Jerry laughed nervously at the professor’s obvious dismay. “I mean he was big like Charley. Of course it wasn’t Charley. Heck, it could have been that big French cook. All I know is that he was big and strong.”
“By the way,” Dr. Steele said suddenly, “whereisCharley?”
No one answered for a long moment. Then Sandy said, “I guess he’s still out with the dogs. Or maybe he’s back swapping stories with the old-timers in the barracks.”
Just as Lou Mayer was about to turn down the lamp, after the others were all in bed, the cabin door swung in and Tagish Charley tramped into the room. His hood and parka were encrusted with snow and ice, as were his boots and trousers. He looked as if he had been out in the storm for a long time. In the crook of his left arm he held a rifle.
“Good lord, Charley!” the professor exclaimed, sitting upright on his cot. “Where have you been, man?”
The Indian walked over to the fireplace and shook himself like a great dog. Carefully he leaned the rifle against the wall and shrugged out of his parka. “I drink coffee in kitchen with Frenchy when man run in and say someone break into this cabin. I take rifle and follow him.”
“In this storm!” Sandy said. “You could have gotten lost and frozen to death.”
Charley grunted and tapped a finger to his temple. “Indian have thing up here like pigeon. Always find way home. Bad man have sled and dogs waiting in trees. No use follow him. If snow stop in morning, maybe I look around some more.” He kicked off his boots, stepped out of his wet trousers and spread them out over the back of a chair near the fire. Then, like a big animal, he padded across the floor to an empty bunk. Seconds after his head hit the pillow, the rafters shook from his mooselike snores.
Jerry leaned over the side of his top-deck wall bunk and grinned at Sandy in the bunk underneath. “Now I know those guys up in Tibet are all wet. There isn’t any Abominable Snowman. They bumped into Tagish Charley when he was out for one of his evening strolls.”
Sandy grinned back, but it was a weak grin. He was bothered alternately by twinges of suspicion and pangs of guilt. Itcouldn’tbe Charley; heknewit! Yet, anything was possible.
The snow stopped during the night and a high-pressure area moved into the vicinity. Morning brought clear blue skies and bright sun. But the air was still dry and frosty.
“Actually, only about seven inches fell,” Superintendent MacKensie told them at breakfast. “By the time you folks are on your way, the highway will be slick as a whistle. Our patrol plane’s scouting back in the direction of Dawson Creek to see if any motorcars are in trouble. If anyone was on the road when that snow started coming down real hard, they would have had to sit it out overnight.”
“I hope we’re still here when the plane gets back,” Jerry said. “I’d like to see how they land those babies on skis.”
“Actually, it’s smoother than landing on wheels,” Professor Crowell told him. “I know I prefer them.”
“Do you have your own plane, Professor?” Sandy asked.
“Oh, yes. In wild, big country like this, planes are more common than family cars, and far more practical. In the summertime almost every lake you pass on your way north looks something like a supermarket parking field. Private planes, all sizes and shapes and makes.”
Jerry whistled. “Boy, that’s the life. Can you imagine how that would be back in Valley View? I can just hear myself saying to my father, ‘Hey, Pop, I got a heavy date tonight. Can I have the keys to the plane?’”
The men laughed and Professor Crowell said, “That’s not as much of a joke as you think. My daughters are always flying up to Edmonton to shop for their new spring outfits and Easter bonnets.”
Jerry looked wistful. “Gee, it must be more fun being a kid up here than it is in the city.”
Dr. Steele smiled. “It certainly must be more exciting in some ways. Then again, I suspect that youngsters like you and Sandy would miss your malt shops, drive-ins and television.”
“They have television here,” Sandy said.
“Yes,” Superintendent MacKensie admitted, “but it’s pretty limited compared to what you Americans can see.”
The boys were intrigued by the heavy, thick flapjacks that Frenchy the cook served with thick slabs of bacon.
