By propping himself on an elbow Johnny was able to look through the narrow windows. To the left was a glistening expanse of white. On the right was a narrow fringe of low trees skirting a hill, and at the edge of the trees a cabin. A light shone cheerily from the cabin’s one small window. From time to time this light appeared to flare up. This, Johnny knew, was but the increase of illumination that came to the interior of the cabin when the log fire flamed high.
“Going to be tough, sleeping here with all these dogs,” said D’Arcy.
“Not so bad.” Johnny’s tone was cheerful in spite of his misadventures. “They mind me pretty well. I’ll make them stack up together down by our feet. They’ll keep one another warm.
“The thing that troubles me most,” he went on after a time, “is that this ends my search.”
“Search?”
“For pitchblende. Radio-active rock, you know.” Johnny’s tone was thoughtful. “It’s not so much for myself. I’m young. Lots more chances for me. But Sandy, he’s old. His last great adventure.
“And then, think what it would mean to find pitchblende that would yield a large per cent of radium!
“It’s an awfully long process, this getting radium from pitchblende. You crush the ore fine, then leach it out with acid. Leach it three or four times, and you get a small quantity of uranium. But uranium is not radium. It only contains radium. Another long process, and you get the radium clear. But how much? Much as would rest on the head of a pin, probably.
“In a whole year all the radium workers in the world produced only eight and a half grains, about a fourth of an ounce. Some figures are staggering because of their bigness. Radium figures are shockingly small.
“And yet,” the boy’s tone became deeply serious, “a single half gram of radium, one sixty-fourth of an ounce, has been used to work remarkable cures. Men who seemed doomed to an early and terrible death have been cured and sent back to their happy families, all because of radium.
“And if you want large figures, here they are. One gram of radium is worth about $35,000. One ounce $1,000,000. One pound (if there were such a thing in the world) $16,000,000. And no discount for large orders.”
“I’d like to have a pound in my pocket right now,” D’Arcy chuckled.
“You might regret it.”
“Regret it?”
“If you left it there long enough though you had it securely packed in a tube, it would burn.”
“My pocket.”
“Not your pocket. But it would burnyou.
“It’s the strangest element this old earth knows.”
Having thus disposed of this interesting subject, the two boys munched their bread, drank their water, put the dogs in their places and, rolling up in Johnny’s feather robe, prepared to make the best of a bad situation by sleeping the night through.
Despite his strange surroundings and the extraordinary position in which he found himself, Johnny slept soundly.
He was awakened, he knew not at what hour, by the low growl of a dog.
“Down Tige!” he commanded in a low voice. “Be still!”
The dog lay down in his place.
“What could have disturbed him?” Johnny asked himself.
The moon at that moment was under a cloud. The interior of the cabin was dark. He caught the sound of light tapping. It came from the window on his right. Strain his eyes as he might, he could see nothing.
Then suddenly the moon, creeping from behind the cloud, flooded all with yellow light.
Involuntarily the boy shrank into the shadows. There was a face at the window. And scarcely could one have imagined an uglier face; a great nose, red lips and beady eyes framed in shaggy hair.
But suddenly the boy leaned eagerly forward. His eyes lighted with a strange fire. Then in a whisper curiously like a cry of triumph, he exclaimed:
“The hunchback bowman!”
In the meantime Lloyd Hill had climbed from his hole beneath the frozen crust of earth to stare at his slender companion, Joyce Mills, in genuine dismay.
“That is no task for a girl!” he exclaimed. “I was too eager. I—I wanted to share it with you!”
Truly the girl’s appearance would never have done in a parlor setting. She had thrown off her fur parka. Her heavy wool dress was smeared from waist to hem with sandy mud. Her moccasins were a wreck. Her hands were red and blistered. She had been turning the windlass and dumping pay-dirt for three solid hours.
“No! No!” she protested gamely. “Why, it has been marvelous! I—I wouldn’t have missed it for anything. Truly I wouldn’t!”
“Well, then,” replied Lloyd, in a calmer voice, “now that the worst is over, I suggest that you put on your parka and prepare to rock this thing back and forth for an hour while we pan our pay-dirt and see how much gold we really have.”
“There is some,” she replied excitedly as her head disappeared inside her parka. “I saw it gleaming among the pebbles.”
“Oh, yes, there is some.”
* * * * * * * *
Strange as it may seem, at this moment Scott Ramsey, in that other prospector’s camp seventy miles away, was bursting through the door with a shout:
“They’ve found it! Gold!”
