CHAPTER XIIBREASTING A BLIZZARD IN AN AIRSHIP
When Roy turned over his half dozen telegrams to Colonel Howell, the two boys saw that the messages were of some significance. A little later they saw their patron reading them a second time. But when the beefsteak supper was served he seemed to have forgotten business. But that was only his way. When the prospector had reached his after-dinner cigar, he said abruptly:
“So you say everything went all right!”
“Like taking a buggy ride,” answered Norman. “Don’t you want us to go oftener? If it wasn’t for using up the gas, there isn’t any reason why we shouldn’t meet each mail stage.”
“I’m glad o’ that,” answered Colonel Howell, smiling. “I’d like to have you take a telegram over for me in the morning and wait for an answer.”
“Don’t you think I can go in this time?” asked Paul at once.
The other boys gave him no heed for a moment.
“We could go to-night,” volunteered Norman, “if you like.”
“That wouldn’t do any good,” answered the colonel. “You probably couldn’t get the operator. I’ll be more than satisfied if you duplicate to-day’s trip—except as to the meat,” he added. “We’ve enough of that for some days.”
Paul sat in suppressed excitement.
“I don’t want to butt in,” he urged in the pause that followed; “but I want to help all I can. You don’t need to be afraid—”
The boys could not resist a glance toward the bunk house door, where they well knew that Paul’s embarrassing box still stood intact. And both Norman and Roy flushed.
“You can go,” announced Norman instantly. “You won’t be afraid!”
“Only afraid of disappointing Roy,” answered the elated Paul.
The latter was disappointed, but he gave no sign of it and when he smiled and waved his hand, the thing was settled.
“I’ve been holding an option on a fine piece of oil property near Elgin, Kansas,” the colonelbegan in explanation, “and I had forgotten that the limit was about to expire. Several of these telegrams are from my agent, who tells me we must have the property. The telegrams are now over three weeks old and I’ve just got two days in which to get word to him to buy.”
“Write your message to-night,” suggested Norman, “for we’ll get away a little earlier in the morning, since we’ve got to wait for an answer.”
The second flight to Athabasca Landing was of course Paul’s first experience in an airship. For some time he was subdued and Norman could see his tense fingers gripping the edge of the cockpit. But when assurance came to him, he made up for his preliminary apprehension and was soon taking impossible pictures of the far-away hills and trees beneath him.
Reaching the landing place on the Athabasca Hills, Paul at once said:
“I s’pose you’d feel better if you looked after the telegrams yourself. I’ll stay with the machine.”
This was the program Norman had outlined but when the suggestion came from the young Austrian himself, Norman had not the courage to humiliate his companion with such a plainindication of his fear. Without hesitation, he answered:
“What are you talking about? Nothing like that now! Besides, I want to look over the engine. You go and attend to things—I’ll be here when you get back.”
A little after twelve o’clock, a boy arrived from the other side of the river, carrying Norman’s dinner in a basket. The messenger was from the Alberta Hotel and he also carried a note from Paul announcing that no answer had yet been received to Colonel Howell’s telegram.
As the afternoon wore slowly away, Norman became more and more apprehensive. It was nearly six o’clock when Paul came in sight, breathless and exhausted from his rapid climb up the hill. Norman could not resist a sigh of relief when he saw that the delay was not due to any new indiscretion of the young Austrian.
“I don’t blame you,” panted Paul, “and I bet you’ve been sweating blood. I don’t deserve anything else, but you’re going to save a lot of time if you’ll just forget what I used to be. I ain’t going to make any promises, but I’ll show all of you that I’m not what you all thought I was.”
Norman only smiled, but he gave his youngfriend a look of sympathy. Then he announced a little variation in the general plan.
“We’re so late now that it’s goin’ to be dark before we get back and a little further delay won’t do any harm. Just back of the new H. B. Company store I remember there’s quite an open space on the other side of the town. We’re flying pretty light and I think we’ll cross the river, make a landing there, and get a couple of tins of gasoline. We want an extra supply on hand.”
This flight was easily accomplished but it involved an experience that Norman had not anticipated. Having made a safe landing, while he visited the trading post and arranged to have oil delivered at once, nearly everyone in Athabasca Landing seemed to learn of the arrival of the airship. When he came riding back to the monoplane, in the delivery wagon, theGitchie Manitouwas the center of a mob of curious people. The sergeant of police was there, as well as the people from the hotel. It was impossible to leave at once. Politeness demanded decent replies to many inquiries but Norman almost felt repaid when he noted that this was the first meeting during the day between Paul and his old friend, the Mounted Policeman.
