replied Mary.
“It is so. I am convinced. With your kindness I shall wait. It is important, so important to my people.” The little man bowed once more.
“You are welcome to stay as long as you like,” was Mary’s welcome.
The driver was dismissed. Mr. Il-ay-ok entered. Mary experienced a cold shudder as she thought, “Peter Loome may follow on his trail.” But she introduced the little man to her mother and did all in her power to make him feel at home.
When, true to Il-ay-ok’s prophecy, Speed came zooming in from the sky, the little Eskimo, nearly bursting out the door in his haste, went racing down to the landing.
“Excuse, please,” he exclaimed as Speed stepped from the plane. “You must take me to Nome. I must go soon, perhaps at once. You shall take me to Nome.”
“Who says that?” the aviator grinned.
“I say it. I, Mr. Il-ay-ok.”
“Well,” Speed drawled, “can’t do it.”
“You must!” sudden distress and rigid determination shone in the little man’s eyes.
“I must not,” replied Speed. There was a note of finality in his voice. “This is the hunting season. I have customers coming. I cannot wire them not to come then go zooming off on some wild goose chase to Nome. This is my harvest. How much money you got?” he asked suddenly.
“Unfortunately, no money,” Mr. Il-ay-ok’s face fell. “But you shall be paid,” he was up and at it again. “My people they have fox skins, very fine fox skins, red, white, cross fox, silver gray fox. You shall have many fox skins. You shall sell them for much money.”
“I’m afraid that won’t do.” Speed’s face sobered. In the little man’s face he had read sincere distress. Speed was a kindly soul. “It is truly impossible for me to give up my work now. Perhaps in three or four weeks—”
“Ah, yes!” the little man’s voice rose shrill and eager. “Before January the first?”
“Yes, I guess so.”
“Oh!” Mary breathed, suddenly enchanted with a bright idea. “Before Christmas, you must!”
“What? You must go too?” Speed cried, banteringly.
“I—I might,” the girl could scarcely believe her voice, it was the first time she had ever thought of it. “Anyway,” she added hurriedly to conceal her embarrassment, “you are to be Santa Claus to a hundred Eskimo children.”
“If I am Santa Claus,” said Speed, seizing her hand, “you shall be little Miss Santa Claus. I don’t know what it is all about, but here, shake on it.” He gave her hand a hearty squeeze.
Il-ay-ok rode back to Anchorage in Speed’s plane and there, for a time, the matter rested.
In Nome each twenty-four hours that passed saw the great race just one day nearer. Each day the excitement over this event increased. The prize this year was large. Men of means had contributed generously. Though thought of winning for the honor of the “Fresh-Dough Club” was ever uppermost in Jodie’s mind, and in Florence’s when she indulged in strange day-dreams, the prize was not entirely forgotten. Jodie had been let in on the secret of the lost mine. Once the race was won, or lost, it was planned that they should be away at once on their search for that mine. And the prize money would go far toward providing them with the very necessary grub-stake.
Little wonder then that, while keeping one eye on her own gray team—just in case something happened—Florence always had the other turned upon Jodie’s fine dogs.
The crack of the starter’s gun was only three days away when, as Jodie came in from his daily practice run, Florence met him on the street. “What’s the matter with old Sparks?” she asked, nodding at the right hand wheel dog. “He doesn’t seem quite up to himself.”
“Been lagging all day,” Jodie’s brow wrinkled. “Off his feed a little, I guess. I’ll cut him out tomorrow. He’ll be O. K. after that.”
“Jodie,” the girl’s tone was low, serious, “do you watch your dogs?”
“Sure thing I do.” He stared at her.
“Jodie, there’s talk of gambling going on among those foreigners, you know. They might—”
“I know,” Jodie replied wearily. “They’ll not get to my dogs. The kennel is right against my bunk. Besides, from now on, Az-az-ruk, a half-breed, is going to watch them at night.”
“I’m glad. Good-bye, Jodie.” The girl was away.