Sandy MacDonald, who had been stirring up a batch of sourdough flapjacks, turned about to stare. “Found gold? Where?”
“Those fellows who have been using our pictures. They’ve found gold in an old creek bed.”
“When?”
“Two, three hours ago.”
“Then the Moccasin Telegraph works?”
“Sure it works. And now—”
“Seems a shame to claim a share.”
“It does. But it’s only just. We must not let foolish sentiment stop us. We must think of our rights.”
“Scott,” said Sandy thoughtfully, “did you ever receive an answer to that letter you wrote to your friend in Winnipeg asking about those films?”
“Never did.”
“It should be here by now.”
“Yes. But it hasn’t arrived, not yet.”
* * * * * * * *
Lloyd Hill’s method of extracting gold from pay-dirt was simple, but effective. He had arranged a board trough a foot wide, six inches deep and ten feet long in such a manner that it might be shaken backward and forward. Since the trough was tilted slightly, any substance within it would move slowly toward the lower end.
At that end was a pocket half filled with quick-silver.
He shoveled pay-dirt into the trough. As the girl rocked the trough backward and forward he poured upon it warm water from his steam thawer. As the mass of soft earth moved downward, heavy particles went to the bottom, then into the mercury pocket. The mercury collected the gold to itself. The lighter rocks were crowded out and passed on.
“Won’t get it all,” Lloyd explained as he shoveled. “Not near all. But, if it’s any good we’ll thaw it out and work it over again in the spring.”
For an hour after that they worked in silence. Only once did the young man lift his face to the wind, to mutter:
“Going to storm.”
Already the wind was rising. Joyce felt bits of snow cut her cheeks.
“No matter,” she murmured. “It’s not so far back. And you couldn’t lose old Dannie. Good old Dannie! He knows the way.”
Then a thought struck her. She seemed to be hearing Johnny Thompson say: “If you make a strike, we’ll know it. Moccasin Telegraph.”
“Does he know?” she asked herself. “If he knows, will he come, he and the others?”
Once more she felt the sting of snow on her cheek, and shuddered.
But had they made a strike after all? They would soon know!
Pausing to rest his weary muscles, the young Canadian allowed the pay-dirt to drift off the rocker until nothing remained save that which was in the pocket.
“Now—” His voice was a trifle unsteady. “Now we shall see!”
Thrusting in his hand, he stirred the mass in the pocket. And as he stirred the tense muscles of his face relaxed into a smile.
“Joyce, my child!” he cried, seizing her and sending her whirling round and round. “We win! There is gold! Gold aplenty!”
“Four pounds if an ounce!” he exclaimed a little later when the work was done. “And this is only the beginning!
“Night’s coming.” He looked away toward the west. “Night and storm. No one will disturb these diggings. Hop into the sled and we will be going.”
Wearily, with every muscle in her body crying for rest, but with a heart pounding with joy, the girl dropped to her place in the toboggan sled and allowed her companion to tuck the soft caribou-skin robe about her.
“Joyce,” he murmured, “you’ve been a great pal to me this day! Settle down for an hour of rest. You shan’t set a foot on the snow until we reach your cabin door.”
“We have won!” he exclaimed, as he gripped the handle bars.
“God has helped us,” was her answer.
“Yes. We trusted God and did our best.”
What a moment for shadows! Yet shadows came unbidden. One floated at this moment before the girl’s eyes. “Those films were stolen,” she seemed to hear a voice saying.
“Oh, please!” she pleaded half aloud. “We will do what is right. All will be well in the end.”
Too weary for further thought, she closed her eyes and gave herself over to the pure joy that comes with gliding across the snow in a toboggan sled behind a swift and eager team, the Arctic’s best.
Three hours later Joyce was seated alone by the fire. The hour was late. There came a sound at the door. Having turned about, expecting her father, she was a little startled to see instead the mysterious stranger she had, under unusual circumstances, met before.
Twice this man had, she believed, saved her from the mad buffalo. Now, without a word, he closed the door to make his way to the seat before the hearth. Presently he raised a hand to point to the coffee pot.
From all this you will be led to believe that this stranger was none other than the one so well known to many of the inhabitants of the land as “The Voice.” And so he was.