Yet, in the midst of the general greeting, the boys finally took their leave. As they swung over the city and the river, the mist was beginning to rise from the latter. For a part of the return trip at least, Norman knew that he would have to resort to his compass or to the guidance of the varying air currents that marked the river course at night.
For several days in the latter part of August there had been nightly frosts. Then there had been a short spell of warm weather and this night the boys could see that cool weather was rapidly approaching. As the monoplane winged its way into the gathering gloom and the crisp evening passed into dusk, the body of theGitchie Manitougrew wet with cold dew. After dark, this began to turn into frost. Paul was able to wrap a light blanket about himself, but Norman, with no relief present, stuck to his post, protected only by his gloves and sweater.
As it was impossible to make out the course of the river from any distance, he had to defy the air currents in the rather hazardous light between the high river banks. It was far from the even flight made during the day in the sunlight, and again Norman could see his companiongripping the edge of the cockpit. There was little conversation, and in order to divert his companion, Norman manufactured a job for Paul by assigning to him the duty of watching the engine revolution gauge and the chronometer.
As Paul flashed the bulbs, throwing their little shaded lights on these instruments, and sang out the reading every few moments, Norman could not resist a smile. He read both instruments each time as quickly as his assistant.
About eleven thirty, the sun having now wholly disappeared, Norman’s long-waiting ear caught the unmistakable roar of the head of the Grand Rapids. From this place, he had a compass bearing to Fort McMurray, and he could have predicted their arrival at the camp almost within minutes.
“You can take it easy now,” he suggested to Paul. “We’re practically home.”
When the roar of the Rapids finally ceased, the river fog cleared somewhat and, with the help of the stars, the outline of the river became plainer below.
“How much longer?” asked Paul in a tired tone.
“We’ve been coming pretty slow,” was Norman’scheery response. “We’ll hit her up a bit. It’s forty miles to the camp, but we’ll save a little by cutting out the big bend. See if I ain’t there in three-quarters of an hour.”
“I’d think they’d have a light for us.”
“If they’re all asleep,” answered Norman.
But they were not asleep. Some apprehension on the part of even Roy had kept him and the colonel wide awake. When it grew dark and the monoplane had not returned, he made a fire of cordwood and during the long evening renewed it constantly. At half past one theGitchie Manitouconcluded its second successful trip.
The answer brought to Colonel Howell, in response to his telegram, appeared to be highly satisfactory to that gentleman. As he read it in the light of Roy’s poplar wood signal fire, he remarked:
“I told you young men that you didn’t know how much you might be worth to me. If I hadn’t made good on that option, there’s no way to tell what I might have lost. I wouldn’t let go the deal I made to-day for twenty-five thousand dollars.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t have anything to do with it,” exclaimed the benumbed Paul, “but I’m glad I got a ride at last.”
Colonel Howell opened his mouth as if to make reply and then checked himself with a smile. The words behind his lips were: “And a month ago you’d have probably spoiled any deal you had a finger in.”
“You had as much to do with it as anyone,” Norman suggested aloud. Then he laughed and added: “But you mustn’t work so hard. Look at your hands.”
Paul opened his yet clenched fingers and held them before the snapping blaze. The palm of each hand bore traces of blood.
“That’s where I lifted her over the high places,” he said with a laugh of his own. “But look, it’s dry. I ain’t been doing it for some time.”
This night was the real beginning of the colder weather. When they were able, in late July, Ewen and Miller had sacrificed a few potatoes out of their store to plant a patch of this vegetable. During August the little garden had thriven and was at last in full bloom. But this night, to the keen disappointment of all, the creamy blossoms fell a victim to the first blighting frost. From now on, while the days were even sunnier and often quite warm, the nights rapidly grew colder and each morning there were increasing frosts.
For two weeks preliminary to the removal of the derrick to the better prospect, the arm of the drill pounded ceaselessly up and down all day. There were small accidents that frequently delayed the work, but no result other than dulled drills and the accumulation of promising-looking sand and rock.
