Then, for the first time, Charley showed some sign of life. Slowly he lifted his eyes to Strak’s face and said solemnly, “Charley too busy to talk—untilnow!” As he shouted the last word, his two powerful arms whipped free from behind him and wrapped around his tormentor.
Strak tried desperately to bring up his rifle, but he was helpless in Charley’s grizzly-bear hug. The air whistled out of his lungs like a wheezing bellows, and there was the distinct snap of a rib cracking. He moaned softly and fainted. Charley let him drop to the floor.
“Atta boy, Charley!” Jerry said exultantly.
They all winced as the Indian held up his hands in the light. His wrists were raw and bleeding from rubbing at the rope. “Big spike in bench where I sit. Slow work, but at end I saw rope through.” He bent over Strak and removed a hunting knife from the man’s belt. Quickly he cut through the ropes that bound his own ankles. Then he went along the bench freeing the others.
“Come on!” Dr. Steele said, grabbing up Strak’s rifle from the ground. “No time to lose. The others will be coming back soon.” He led the way out of the room and down the tunnel to the entrance.
At the foot of the mountain beyond the abandoned mine building, they could see the plane sitting like a toy in the snow. The three enemy agents were bustling around it, mere specks at this distance.
“They’re still working on the runway,” Sandy observed.
“What do we do when they come back?” Jerry asked.
Lou Mayer indicated the rifle the doctor was holding. “We have one gun. We can make a fight of it at least.”
Dr. Steele was not enthusiastic. “All three of them are armed. I’m afraid it wouldn’t be much of a fight.” His voice was grim. “Some of us would be hurt—or killed.”
“Why couldn’t we rush down the hill when we see them start up?” Professor Crowell suggested. “They’d be inside, coming up through the shafts. By the time they got up here, we’d have quite a head start on them. If we get to that plane—”
Dr. Steele shook his head. “We’d never stand a chance without snowshoes, and they’re all down at the mine shed. They’d have a field day picking us off with their rifles while we flounder through those hip-deep drifts on the mountain.”
“Then we’ve got no choice,” Lou Mayer said gloomily. “We’ve got to make a stand here.”
“Wait a minute!” Sandy cried out, the bud of a wild inspiration forming in his mind. “Is there any chancethatthing still works?” The others followed his gaze upward to the old cable car creaking and rocking to the right of the entrance.
The professor sighed. “I’m afraid not. These cable cars were operated by power machinery down at the depot.”
“I know,” Sandy said. “But we’d be coasting downhill.”
There was a gleam of interest in Dr. Steele’s eyes. “That sounds logical. What do you say we have a look at it, Son? But keep down. We don’t want Kruger and the others to spot us against the snow.”
They slunk out of the shadow of the mine entrance, darting quickly behind the cover of the cable car. Dr. Steele climbed into the open cab and squinted up at the rigging. “Looks to me as if the only thing that’s restraining it is that safety lock,” he said.
Sandy disagreed. “What about the pulley cable? That must be anchored in the shed below. She won’t roll unless that’s free.”
Dr. Steele studied the arrangement of rollers and cables more closely. “You’re right,” he admitted. He pointed to the steel hook-eye at the back of the car where the pulley cable was attached. “The wire is pretty frayed back here. Possibly we could hack through it. I saw an old ax back in the cave.”
“It’s sure worth a try,” Sandy said. “How do you think that overhead cable will hold up when we start rolling downhill?”
“I’d say it’s in pretty good condition. They put a good coating of grease on all the machinery before they shut the mine down. They must have hoped to use it again, or possibly to sell it.”
Professor Crowell’s voice rang out urgently from the tunnel entrance. “Hurry up! Kruger and the others are starting back.”
Dr. Steele pulled Sandy down out of sight in the car. “We’ll stay here until they enter the shed.” He called over to Tagish Charley, “Charley, duck back into the mine and get a couple of those picks that are lying around.”
Peering over the rim of the cable car, Sandy watched the three men make their way on snowshoes back to the mine. As soon as they had disappeared into the shed, Dr. Steele shouted for the others. “Come on, we’ve got to work fast. Charley, over here with those picks, quickly!”
Lou Mayer, Professor Crowell and Jerry scrambled aboard the car while Dr. Steele gave instructions to Tagish Charley. “You work on the hook-eye and pulley, Charley. I’ll knock out the safety lock. The rest of you just pray.”