Joyce Mills had been about the world a great deal. She was not easily frightened. The man did not disturb her. Understanding his gesture, she replenished the fire and in due time poured out a cup of black coffee. He drank it scalding hot. Once again he sat as in a trance. Once more he demanded coffee and got it. Then he spoke:
“You find gold.” It was not a question, but a statement. How could she deny it? And yet, how did he know? They had told no one and the discovery was only a few hours old. Without a word, she stared at him.
But more was to come.
“See. See young man, big, strong, brave. Fly red devil bird, fly, that one. See that one drop down, down, down!”
The girl closed her eyes. He was speaking, she knew all too well, of Drew Lane.
“But not dead.” The man’s voice rose to a high pitch. “Not dead, that one.”
“Yes, yes! He is dead!” came her quick reply.
“No!” The man was angry. Half rising from his chair, he fixed her with his eagle eye.
“No. He not dead!” He sank back into the chair.
Sensing somehow that whether he spoke truth or falsehood, this man’s word was not to be disputed, she held her peace.
After a time he spoke again. This time his story was long and rambling. It told of two boys made prisoner and kept in the cabin of an airplane. His description of the older of these boys fitted Johnny Thompson so well that Joyce could not mistake it.
“More romance,” she told herself, “but let him talk.”
The man rambled on. He spoke of the “Gray Streak,” of a hunchbacked Indian, of swift dog teams and of a curious cavern beneath the snow-covered earth.
She listened. But all the time she was thinking: “I wish this dreamer would go away. I wish father were here.”
In time both her wishes were granted.
With her father came the fortunate young gold hunter, Lloyd Hill.
“Do you know who that is?” Lloyd exclaimed before she had half finished telling of her visitor. “He is known as the Voice. Everyone who lives in this land believes he speaks the truth. I have never known a case in which he erred.”
“But he said Drew Lane was not dead.”
“And who will prove he has not spoken the truth?”
“He said Johnny Thompson was a prisoner in the ‘Gray Streak.’”
“And so he may be.”
Joyce lost her power of speech. If all that the Voice had said were true, this was indeed a strange world.
“Time will tell.” She settled on this conviction. “But if it is all true! If it is!
“But how could he know all this? Surely he cannot be in many places at the same time?”
“Moccasin Telegraph.”
“WhatisMoccasin Telegraph?” Her tone was eager, commanding.
“That is a question no one can answer; at least no white man. A question no red man is willing to answer. We only know that they know. Time and again in this great white wilderness catastrophes have befallen men. A trapper has been killed by an enraged bull moose. A hunter has been shot by his own gun. A plane has crashed. Each time, within an hour or two, some Indian hundreds of miles away has described the tragedy in detail. How do we explain it? How could we? We do not try. We say Moccasin Telegraph, and leave it at that.”
“It—why, that is uncanny!”
Seeing that the whole affair was getting on her nerves, Lloyd wisely changed the subject.
Yet, two hours later, before she fell asleep, the girl found herself puzzling over these things.
“Johnny Thompson a prisoner in the cabin of the ‘Gray Streak,’” she whispered to herself. “And the ‘Gray Streak,’ where is it? The ‘Riddle of the Storm,’ Curlie Carson called it. What a riddle!
“And Drew Lane? His is a riddle of the clouds.
“What a world this is! Long ago Johnny Thompson said we could come here to find peace. Have we found it? Truly this world knows no valley of contentment.”
The hunchback bowman stood tapping upon the airplane cabin in which Johnny Thompson had been made prisoner. How had he traveled over all those weary miles? How had he known the way? Had the airplane left a path across the sky for his eyes?
Who will answer? For that matter, who will answer a hundred questions that might well be asked concerning the strange natives of the North? How do they follow trails that are wind-blown, no trails at all, over miles of darkness and storm? How do they in the midst of fog, without sun, moon or stars to guide them, steer frail craft over dark waters to land on unlighted shores before their wigwam doors? How can they know what happens a hundred miles away at the very hour at which it happens? To all these questions there is no answer. Ask them. They will reply, “We cannot tell.” Do they speak the truth? Who can say?
The bowman was here. How? What matter this? He was here. He was Johnny’s undying friend. Once he had saved the boy’s life. His hand it had been that, with so much skill, had fashioned the bow taken by him from the snow hours before. The lost bow, the overturned sled had spoken to him. They had said, “Your friend, Johnny Thompson, is in distress.”
He had replied, “I will go to his aid.” Now he tapped upon the glass and beckoned.
For answer, Johnny threw back his robe, disclosing the stout steel manacles on his ankles.