The hunting trips also continued and moose now became very plentiful. Philip, the cook and hunter, did not always accompany the boys on shooting trips, as the half-breed had joined Ewen and Miller in the work on the well.
The airship was safely housed, as if for the winter. The third week in September came in with a lessening in the daily sunshine. A haze began to hang over the river valley and a murkiness now and then took the place of the keen and clear atmosphere. The evenings had grown so cool that considerable attention was being given the fire in the living room.
On an evening such as this, while Colonel Howell and his young assistants stood on the riverbank, watching the red sun turn to silver gray, Colonel Howell exclaimed:
“By our calendar, the fall’s coming along a little early. And judging by the trees over there and the nip in the air, we’re going tohave some weather before long. Maybe not for several days, but it’s on its way. Before it gets here, why not make another trip to the Landing and see if there’s anything at the post office?”
“All letters ready at five in the morning,” announced Norman impulsively. “Mail for Athabasca Landing, Edmonton, Calgary and points south leaves at that time.”
“Better bring a little more beef this time,” suggested the colonel with a laugh, “and anything else that looks tasty and you’ve got room for.”
“I guess I’ve had all that’s coming to me,” suggested Paul. “Don’t think I’m afraid. Whenever you want a helper,” he went on, addressing Norman, “don’t fail to call on me.”
“I guess we won’t make many more trips this season!” put in Roy, but in that he was mistaken. The trip made the next day was memorable, but two more that were to be made later were more than that, and the last one was certainly ample justification for Colonel Howell’s daring introduction of the monoplane into these silent places of the North.
Shortly before five o’clock the next morning, in spite of an ominous gray sky and a new sound of the wind in the trees, Norman and Roywere off on their three hundred mile flight. They planned a short stay at the Landing and upon reaching camp again before the shortening day was at an end. They carried in the cockpit their Mackinaw jackets and their winter caps. Philip also prepared a cold luncheon to be eaten on the return trip, thus saving time at the Athabasca stop.
Early on their outward flight, for a time the red sun made an effort to get through the clouds, but after nine o’clock had wholly disappeared and the temperature began to fall. An almost imperceptible fine dry snow appeared, but it was not enough to interfere with the conduct of the machine. When a landing was finally made at the old place in the bend of the river, although the day was dreary enough, only the chill atmosphere and a few traces of snow gave premonition of possible storm.
This time Norman made the visit across the river and he was not gone much over an hour and a half. To facilitate the delivery of his stores, which were considerable, he pressed a horse and wagon into service and a little after twelve o’clock Roy was glad to see his companion reappear in the delivery wagon. The spitting snow had begun again. No time was lostin luncheon this day, but the fresh meat, eggs and butter and a few fresh vegetables were quickly stored in the rear of the cockpit.
There were no telegrams this time, but a larger quantity of mail with considerable for the boys, some of which Norman had examined. At twelve thirty o’clock everything was in readiness. On the wind-swept heights it was now cold. Before mounting into the cockpit the boys put on their winter caps, Mackinaw jackets and gauntlets.
Then, elevating the front protecting frame, they started theGitchie Manitouon its return flight, the wind and snow already smiting its resonant sides in a threatening manner.
The young aviators had little to say concerning the situation. They were not alarmed and could not afford to be, as their surroundings were mild compared with the conditions that the unique monoplane had been made to overcome. And yet they were now beyond theorizing, and it looked as if before the day was done they were to prove the merits or weaknesses of their much-lauded craft.
“I’m glad of one thing,” suggested Roy, a little later; “we’re going to have daylight all the way back.”
“I hope so,” answered Norman, but not very confidently.
“We ought to be there by seven o’clock!” retorted Roy.
“That’s all right,” said Norman in turn, “but I’ve seen snow in the daytime so heavy that it might as well have been night.”
“Anyway, as long as we don’t lose the river,” suggested Roy, “we can’t go far wrong. And the compass ought to help some.”
“A compass is all right to keep you in a general direction,” answered Norman, “but the best of them, in a three hundred mile run, won’t land you at any particular street number.”
“I think,” suggested Roy again, a little later, “that we might as well put up these shelters and have something to eat.”
