“Trouble was I didn’t know the land. Got myself lost right at the start. Had a mighty tough time of it, I have. Lost all trace of them. This is the first I’ve seen of them for days. And now I find them only to see them crack up.
“Well,” he added philosophically, “that’s the end of the ‘Gray Streak.’ Not a chance that they came down alive. Only thing that’s left is to search the wreckage for clues, then give them an aviator’s funeral, light a match and touch off their gas. What say we go?”
Eight hours later, gathered about the fire in the cabin that had but a few hours before been the base of strange outlaws, they were preparing to go through with an unusual ceremony—the opening of the black cube, which had been thrown from the wrecked plane and, strangely enough, had received not the slightest injury.
“Heavy!” said Jock Gordon, lifting it to the table. “Wonder what’s in it. We’ll see.”
The next instant as one man they started back. They were met by a blaze of such varied light as they had never before beheld. They were looking upon a crown, the crown of a one-time powerful ruler. And not a jewel was missing.
“The crown of the Tzar of Russia, as I live!” exclaimed Sandy MacDonald.
“Do—do you think so?” Jock asked.
“Can’t be a doubt of it. I’ve seen it pictured many times, even in colors. The radicals got it, when the Revolution came. And now, here it is!”
“Why?” It was Johnny who asked. He asked for all. He may as well have asked for the whole world. The question will perhaps never be answered. The two men who might have answered it were dead. Their funeral pyre had but a few hours before loomed toward the sky. A thousand questions might be asked about this strange pair, but none answered. The priceless crown alone remained. And that, since it had been smuggled into the country, must be turned over to the Canadian Government.
“Do you know, Sandy,” Johnny said as they sat by the fire an hour later, “I slept in the strangest place last night. It was a cave; perhaps you might only call it a rocky cavern.”
“What’s strange about that?” Sandy rumbled sleepily.
“It was all alight and yet there was no lamp. And it was night.”
“Light?” Sandy sprang to his feet.
“The walls appeared to be phosphorescent.”
“And was it warm, too?” The old man’s tone was eager.
“Yes. I believe it was.”
“Man!” cried Sandy, seizing his hand and gripping it till it hurt. “You’ve made the find of a lifetime!”
“A—a find?”
“Those walls are radio-active. It’s pitchblende, full of radium. It gives off light and heat. And man! How rich it must be! It’s such a find as the world has never known!”
Could this be true? Johnny’s head whirled. Had God in His strange ways of providence led him over a mysterious route to the goal he sought?
For a few hours, each wrapped in his feather robe, they slept on the floor before the fire. Then, all too eager for the final curtain on this little drama of the North, they were away.
As a representative of the Canadian Government, Jock Gordon took charge of the black cube and its precious contents. Curlie Carson agreed to carry him straight to Edmonton.
Since Drew Lane had proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that his mission in the North, in so far as it concerned the stolen air mail plane, was to be a fruitless one, he decided to return with Curlie to Edmonton. There he would make connections with his own pilot and fly home.
“When I attempted that double parachute stunt,” he said to Curlie, “I told the pilot to fly my Red Racer back to the airport, then keep his mouth shut. So he’s sure to be waiting there.”
“But where do you suppose that air mail plane is?” Johnny Thompson asked.
“Who can answer that? Perhaps in Cuba, or Mexico or Central America. A crook with plenty of money can travel far. But in the end we’ll get him.”
“We’ll take this boy along and drop him off at Fort Chipewyan,” said Curlie, turning to D’Arcy Arden.
The boy beamed his gratitude.
A few moments later the motor thundered and they were away.
When the party had in this manner been reduced to three, Johnny, Sandy and the hunchback bowman, Sandy exclaimed:
“Now, son! Lead me to this enchanted cave!”
An enchanted cave it proved to be. “It’s radium! Richest find ever made!” the prospector exclaimed the moment his eyes rested upon its walls. “Must be phosphorus and zinc blended with it in a peculiar manner. But it is rich in radium. I would stake my life on it.”
Just as they were preparing to leave the cave, they caught the sound of some one shouting. On reaching the exit they found Scott Ramsey waiting outside.
“You left no word,” he accused Sandy.
“The dog came with an emergency call. I could but answer,” Sandy rumbled.
“So you’re all safe!” Scott seemed relieved.
“Safe enough. And our young friend here has made a discovery such as is made only once in a generation.” He told of the find in the cavern they had just left.
“But look here!” Scott exclaimed when he had finished and they had rejoiced together.
He drew a letter from his pocket and read it aloud. It had come in answer to his enquiry regarding the films he had left in Winnipeg. It explained that the suite of offices to which the vault belonged had been sublet; that the vault had been cleared of all obsolete material, and that through some mistake the films had been sold with waste paper to a junk man.
“That means,” Johnny’s face lighted with a broad smile as he spoke, “that those people in that other camp bought them from the junk man.”
“As they had a perfect right to do,” supplemented Sandy.
“And that’s that!” Johnny did a wild whirl on the hard crusted snow.
“‘Joy cometh in the morning!’” he exclaimed. “For a long time I’ve been feeling mean about our plans to hop in and file on land close to those other prospectors if they made a strike.
“I’ve insisted that one of them is a crook. Joyce Mills has stuck to it that they were the right sort, each and every one. And it seems she’s right. For if they bought the films, who can say they did not have the right to use them?”
“Who indeed?” Sandy’s face lighted with a smile that was good to see. “And who wants gold when he may mine radium?”
“Come on, Ginger!” Johnny set his leader on his feet. “We’re going to be the first to break the glad news to Joyce Mills.”
In this he was not disappointed. And the light that shone from the girl’s eyes as she was told that not one of her three champions had done wrong, was worth all the weary miles of travel that had led him to her camp.
Over a huge roast of venison the men of the two camps pledged fellowship, co-operation and mutual good will.
If there are those who would know more of the mysterious Moccasin Telegraph, let them journey to the far Northland and seek such knowledge there.
Johnny Thompson soon left Sandy and Scott to develop the radium strike, which was a rich one in very truth, to wander back to the white lights of a great city. There once more he came into contact with Drew Lane.
Together they undertook the unraveling of a mystery such as appears but once in a lifetime. If you wish to know its nature and to read of the many brilliant maneuvers that at last led to its solving, you must read our next book:The Galloping Ghost.