The hunchback’s reaction was startling. Wrenching open the door with his powerful hands, he prepared to drag Johnny from the cabin to his sled.
With a sigh Johnny told him that the other boy must go too. The Indian understood. Swiftly, silently he lifted the second boy and carried him to the sled. Then, dragging forth Johnny’s robe, he wrapped it about them.
At a barely audible call from Johnny, the five dogs came bounding from the cabin. Then they were away.
The Indian made no effort to hitch Johnny’s dogs to the sled. There was no need. His own tireless team was still fit for the trail. In the North both dogs and men are accustomed to long hours of rest and long days of toil.
So, with no sound coming from the darkened cabin where, relying on their false security, the mysterious ones slept on, the sled glided away into the night.
For an hour they followed the shore of the lake. Then turning sharply to the left, they climbed a steep hill to go gliding along a ridge. Mile after mile of glistening white had passed beneath their runners when at last they went tobogganing down a steep incline to tumble all in a heap at the bottom. And that bottom was the frozen surface of still another lake.
Fifteen minutes more and, just as dawn was breaking, they found themselves facing a brown wall of rock. In the center of this wall was a narrow opening. Into this opening they were invited to crawl.
“D—do you think it’s safe t—to go in there?” D’Arcy Arden looked up at Johnny. With their feet still bound together, they were obliged to crawl on hands and knees.
“Safest thing in the world.” Johnny prepared to lead the way. “I have one rule for every land; do as the natives do. If a native says a thing is safe, you may be sure it is.
“Besides,” he added as he crept forward, “this man is an old friend of mine. Think of the miles he traveled to save me!”
For all his confidence in his guide, Johnny was a little surprised at the place he entered. Not so much a cave as a passageway among a tumbled mass of jagged rocks, it led right, left, up, down until he was fairly dizzy. But at last they came into a rather large, low chamber.
To his surprise, Johnny found that in this chamber he could see plainly enough to find his way about. He was, however, too much worn down by excitement and lack of sleep to note this with any degree of interest or to ask questions about it. Having been assured by signs from his strange host that they were now quite safe and that he was prepared to guard the entrance, he curled up once more beneath his robe and, with D’Arcy at his side, fell asleep in a chamber which sunlight never entered, but where darkness never reigned supreme.
* * * * * * * *
At about the time Johnny and his companions reached the cave, Sandy MacDonald, the veteran prospector who had risen early that he might get a full day of prospecting, heard a scratching at the door of the cabin.
As he threw open the door Ginger, Johnny’s gray leader, with a look upon his face that seemed almost human, sprang upon him.
“Ginger!” Sandy exclaimed. “Where’s Johnny?”
For answer the dog turned and dashed through the door. He went a distance down the trail. Then, seeing he was not followed, turned back.
The aged prospector’s astonishment knew no bounds. He had not expected Johnny back, had believed him safe in some cabin or camping beneath the stars. And here was his indispensable leader racing into the cabin and demanding attention.
“Something’s happened! I get you!” Sandy said to the dog. “Just a cup of coffee, and I’ll be with you.”
The intelligent creature appeared to understand for, weary messenger that he was, he threw himself down beside the fire and fell fast asleep.
The instant the door opened, he was on his feet, ready to lead the way back over that long weary trail to the cabin he had left, and then on and on, who could tell how much farther? until they came upon his young master. Such is the humble devotion of a faithful dog.
“Ginger, old boy,” the gray-bearded prospector rumbled, as he turned his team into the trail, “I figured I’d come onto that pitchblende today, regular velvety black stuff and heavy, heavy as gold, the real stuff, and radium, radium aplenty. But when a pal of ours is in distress, that’s a different matter. Success? Well now, that can wait until to-morrow.” So they hit the long, long trail.
* * * * * * * *
But Curlie Carson and his mechanic Jerry—what had happened to them? They had slept the night through and with the dawning of a bright new day were eager to be on their way.
“I’d give a penny to know why that chap lives way up here back of beyond,” Curlie said to Jerry, as they prepared to warm up their motor.
“Don’t you know?”
“No. Do you?”
“Absolutely. He’s a trapper. Scattered all over this country, these trappers are.”
“Then he’s not connected with the ‘Gray Streak?’”
“Not a chance; nor is that little chap back there beyond Fort Chipewyan, the one with the carrier pigeon.”