By this time the wind had died somewhat and the volume of the snow had increased. It was falling so heavily that the top of the car was white. Norman’s silence giving approval, Roy managed to elevate the protecting sections, which in turn immediately began to be plastered with soft flakes. Almost at once part of the section on the lee side, which by good chance happened to be the one next to the river, was lowered again that the pilot might get a clear view. Then Roy opened Philip’s bag of food.
“Don’t shoot,” he protested. “What’s the use?”
The aviators had both tea and water, but they drank only the latter and made no attempt to use the heating apparatus.
At four o’clock the increasing snowfall was beginning to give the machine some trouble, and yet it was plowing its way steadily through the air and neither boy was more than apprehensive. Soon after this the snow ceased suddenly and the wind rose as quickly.
“We’re losing some of our extra cargo anyway,” announced Roy, as the first gusts tore some of the accumulated snow from the weighted planes.
“And we’re losing some considerable gas,” added Norman. “I hope we don’t have to buck this wind very long—it’s coming dead ahead.” It was just then, the gloom merging into dark, that the alert Roy exclaimed:
“Look; a bunch o’ deer!”
The car was crossing the snow-flecked river and flying low. Norman raised himself and made out, in the edge of the timber below them, a group of deer.
“Don’t shoot,” he protested. “What’s the use?”
But his admonition was too late. Roy’s twenty-two had already sounded. However, nothing but a bullet was lost. When the monoplane had passed swiftly on its way, the placid and apparently unmoved animals stood gazing after the airship.
CHAPTER XIIIIN THE LAND OF CARIBOU, MOOSE AND MUSK OX
Within another hour, the first storm of the season had turned into a blizzard. With the provisions they had on hand the boys would have made a landing to get what protection they might from the blinding snow and the now-piercing wind had they dared. They had not yet changed the landing wheels of the monoplane for their novel snow runners and they realized that a new start in the rapidly increasing snow was practically hopeless.
Working directly ahead into the gale had so reduced their speed that Norman had adopted a series of long tacks. He did this in spite of the fact that for miles at a time it took him from the river valley, which he was now locating mainly by the wind eddies he had learned to know. There was no use turning on the searchlight, as it merely gave them a little longer view into the deep gray emptiness before them.
Thoroughly appreciating their danger, theboys also recognized that a panic of fear would not help them. If the car should become unmanageable, they would make the best landing they could and, half burying the monoplane in the snow, would await in the protected cockpit the breaking of the blizzard and a new day.
“Anyway,” announced Roy at one time, “while I ain’t exactly stuck on being here and it ain’t as cheerful as I thought it would be, you got to say this, theGitchie Manitouain’t falling down any.”
No attention was given to supper and it did not get so cold but that the heavy clothing and enclosed cockpit—for they had long since been forced to put up all the sections—were ample protection for the young men. Seven o’clock, by which time they had expected to be in camp, came, as did eight and nine. It was now long after dark and, while the storm had abated somewhat, there was still a heavy wind and plenty of snow.
For hours the boys had been simply following the compass. They had not caught the roar of the Grand Rapids and felt themselves practically lost. By their calculation, and allowing for a head wind, they had concluded that they would have covered the three hundred miles byten o’clock. If at that time they could make out no signal light, they had decided to come down on the upland and go into camp for the night.
Their calculation was purely a guess but it was not a bad one. Some time after half past nine both boys made out in the far eastern sky a soft glow.
“I thought it had to be a clear night for the Aurora Borealis,” suggested Roy, conscious that his companion had also seen the same glow. For a time Norman made no response but he headed the machine directly toward the peculiar flare and ceased his tacking.
“That’s no Aurora,” he said at last. “I think the woods are on fire.”
For ten minutes, through the thinning wind-tossed snowflakes, theGitchie Manitougroaned its way forward.
“I wonder if it ain’t a big signal fire for us,” suggested Roy at last.
“It’s a big blaze of some kind,” answered Norman.
Through the obscuring snow, the nervous aviators had located the light many miles in the distance. Now it began to rise up so suddenly before them that they knew it had not been very far away. Yet they could not makeup their mind that it was a signal fire. It did not at all resemble a blaze of that kind.
“Well, don’t run into it, whatever it is,” shouted Roy a few minutes later as a tall spire-like shaft of yellow light seemed almost to block their progress.
But Norman was already banking the machine, and the flying car responded while the wonder-struck boys gazed open-mouthed.
“It’s the camp,” Norman yelled just then as a little group of shadowy buildings seemed to rise up out of the snow.