“They taste different than what my maw makes,” Jerry commented. “Sort of sour.” Then, with an apologetic glance at the big, bushy-headed cook, “But I love ’em.”
Superintendent MacKensie’s eyes twinkled. “You may not believe it,” he said, “but the fermented yeast dough that went into these flapjacks is over sixty years old.”
Jerry choked in the middle of a bite and swallowed hard. “Sixty years old! You’re kidding, sir?”
“Not in the least. It was handed down to Frenchy by his father, who was a gold prospector up in the Yukon in the eighteen-nineties.”
“Wow!” Jerry laid down his fork. “Talk about hoarders.”
Dr. Steele laughed. “Sourdough, of course. Those old prospectors got their nickname from it. You boys have heard of sourdoughs, haven’t you?”
“Sure,” Jerry admitted. “I just never knew where the name came from.”
“Sourdough was the prospector’s staff of life on the trail,” Superintendent MacKensie explained. “Once he got the mixture just right, he’d keep it in a tightly closed container and add to it as he used it. But the culture always remained the same.”
“Yeast is like a fungus,” Professor Crowell elaborated for the boys’ benefit. “It’s composed of living, growing cells.”
“Yes,” the superintendent went on. “This particular strain in the flapjacks we’re eating has been kept alive for sixty years by Frenchy’s family.”
“Oui,” the cook spoke from the end of the table. “Mypapagive some of this sourdough to all his sons and daughters when they leave home. I give to my son some day.”
“Amazing,” said Lou Mayer.
Frenchy stood up and swung a big, empty platter up on one hand. “I go make some more, no?” He looked down at Jerry. “You eat five or six more, hey, boy? They very small.”
Jerry attacked the last flapjack on his plate with renewed relish. “A couple more anyway, Frenchy. And maybe another slab of that bacon.” He winked as Sandy began to groan. “Who knows, we may get stranded for days in a blizzard without food. I’m storing up energy.”
After breakfast, Sandy and Jerry went outside and watched Tagish Charley work out the huskies on the landing strip off to one side of the road station. The dog sled was about ten feet long with a welded aluminum frame and polished steel runners. Extending halfway down both sides, were guard rails to which baggage could be strapped. There was a small footrest at the rear, where the sled driver could ride standing erect, and a rubber-coated handrail for him to grip.
The dogs milled about excitedly as Charley harnessed them to the sled. They were hitched up in staggered formation, one dog’s head abreast of the haunches of the dog in front of him. Black Titan led the pack, and the driving reins were attached only to his harness.
“Lead dog, he have to be very smart,” Charley told them, ruffling up the thick fur collar around Titan’s throat. “He boss of team. Not driver. Other dogs do bad job, he scold them. Sometimes he have to fight a bad dog who make trouble.”
“Do you think Professor Crowell’s team has a chance to win the race from Whitehorse to Skagway?” Sandy asked him.
“We win,” Charley said matter-of-factly. “Best team, best lead dog.” He patted Titan’s head. “Black Titan pull sled all alone if he have to.”
“Is the professor going to drive himself, Charley?” Jerry inquired curiously.
The Indian shrugged his shoulders. “Better he not drive in race. Professor fine dog driver, but safer if he not drive this race. On trail easy for bad men to get him. Better for Charley to drive team.”
“Charley,” Sandy asked worriedly, “do you have any idea why the bad men are after Professor Crowell? Why would anyone want to harm a nice man like him?”
Anger tightened Charley’s features. “Professor got something they want very bad. They kill him if they have to.”
“Butwhatdo they want? What is it the professor has that’s so valuable to them? Money? Jewels?”
Charley shook his head. “Professor no have money or jewels. Maybe something he have in here.” He tapped his finger against his forehead wisely.
Sandy looked at Jerry. “You know, he could have something there. I think I’m going to have a man-to-man talk with my dad first chance I get.”
The two boys rode on the sled as ballast while Charley put the powerful team through its paces, whizzing back and forth on the hard-packed surface of the landing strip and churning through high drifts in the virgin snow around the fringes.