Curlie showed his disappointment at this fresh discovery. He had come a long way on a wild goose chase. He had hoped against hope that this cabin might furnish a clue to the solution of the mystery that gathered itself about that gray rover of the sky. Yet here was Jerry telling him there was not a chance.
“But why didn’t he tell us he was a trapper?” he objected.
“These men of the North are silent fellers,” Jerry said slowly. “You’ll find that out. They live in the midst of silence. They’re here because they love silence. People that like cities live in ’em and talk aplenty.
“One thing helps,” Jerry added after a time. “Our record is still good. We’ve added a grand distance to our total year’s flight and, this being an errand of mercy, counts extra special.”
Curlie smiled as he thought what an accidental errand of mercy it had been.
“But not so much an accident after all,” he said half aloud. “God planned it, beyond a shadow of a doubt. And what God plans can never be called an accident.”
The baggage their passenger proposed to take with him was proof enough that he was a trapper. This was composed of bales of white fox skins.
“This,” he explained, “is only part of our catch. My partner left with the rest on our dog sled five days ago. It’s five hundred miles to Fort Chipewyan. You have to carry food for yourself and your dogs. We didn’t dare try it together. Too much of a load for so long a journey. I was to come down later. But now,” he smiled, “guess I’ll beat him out. That’s the glory of the air.”
“Yes,” Curlie agreed, “that’s the glory of the air.”
Even then his mind was but half occupied with the affairs of the moment. He was thinking of the mystery plane.
“What became of them?” he asked himself. “Did they make a forced landing? Could they have crashed? Did they reach their base? If so, where is it? Will I ever find it? And if I do?
“The riddle of the storm,” he murmured, “of two storms. When will it be solved?” For the first time he realized how fully this problem had taken possession of his thoughts.
“Such a riddle!” His tone became animated. “And its solution means so much to these far flung dwellers of the North.
“One thing comes first. That’s clear. We must get this wounded man to the doctor at Resolution!
“Oh, Jerry,” he called. “Is the motor O.K.?”
“Absolutely.”
“All right. Let’s go.”
The motor thundered. Curlie climbed aboard, looked back to see that his passenger was ready, then set the plane gliding over the snow. A moment later the great bird rose with a graceful glide and soared toward the clouds.
* * * * * * * *
Johnny Thompson did not sleep long in the hunchback’s curious cave. Everything was too strange for that. There were too many matters that needed thinking through.
He did not waken suddenly, nor all at once. For a time, only half awake, he lay there wondering. Who were these mysterious airmen? Why had they taken him prisoner? Would they follow the track of the hunchback’s sled and attempt to recapture him? He sincerely hoped they would not.
“Could be but one end to that,” he told himself. “They’d be shot through and through by my Indian friend’s arrows.” He had seen that Indian kill a grizzly bear with those arrows.
He thought of Ginger, his dog leader.
“Did he escape, or did they kill him?” He was bound to believe that his good pal of many a long trail was safe.
“And if he is,” he whispered to himself, “if he is—” Suddenly he sat straight up, wide awake. A thought had struck him squarely between the eyes. “If Ginger is alive, he has gone back over the trail. He has told Sandy MacDonald that something is wrong. They will start back over the trail. They will follow until they come to the camp of those mysterious aviators. Then Sandy will be made prisoner. And Ginger! They will surely kill him this time.
“It must not happen! I must attempt to find that trail and head them off. There is not a moment to lose! I—”
He broke off to stare about him. His startled eyes, roving from corner to corner of the cave and from floor to ceiling, had, even in his excitement and anxiety, taken note of an astonishing fact. He was in a cave. There was no lamp. Not an oil lamp, not an electric torch was to be found; and yet the place was illumined. And outside it was still night.
“It’s the walls,” he told himself. “They are all alight.
“D’Arcy! D’Arcy Arden!” He put out a trembling hand to shake his companion into wakefulness. “D’Arcy! Wake up! We are surrounded by walls of light!”
“There! That’s the place!”
D’Arcy Arden pointed away over a well-marked track to the distant shores of a small lake. On the shore of the lake grew a few scrub trees, poplars, willows and spruce. Nestling among these was a cabin. From the chimney a thin coil of smoke rose skyward.
“Yes.” Johnny Thompson pulled him back. “And there’s the gray plane. They must be there. We must be careful, or they will see us.”
Creeping back to a spot where a low ridge shut out their view of the lake, they gathered in a circle for a council of war. War it was to be, too. Sandy MacDonald had decreed that two hours before.