“They’ve struck gas!” blurted Roy, as he sprang to his feet. “The men have struck gas and it’s a gusher!”
Even as he yelled these words, the aviators heard a quick fusilade of shots and as the car darted onward were just able to catch sight of shadowy forms running about within the glare of the burning gas well. The sight was enough of a shock to Norman to throw him off his guard and the snow-weighted car careened wildly toward the earth. Roy attempted to spring to his companion’s assistance and realized almost too late that this would be fatal. While the perspiration sprang to Roy’s chilled face, Norman’s presence of mind returned and he threw the car upward and into equilibrium again.
Then, straining every nerve, he made a wide detour but while his brain acted, the muscles of his hands and arms seemed suddenly paralyzed. The car dropped slowly and safely in the midst of the clearing, and when it touched the snow the landing chassis caught and the airship stopped as if in collision with a wall. Both boys lunged forward and when Roy got to his feet he found Norman curled up among the steering apparatus, cold and motionless.
It was a good half hour later when the young aviator had been revived. His first inquiry was about theGitchie Manitou. When he learned that this was apparently little injured and had already been backed into the aerodrome, he gave more evidence of his all-day’s strain by again relapsing into unconsciousness on the cot that had been improvised for him before the fire in the living room.
The more fortunate Roy was able to relate their adventures and hear the details of the gas gusher’s discovery that night. Within the protected clearing, the storm had been more of a heavy downfall of snow and less of a blizzard. Anxious to move the derrick before winter was fully upon them, Colonel Howell and his two men had persisted in working the drillall day. When the gas vein was unexpectedly tapped late in the afternoon, the drill pipes had been blown out and the escaping gas, igniting from the near-by boiler, had consumed the derrick. Fortunately, the tubing and drills had been forced through the derrick and were saved.
The engine house had also caught fire, but this had been pulled down and it was thought that the engine and boiler were undamaged. These details were discussed while Roy ate a late supper and drank with more relish than ever before his tin of black tea. Norman was so improved by morning that he was early astir, eager for a view of the still roaring volume of gas. He found that Colonel Howell had also taken advantage of the first daylight to inventory the possible damage.
While the twisting yellow flame of the uncapped well was less inspiring as day broke, the roar of the escaping flame fascinated the young aviator.
“It’s a gusher, and a dandy,” explained Colonel Howell as he and Norman stood close by it in the melting snow. “But I think we’re prepared for it and we’ll try to cap it to-day.”
All else, the clearing, the camp structures and the banks of the river, were peaceful andwhite under the untracked mantle of new-fallen snow. The wind had died out and the gas camp at Fort McMurray stood on the verge of the almost Arctic winter.
The excitement attendant upon the wonderful discovery and the attempt made at once to control the fiery shaft again interfered with Colonel Howell’s real plans of active prospecting. For days the experienced oil men made futile efforts to extinguish the gusher and to cap the shaft. When they were of no assistance in this work, Norman and Roy overhauled the airship and substituted the ski-like runners in place of the aluminum-cased rubber-tired landing wheels.
It seemed as if every trader, trapper and prospector within fifty miles visited the camp. A week after the discovery, somewhat to the surprise of all, although apparently not so much to Ewen and Miller, the long missing Chandler appeared at the clearing late one evening. If he had any apology to make to Colonel Howell, the boys did not hear it. But he was sober enough this time and somewhat emaciated. He had come to settle with his old employer and explained his long delay in doing this by saying: “I knew my money was goodany time,” and that he had been trapping farther down the river.
He lounged about the camp the greater part of the day and even volunteered his services in the still unsuccessful attack of the flaming gas. But Colonel Howell seemed without any interest in his offers. The man was invited, however, to eat in the camp and spend the night there.
When the boys retired, Colonel Howell, the visitor, and Ewen and Miller were still smoking before the big fire. The next morning the boys slept late and when they responded to Philip’s persistent call to breakfast, they found that Chandler had eaten and gone. Colonel Howell was awaiting the boys, Ewen and Miller being already at work on the blazing well, and he seemed to have something on his mind.
“Would there be any great danger,” he began at once, addressing Norman, “in making a short flight in your airship in weather like this?”
“This isn’t bad,” volunteered Roy. “It’s only a few degrees below zero. There’s a good fall of snow for our runners and there hasn’t been any wind since the blizzard.”