One solid blow tripped the safety lock, and the car moved forward about a foot until the taut cable stopped it. The cable itself was more of a problem. Sandy had the uncomfortable sensation that his leaping heart was trying to squirm out of his throat and escape from his body.
The tension was unbearable as Charley pounded away at the pulley with strong rhythmic strokes of the ax. At first it seemed impervious to the dull blade. Then, with relief, Sandy saw one strand snap with a musical twang. Charley swung harder, encouraged by this success, and another strand broke. Each strand that let go put additional stress on the remaining strands, making Charley’s task a little easier. The last two snapped together with a loud report.
The car shuddered and began to roll forward slowly. There was the nerve-shattering screech of metal against metal as the overhead rollers and the main cable protested violently at being used so rudely after twenty-one years of inactivity. Snow, rust and metal shavings cascaded down on the car’s occupants as it picked up momentum.
The boys let go with a tremendous cheer and Professor Crowell and Dr. Steele shook hands solemnly. Sandy glanced behind them at the rapidly diminishing tunnel entrance, but as yet there was no sign of Kruger and the other two enemy agents.
Fortunately the pitting of the cable and the rust and stiffness of the rollers reduced their acceleration sufficiently so that they crashed into the bumpers at the foot of the incline with only a moderate jolt. The cable car split the rotting wood on the bumper’s face, but the springs behind it cushioned the jolt.
Sandy extricated himself from the mass of scrambled limbs gingerly. “Everybody okay? No broken bones?”
There was a chorus of relieved okays.
Dr. Steele climbed out into the snow. “All right. Into the shed and on with those snowshoes.” Apprehensively, he looked up the mountain, but the enemy agents still had not appeared.
As Sandy strapped on the great clumsy snowshoes, he made a suggestion. “Let’s take the other four pairs with us. That will slow them up even more if they try to follow us.”
“Good idea,” Tagish Charley grunted. “But I got better one.” He picked up the ax he had carried with him from the cable car and began to attack the surplus snowshoes furiously. When he had demolished them, he straightened up and, to everyone’s amazement, grinned broadly. “They no go very far now.”
They were halfway to the plane when a distant gunshot came to them faintly through the thin, dry air. Turning, Sandy could make out three ant-like specks on the mountainside near the tunnel where they had been held prisoner.
“They’ve discovered we’re gone,” he said.
“And they’re shooting at us,” Jerry commented nervously.
“We’re not in much danger at this range,” Professor Crowell assured them. “Without telescopic sights, it would take a mighty lucky shot to hit anyone.”
Nevertheless, they were all greatly relieved when they were seated snugly in the cabin of the plane and Professor Crowell had the motors gunning smoothly. “Those fellows did a mighty fine job on this runway,” the professor said charitably. He advanced the throttle and the ship glided ahead smoothly. They cleared the trees at the far end of the clearing with plenty of room to spare and climbed in a sweeping curve that took them over the mountain. Far below on the snowy slope they could see the frustrated agents hopping about and shaking their fists in the air.
“They’ve caught the entire gang!” Dr. Steele reported excitedly as he burst into the boys’ hotel room at Cordova a little after eight the next morning.
Sandy sat up and massaged the sleep from his eyes. “No kidding, Dad. When?”
“Army Intelligence moved in on Strak, Parker and the other two at dawn. They gave up without a fight. Seems they put in a pretty rough night. Strak was in bad shape, thanks to Charley, but he’ll live to stand trial for espionage.”
“What about the rest of the gang?”
“The local police arrested them as they were trying to board a freighter at Valdez. It’s a clean sweep.”
“Wow!” Jerry was awake now, his eyes as big and shiny as tin plates. “That’s what I call action.” Grinning, he added, “We sure could have used a little bit of that kind of action yesterday. Where were all the cops and G-men then?”
“In an operation like this one,” Dr. Steele explained, “they had to stay way out on the fringes until the last moment. That was a risk we knew we’d have to take from the start if we hoped to spring a trap on this gang of ruthless saboteurs. If we had an army of bodyguards dogging our footsteps, they never would have been lured in.”
“Lured in?” Sandy was perplexed. “You mean we were sort of decoys for the spies?”
“In a way,” Dr. Steele admitted. “I couldn’t tell you that, even yesterday. But now it’s officially okay to let you in on it.”
“But what about the rocket fuel Professor Crowell was working on? I thought we came up to look for some rare element.”