“Great!” Jerry yelled in Sandy’s ear, clutching the guard rail with one hand and, with his other hand, protecting his face from the spray of snow flung back by the dogs’ flying feet. “This is better than the roller coaster at Disneyland.”
Sandy nodded vigorously. “That Titan is fantastic, isn’t he? He acts almost human.”
Seemingly aware of his admiring audience, Black Titan put on an impressive display. Setting a pace for his teammates that kept their tongues lolling from their black-roofed mouths, he guided them smoothly into sharp turns and sudden twists and broke trail through muzzle-high snow with his broad chest as if it were light as dust—all the time responsive to the slightest tug at the reins.
“He’s a marvel, all right,” Sandy told Charley later when the dogs were resting after their work-out.
“Boy, would I ever like to get into that big race. You don’t need any passengers, do you, Charley?” Jerry asked.
“Okay for you boys to come along. Need five hundred pounds on sled anyway.”
Sandy was overjoyed. “You mean it, Charley? Really? Jerry and I can ride ballast on the sled?”
“Sure. You ask professor.”
At that minute, Dr. Steele came walking across the landing strip toward them. “You fellows about ready to leave? It’s nine-thirty. Superintendent MacKensie has had our vehicles warming up for almost half an hour now.”
Sandy spoke to Jerry in a low voice. “You help Charley get the dogs in the truck. I want to talk to my dad—in private.”
“Dad,” Sandy began haltingly as they walked slowly back to the barracks, “Professor Crowell is in some kind of trouble, isn’t he?”
Dr. Steele was evasive. “You mean because of that man who broke into our cabin? What makes you think that had anything to do with the professor?”
Sandy looked earnestly into his father’s eyes. “That was no ordinary thief, Dad. He was after something in Professor Crowell’s notes and papers.” His face became even graver. “Maybe they’re after you, too.”
Dr. Steele tried to laugh it off, but his mirth was hollow. “Aren’t you becoming a little melodramatic, Son?”
“You don’t fool me for a minute, Dad. I know that whatever’s going on is probably top-secret government business and you can’t tell me what it’s all about. But I do think it’s only fair to tell me whether or not you or the professor or Lou Mayer are in any danger.”
Dr. Steele appeared to think it over very carefully. Finally, he sighed. “Yes, I guess you’re right. I brought you boys along, so I don’t suppose I have any right to keep you completely in the dark. The fact is wearein danger—all of us. I had no right to expose you boys—especially Jerry—to this kind of thing, but I thought at first we could deceivetheminto believing that this was just a routine geological survey. I was wrong. They’re far too clever.” His mouth tightened. “Maybe the best thing to do would be to send you and Jerry back home.”
“Dad!” Sandy looked hurt. “Not on your life. If you’re in any kind of trouble, I’m sticking with you until you’re out of it.”
Dr. Steele frowned. “I wish I could tell you more about this, Sandy, but I’m bound by an oath of secrecy. You’ll just have to trust me.”
“I trust you, Dad.”
“As for Jerry James, I think it’s only fair for you to tell him what I’ve told you and let him decide whether he wants to continue on with us.”
“I’ll ask him,” Sandy agreed. “But I know what he’s going to say right now.”
They were almost at the front door of the barracks now. “One more thing, Dad,” Sandy said. “Tagish Charley. I like him an awful lot. You don’t think that he—”
“That he’s the one who ransacked our cabin last night?” the doctor finished for him. “The same thought flashed through my mind, too. I just can’t believe it, though. Charley’s been with the professor for years; he’s like one of the family. Still—” his face went grim—“we don’t really know—and we can’t afford to take chances.”
Superintendent MacKensie greeted them as they entered the building. “Your wagons are all set to roll,” he announced.
Sandy took his friend aside just before they left the station and repeated what his father had said, offering Jerry the choice of going back to Valley View.