“Well,” resumed Colonel Howell, almost meditatively, “it seems a shame for us to belivin’ here in what you might call luxury and folks starving all around us. Look at this,” he went on, and he led the three boys near one of the windows where a large Department of the Interior map of northern Alberta was tacked to the wall. “Here’s Fort McMurray and our camp,” he began, pointing to a black spot on the almost uncharted white, where the McMurray River emptied into the Athabasca. Then he ran his finger northward along the wide blue line indicating the tortuous course of the Athabasca past Fort McKay and the Indian settlement described as Pierre au Calumet (marked “abandoned”), past the Muskeg, the Firebag and the Moose Rivers where they found their way into the giant Athabasca between innumerable black spots designated as “tar” islands, and at last stopped suddenly at the words “Pointe aux Tremble.”
“That’s an Indian town,” went on Colonel Howell, “and it’s about as far south as you ever find the Chipewyans. It isn’t much over a hundred miles from here and Chandler says there ain’t a man left in the village. Pretty soon, he thinks, there’ll be no women and children left. Maybe he’s making a pretty black picture but he says all the men have gone overtoward the lake hunting. They’ve been gone over two weeks and the camp was starving when they left.”
The colonel, with a peculiar look on his face, led the way back to the breakfast table.
“These Indians are nothing to me,” he went on at last, “and all Indians are starving pretty much all the time, but they die just the same. But somehow, with plenty of pork and flour here and this great invention here right at hand from which nobody’s benefitting, it seems to me we must be pretty hard-hearted to sit in comfort, stuffing ourselves, while little babies are dying for scraps that we’re throwing in the river. I——”
“Colonel,” exclaimed Roy at once, “you’ve said enough. Get up what you can spare and we’ll have bannocks baking in that settlement before noon.”
“I don’t want to get you into another blizzard,” began the colonel, yet his satisfaction was apparent.
“Don’t you worry about that,” broke in Norman. “I think we feel a good deal the same way about this. Besides, aren’t we working for you?”
“Nothing like that!” expostulated the oil prospector. “This isn’t an order.”
“I’ll help get the stuff ready,” began Paul, “for I know that’s all I can do. Is this Chandler trapping near there?” he went on, as he gulped down the last of his tea.
“Says he’s been helping them,” explained Colonel Howell, “but he couldn’t have done much, judging by his appearance.”
“Is he going back there?” asked Roy curiously.
“He didn’t say,” answered Colonel Howell slowly. “But he’s got his money now and I imagine he won’t go much farther than Fort McMurray. I don’t care for him and I don’t like him around the camp. He’s too busy talking when the men ought to be at work.”
It was an ideal winter’s day, the atmosphere clear and the temperature just below zero. There was no cause for delay and while Norman made a tracing and a scale of the route, Paul and Roy drew theGitchie Manitouinto the open. Colonel Howell and the half-breed cook had been busy in the storehouse, arranging packets of flour and cutting up sides of fat pork. Small packages of tea were also prepared, together with sugar, salt and half a case of evaporatedfruit. The only bread on hand was the remainder of Philip’s last baking of bannock.
“See how things are,” suggested Colonel Howell, when these articles were passed up to Roy, “and if they’re as bad as Chandler says, we’ll have to send Philip out for a moose. These things’ll carry ’em along for a few days at least.”
The look on the young Count’s face was such that Norman was disturbed.
“Paul, old man,” he said, “I know you’d like to go with us and we’d like to have you. But we’ve got more than the weight of a third man in all this food. I hope you don’t feel disappointed.”
“Well, I do, in a way,” answered Paul, with a feeble attempt at a smile, “but it isn’t just from curiosity. I envy you fellows. You’re always helping and I never find anything to do.”
“You can help me to-day,” laughed Colonel Howell. “I’m going to cap that gas well or bust it open in a new place. I’ll give you a job that may make both of us sit up and take notice.”
“Come on,” exclaimed Paul, seeming instantly to forget the mission of the machine.“I’ve been wanting a finger in that pie from the start.”
“Good luck to you,” called out Norman, as he sprang aboard the monoplane, and the colonel caught Paul laughingly by the arm and held him while Norman threw the big propeller into sizzling revolution.