“They have forfeited their right to freedom, those wild aviators have, whoever they may be!” he had declared stoutly. “They have taken gas from stations when no emergency existed and have not reported it. They have robbed trappers of their supplies. They have kidnapped two of you and carried you away into a desolate land where, for all we know, they meant to let you starve. Why? Let them tell us.
“Our duty its plain. We must, if we can, capture them, bring them to justice and return the plane to its owner if it has been stolen, which I doubt not.”
So, fired by the veteran’s words, they had prepared to march upon those intruders in a silent land.
They were four: Johnny Thompson, D’Arcy Arden, Sandy MacDonald and the Hunchback Bowman. Three were armed with bows and arrows. These bows, as you have seen, were capable of killing a bear. Sandy was prepared, if need be, to do yeoman service with an axe.
You may wonder how it came about that they were together here, so close to the hiding place of the ones they sought. It is all quite simple. Without tarrying to discover the origin of the strange illumination in the mysterious cave of the hunchback, Johnny had set about the task of removing his fetters and those of D’Arcy. This, with the aid of the hunchback’s extraordinary strength, he was successful in doing.
Finding himself once more on his feet, he had crept from the cave, harnessed his dogs and hitched them with those of the hunchback to the sled.
After seeing that they were all well armed with stout bows, he headed the double dog team back over the trail of the night before.
They would, he explained, follow this trail until they found themselves approaching the small lake on which the mystery plane had alighted. They would then circle the lake until they came upon the hunchback’s trail leading to the camp. It was this last trail that old Ginger and the aged prospector would follow if, as he firmly believed, the old leader had escaped and Sandy MacDonald was on his way to the rescue.
“And if we are too late, if MacDonald has gone before us and been captured, we will storm their place and rescue him if it costs a life!” Johnny had said with fierce determination.
The hunchback, though he spoke scarcely a word of English, appeared to understand, for he grinned, showing all his white teeth, and brandished his bow in a threatening manner.
For once they had met with good fortune. They had not been camped half an hour on the trail made by the hunchback on the night of the rescue when Sandy MacDonald appeared at the top of a ridge. Then it was that the aged Scotchman completely lost control of his team. Old Ginger was in the lead. Once he sighted his young master, he led the team in a stampede that ended only when he leaped up to kiss Johnny’s cheek, a kiss of which Johnny had no cause to be ashamed.
So now here they were, gathered in a narrow run, planning an attack.
“We might wait until night,” suggested Johnny.
“And in the meantime they’d be away in the plane, like as not,” objected the sturdy Scotchman. “Looks like the Lord had delivered them into our hands. We must take them.”
“But they may be desperate characters!”
“Beyond doubt they are. We must take them by surprise. We’ll do it this way.” Sandy MacDonald’s old eyes shone with fresh fire. “You three that are armed, you’ll creep up through the brush and take your position ready to cover the door. Then I’ll drive up with the dog team as any trapper might do. I’ll get them out into the open, without arms. You will cover their escape. And so we’ll win a bloodless battle.”
“Sounds all right,” said Johnny. “But here’s hoping nothing goes wrong!”
Their method of attack agreed upon, there remained but to put it into effect.
Testing their bows, then nocking their arrows, the young archers, together with the hunchback, crept forward. Over one ridge they climbed, down a narrow gully, over a second ridge where for a second, quite breathless, they feared detection, then down the ridge followed by a break for cover in the bushes.
“We—we made it,” D’Arcy puffed in a whisper.
“Yes, we did,” Johnny agreed. “But the worst is yet to come. Look to your bow. Set your arrow squarely. If you must shoot, shoot to kill. More than one honest person’s life depends upon it.”
They crept through the bushes to a point where they might command a view of the doorway to the cabin and the open space before it. Then, sinking down in the snow behind the black bulk of a spruce tree, they awaited the zero hour.
Johnny drew his watch from his pocket. A minute ticked itself into eternity, then another and yet another.
“Sandy does not come,” Johnny whispered. “What’s keeping him?”
A chill gripped his heart. What if their valiant old leader had been ambushed and captured!
“We’d save him!” was his stout resolve. “We—”
He broke off. A chill, creeping up from his very toes, left him rooted to the spot. He had caught a sound of movement in the brush behind him. There could be no mistaking that.
“Sandy has been ambushed and captured. Now it is our turn. Will they fight?” Fresh courage flooded his being as, gripping his bow, he whirled about.