“That of course was our primary reason for coming to Alaska. And of course we’ll continue to search for Element X. But when the enemy agents began to hound us so persistently, we saw an opportunity to make a double killing.”
Jerry stretched. “Only we came awful close to being the ones who were killed.”
“We had a narrow scrape,” Dr. Steele agreed. “It was ingenious of them to take back the plane to Cordova after they ambushed us at the mine. Our people were holding back, of course, and it really threw them off the trail. As far as they knew, we had checked back into the city and then disappeared into thin air. With a bit more luck the gang might have smuggled us out of the country.”
Jerry laughed. “Hey, Sandy, can you see us going to school in Siberia?”
“Frankly, no,” Sandy told him. “You have enough trouble with English.”
Dr. Steele broke in with “That reminds me. We have to think of getting you boys back to Valley View. You don’t want to miss too much more school.”
“Speak for yourself, Doctor,” Jerry crowed. “How can you expect us to go back and associate with little school kids after battling Yukon blizzards, Kodiak bears and spies? It’s positively undignified.”
Dr. Steele smiled tolerantly. “Don’t feel that way, Jerry. Remember, adventure and excitement may be just around the corner, whether you’re in Alaska or California.”
“Yeah, that’s right,” Jerry said thoughtfully. Then he added, with a gleam in his eye, “Besides, it’ll be great to come up with our story when Pepper March starts spouting about that cruise he was supposed to take. Boy, willhiseyes pop! And you know what? We might even be able to stump Quiz Taylor. Wouldn’t that be something? Okay, Valley View, here we come! How about it, Sandy?”
Sandy stretched blissfully. “I’m ready. In fact, I’m way ahead of you. How about next summer?”
SANDY STEELE ADVENTURES1. BLACK TREASURESandy Steele and Quiz spend an action-filled summer in the oil fields of the Southwest. In their search for oil and uranium, they unmask a dangerous masquerader.2. DANGER AT MORMON CROSSINGOn a hunting trip in the Lost River section of Idaho, Sandy and Mike ride the rapids, bag a mountain lion, and stumble onto the answer to a hundred-year-old mystery.3. STORMY VOYAGESandy and Jerry James ship as deck hands on one of the “long boats” of the Great Lakes. They are plunged into a series of adventures and find themselves involved in a treacherous plot.4. FIRE AT RED LAKESandy and his friends pitch in to fight a forest fire in Minnesota. Only they and Sandy’s uncle know that there is an unexploded A-bomb in the area to add to the danger.5. SECRET MISSION TO ALASKAA pleasant Christmas trip turns into a startling adventure. Sandy and Jerry participate in a perilous dog-sled race, encounter a wounded bear, and are taken as hostages by a ruthless enemy.6. TROUBLED WATERSWhen Sandy and Jerry mistakenly sail off in a stranger’s sloop instead of their own, they land in a sea of trouble. Their attempts to outmaneuver a desperate crew are intertwined with fascinating sailing lore.PUBLISHED BY SIMON AND SCHUSTER
1. BLACK TREASURE
Sandy Steele and Quiz spend an action-filled summer in the oil fields of the Southwest. In their search for oil and uranium, they unmask a dangerous masquerader.
2. DANGER AT MORMON CROSSING
On a hunting trip in the Lost River section of Idaho, Sandy and Mike ride the rapids, bag a mountain lion, and stumble onto the answer to a hundred-year-old mystery.
3. STORMY VOYAGE
Sandy and Jerry James ship as deck hands on one of the “long boats” of the Great Lakes. They are plunged into a series of adventures and find themselves involved in a treacherous plot.
4. FIRE AT RED LAKE
Sandy and his friends pitch in to fight a forest fire in Minnesota. Only they and Sandy’s uncle know that there is an unexploded A-bomb in the area to add to the danger.
5. SECRET MISSION TO ALASKA
A pleasant Christmas trip turns into a startling adventure. Sandy and Jerry participate in a perilous dog-sled race, encounter a wounded bear, and are taken as hostages by a ruthless enemy.
6. TROUBLED WATERS
When Sandy and Jerry mistakenly sail off in a stranger’s sloop instead of their own, they land in a sea of trouble. Their attempts to outmaneuver a desperate crew are intertwined with fascinating sailing lore.
PUBLISHED BY SIMON AND SCHUSTER