The powerful car slid forward for the first time on its wooden snowshoes. As it caught the impulse of the great propeller, it sprang into the air and then dropped to the snow again with the wiggling motion of an inexperienced skater. Then, suddenly responding again to the propeller, it darted diagonally toward a menacing tree stump; but Norman was too quick for it. Before harm could result, the planes lifted and the airship, again in its native element, hurled itself skyward steadily and true.
It was an exhilarating flight. For the first time the boys got a bird’s-eye view of Fort McMurray and were surprised to find that the main settlement drifted down to the river in a long-drawn-out group of cabins. Few people were in sight, however, and all the world spread out beneath them as if frozen into silence. The big river continued its course between the same high hills and, as the last cabin disappeared,the boys headed theGitchie Manitoudirectly for the top of the hills, where the plains began that led onward and onward until the sparse forests finally disappeared in the broken land of the Barren Grounds. And on these, not much farther to the North, they knew that caribou and moose roamed in herds of thousands, and that the musk ox, the king of the Northland big game, made his Arctic home.
CHAPTER XIVIN THE CABIN OF THE PARALYZED INDIAN
No sooner had the monoplane begun to disappear over the northern hills than the impatient Paul demanded the attention of Colonel Howell.
“Colonel,” he began, “I’m almost ashamed to even make the suggestion, but I’ve been watching the men at work on the gusher. They don’t seem able to get a plug into the pipe or to put a cap on the end of it, even with the rigging they’ve managed to set up.”
“We seem to be at the end of our string,” laughed Colonel Howell. “But laymen frequently make suggestions that never occur to professionals. Have you an idea?”
“Not much of a one,” answered Paul diffidently, “but I learned one thing in school—I think it was in what you call ‘Physics.’”
“Speak out,” laughed Colonel Howell. “We’ve utilized all our own ideas; that is, all but one, and I don’t like that. I suppose we can dig a pit around the pipe and smother the blaze.But that’s goin’ to be quite a job, and I’m not sure it would work.”
“A pit!” exclaimed Paul. “Now I’ve got it. They used to tell me, when you strike a force you can’t handle, try to break it up into parts.”
Colonel Howell looked up quickly.
“We don’t need a pit,” went on Paul, “but something like a trench. Let’s dig down alongside the pipe until we’re ten or fifteen feet beneath the ground and then tap the tube and let some of the gas out where it won’t do any harm. If we can’t drill a hole, we can rig up a long-handled chisel and punch an opening. When the gas rushes out, down there in the trench, maybe it won’t catch fire for a few minutes and it’s sure to shut off a good deal of the pressure at the mouth of the tube. If it does, maybe we can get the cap and the regulator on the top. Then we can plug the opening below. It’ll leak, of course, but the regulator’ll fix things so we can use the gas at least.”
Colonel Howell thought a moment and then slapped the young man on the back. Without a word, he hurried to the two workmen and in a few moments Ewen and Miller had begun digging into the frozen ground. Colonel Howell’sorders were for them to make a trench about four feet wide and extending toward the river about twenty feet. It was to be twenty feet deep alongside the pipe and in the form of a triangle, the long side to incline toward the river. This was to facilitate the removal of the gravel and dirt and to afford a path to the deep side of the trench where it touched the gas tubing.
“Five feet from the bottom,” explained the enthusiastic Paul, “we’ll put a shelf across the trench and we’ll work from this, so that when a hole is made in the pipe no one will be in danger from the rush of gas.”
“That’s right,” added Colonel Howell. “All the gas can’t get out through the new opening, but enough of it ought to escape to make it possible to work on the top opening. But we’ll hardly finish the ditch before the boys get back?”
“Hardly,” smiled the happy Paul. “They ought to be here before dark.”
While Ewen and Miller were busy with picks and shovels, Colonel Howell and Paul devoted themselves to improvising the long wooden handle for the chisel to be used in cutting the pipe. But the workmen had not finished the trench when night came and, to the surprise ofColonel Howell and Paul, theGitchie Manitouhad not returned. This fact especially disturbed Colonel Howell and Paul because soon after noon the bright day had ended and the afternoon had passed with lowering clouds and other evidences, including a decided drop in the temperature, that a bad night was approaching.