The next instant he all but dropped in his tracks. Framed in the green that was the spruce boughs, he beheld a face, the face of Drew Lane!
Starting back like one who sees a ghost, he stood there, rigid as marble.
The face smiled. He knew that smile. It was Drew Lane’s smile. No ghost this, but a living being.
“Drew Lane, as I live!”
“Right the first time.”
“And—and you did not fall from the parachute?”
Drew did not answer.
“Am I in time?”
“For the fight?”
“The fight.”
“Just in time. We—” Once again Johnny broke off. Had he caught the drone of an airplane motor?
He had. There was no questioning that. It grew louder.
“Are they gone?” he asked himself. “They can’t be.” One look around the tree assured him that the gray plane still rested on the ice by the cabin.
“A second plane.” His head whirled. Was there more than one mystery plane? A whole fleet of them perhaps?
“Or—” Hope rose high. “Or is this Curlie Carson coming to our rescue?”
Together the four of them stood at attention.
From his hiding place, not far from the cabin, Sandy MacDonald, too, had heard the drone of the plane. Truth was, his keen old ears had detected it first. This is why he had delayed appearing. He was, however, in a quandary. Like Johnny, he was in the dark regarding the person who flew this second plane. Was he a friend? Or foe? He could not know. And not knowing, he felt that their coup might be postponed. But his young comrades? Would they have the patience to wait? He could not tell. In the end, he decided to trust to their patience.
Johnny’s watch ticked away another minute. The second plane loomed larger and larger in the distance.
Suddenly from out the log cabin sprang two large, black-bearded men. One carried a curious package on his head. It seemed a dark leather case, a perfect cube some eighteen inches in diameter.
Having hurriedly placed this in the cabin of the plane, they leaped for the cockpit to set the motor in motion.
“Stop them!” Johnny sprang to his feet. “They are off!”
He was too late. The plane began to glide across the ice. Moving slowly at first, it gained in momentum.
At the same time the other plane was speeding toward them. Johnny was sure now that he made out the blue and yellow of Curlie Carson’s plane.
“So near!” he groaned. “And we lost them!”
He came out into the open. His companions followed him. Sandy MacDonald came up. Together they watched the gray plane rise from the ice and soar northward.
The other plane changed its course. It was to pass some distance from them.
“If that’s Curlie’s plane,” said Johnny, “he is not alone. His tank is well loaded with gas. He will chase them until they are ready to cry for quarter.”
ItwasCurlie. And every guess Johnny had made was a good one.
Arrived at Resolution with the disabled trapper, Curlie had told his story to Sergeant Jock Gordon of the Royal Mounted Police. Jock had gone into action. He had summoned his assistant and ordered him to prepare to accompany him at once into the wilds.
“We must follow the scent before it is cold.” he said to Curlie. “As an officer of the law, I have power to commandeer your plane. That’s what I’m doing now. How soon can we be off?”
“We’ll be ready in an hour.”
“Absolutely,” Jerry echoed.
So here they were hot on the tail of the gray plane which had spread consternation through the North.
The chase was not a long one. While Johnny Thompson and his companions listened and watched, they heard the motor of the mystery plane cough and rattle, then lapse into an appalling silence. Instantly the heavy plane went into a tailspin and plunged earthward.
From an altitude of some two thousand feet, it fell faster and faster. Johnny closed his eyes, but could not shut out the mental vision of that which must happen. This was a little world of rocky ridges. There could be but one outcome to such a landing.
In silence they watched the pursuing plane circle back, then slow down for a landing. In silence still, they gripped the hands of Curlie and Jerry as they alighted from the plane.
The look on Curlie’s face as his eyes fell upon the close knit features and sturdy form of the young detective, Drew Lane, was a wonderful thing to see.
“By all the signs that any man can know,” he said slowly, “you should be dead. With my own eyes I saw you pass into a cloud. You were dropping earthward in a parachute. I saw the parachute flutter out of the cloud. You were gone. A fall of two thousand feet in such a spot must kill any mortal man; yet here you are! I—I am glad! But how does one do it?” He stared hard at the detective.
“Simple enough.” Drew gave forth a low laugh. “When one knows how, there’s really nothing to it. Been done several times. Two parachutes, that’s the answer. When you release one, you open the other. The second one takes you safely to earth.
“It seems, however,” he spoke slowly, “that it got me nothing, that trick. Thought I’d be able to slip up on them and take them single-handed.