The northward flight of the aviators had been made without any premonition of this change. After the monoplane had reached the high ground, Norman could not resist a temptation to make his way some miles back from the river, where the boys could see that the sparse timber grew very much thinner and that within five miles of the river the timberland disappeared altogether in a wide prairie or plain. Still farther to the east, they could make out irregular elevations on the plain, which appeared to be treeless ridges.
“I wish we had time to go over there,” remarked Roy, “for we may never get back this way and I’d like to have had one good look at the caribou lands.”
But the general nature of this treeless, barren waste had been ascertained and Norman brought the swift car back on its flight toward the river. Colonel Howell had explained tothem that the Indian village they were seeking was one hundred miles from the gas camp. As it was not certain that Pointe aux Tremble could be easily made out from a distance, it was necessary to keep careful watch of the chronometer and the propeller revolution gauge.
The flight over the picturesque banks of the great river was now getting to be an old story to the boys and protected as they were in the inclosed cockpit, the journey proceeded with only occasional comment. They had left the camp at nine twenty-five o’clock, having set the engines at fifty miles, and, allowing for their detour, at a quarter after eleven o’clock Roy arose and began to use his binoculars. But either the reputed distance or the boys’ calculations were wrong, for it was not until a quarter of twelve o’clock that they caught sight of a few cabins scattered along the riverbank within a fringe of poplar trees.
It was necessary to find a suitable landing place and both aviators busied themselves in this respect with no great result. What clearing there was seemed to be full of tree stumps and large brush. The car, having passed over the few cabins of what seemed to be a desertedvillage, with no living thing in sight, it was necessary to make a turn to look for a landing place in the vicinity. In doing this, Norman made a wide swing.
The only naturally open place was some distance to the east. Without consulting Roy, he made for this white glare of snow. As the monoplane dropped toward the wide opening, Roy made a desperate dive toward the floor of the cockpit and, before Norman learned the situation, his chum was pulling its new mooseskin jacket from the .303 rifle.
“It’s a moose!” shouted Roy, “and a dandy. Gi’ me a shot at it. I’ve got to shoot something from the machine.”
“I thought there wasn’t any game around here,” answered Norman, trying in vain to get his eyes above the cockpit.
“I guess the hunters have all gone too far,” answered Roy breathlessly. “Anyway, there’s a dandy bull right out there in the open. Give me a shot at it.”
As he spoke, he dropped one of the front sections and pointed to one side of the basin-like opening among the spruce trees. The moment Norman caught sight of the animal, which stood with its forefeet together, its headerect, and its immense spread of antlers reared almost defiantly, he brought the machine directly toward the animal. There was a heavy discharge from Roy’s rifle, but no sign that his shot had gone home.
“Try him again,” laughed Norman. “He’s big as a barn.”
But while Roy pumped a new shell into place, the erect animal suddenly stumbled and then with a snort whirled and sprang toward the trees. This time when the rifle sounded the great antlers seemed to rise higher and then the moose lunged forward on its head and began kicking in the snow. Norman, gazing at the struggling animal, brought the monoplane to the wide drifts of snow.
“You get out and finish him,” he exclaimed as theGitchie Manitoucame to a jolting stop. “It’s getting colder. I’m going to put some alcohol an’ glycerine in the radiator. This isn’t a very good place to freeze up.”
“Why not wait till we get over to the camp?” asked Roy as he dropped one of the side sections.
“We’ve got enough of a load now,” answered Norman as he began to prowl around among the extra supplies. “There isn’t muchsnow among the trees. We’ll take all we can carry of this fresh meat and go to the camp on foot. There’s no place to land there, anyway.”
Closing the machine, the two boys soon quartered the moose, and leaving a part of the carcass in the lower limbs of a spruce tree, shouldered the remainder and made their way toward the Indian village. The snow and their heavy load made this a panting task and in the mile walk they paused to rest several times.
When they finally reached the edge of the Indian settlement and broke their way through the last of the trees, they found before them a picture that had escaped them from the airship. In the distance lay the deserted looking cabins but, nearer by and as if seeking protection among the scrub spruce, rose a single tepee. Before it stood two men and two squaws.
“They must have seen us,” panted Roy, as he and Norman advanced, bending low under their burdens. “They seem to be watchin’ for us.”
In fact, one of the men had his arms outstretched. The cheerless group was made even more so by a small, almost blazeless fire, in the thin smoke of which was suspended a black kettle.