“I ought to slug you,” the husky, dark-haired boy roared, his black eyes flashing, his square jaw jutting out defiantly, “for even thinking I’d back out on you when you were in trouble! What kind of a guy do you think I am?”
“Take it easy, Buster.” Sandy threw his arm around his friend’s shoulders. “I told Dad that’s exactly what you would say.”
They made good time all that morning, and a little after one o’clock they reached Fort Nelson. Here they ate lunch with the Game Commissioner, an old friend of Professor Crowell’s. Later, while the station wagon and truck were being refueled, the boys accompanied Tagish Charley down to the Indian village on the banks of the frozen Nelson River. Charley went straight to the house of the headman in the village, and they talked earnestly and excitedly in an Indian dialect for some time.
On the way back to the truck, he told the boys: “That man know everything go on in province. He say many strangers pass this way. They say they French trappers, but they speak strange tongue and never sell any furs.”
“Did he say how many?” Sandy asked.
“Maybe six.”
Jerry clapped his mittened hands together. “And there are five of us. Those aren’t bad odds.”
“In a fair fight,” Sandy corrected him. “But from what I’ve heard and seen of these guys, they probably have no idea of fighting fair.”
The sun went down early, but this night was clear and the sky was full of stars, so they drove on for quite a while after dark. At five-thirty they came to a weather station near Lake Muncho. It was a small place, manned by three technicians, and although the five guests really crowded their quarters, the weathermen were very hospitable.
“You chaps are lucky,” the man in charge told them. “This high-pressure area should be with us for the rest of the week. You’ll have fine weather all the way to Alaska.”
“Gosh,” said Jerry, when he saw the small pine tree trimmed with tinsel and colored balls and lights that stood in one corner of the shack’s main room. “I almost forgot—this is Christmas Eve.”
“It doesn’t seem like it, somehow,” Sandy said, feeling a slight twinge of homesickness. “Not without Mom’s turkey dinner and presents and Christmas carols.”
“Christmas isn’t turkey and presents and chimes,” Professor Crowell observed. “It’s what you feel in the heart.”
“You’re right, sir,” Sandy admitted. Then he grinned. “I guess Jerry and I are still kids at heart.”
“That’s as it should be,” the professor said. “It’s one of the things I admire most about you Americans—your boyish exuberance. You’re always looking for an excuse to give a party. I think it’s one of the reasons why you have so many national holidays.”
“Nothing shy about us Canadians when it comes to a party either,” one of the weathermen put in. He turned to his two partners. “Let’s show these Yanks a real Christmas party. What do you say?”
There was a chorus of “ayes.”
After a hearty meal of tinned ham, fried potatoes and frozen candied yams, topped off by a flaming plum pudding, they gathered in a tight circle about the little fireplace and sipped hot cider and nibbled marshmallows toasted in the winking embers. About nine o’clock the weathermen picked up a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation program of Christmas carols on their shortwave radio and piped it through a big hi-fi speaker over the fireplace.
“This is more like it,” Jerry sighed contentedly, stuffing himself with marshmallows and roasted nuts, staring at the lights twinkling on the Christmas tree and listening to the strains of “Silent Night.”
Dr. Steele grinned mysteriously. “And who knows, maybe Santa will find you boys even up here. Better pin up your stockings before you go to bed.”
There were only two extra cots at the weather station, so the boys, Lou Mayer and Tagish Charley bedded down in their sleeping bags around the fireplace. Just before he turned in, Charley fed the dogs and let them run for a while on the deserted highway. Then he penned them in on the big front porch of the weather station.
Sandy fell asleep as soon as his head touched the pillow, and the next thing he knew, sunlight was streaming into his eyes. Yawning, he sat up and looked around. Tagish Charley and Lou Mayer were already up and off somewhere. Only Jerry was still asleep, curled up in his sleeping bag like a hibernating bear.
Sandy’s eyes widened as they came to rest on the little Christmas tree in the corner. Beneath it were piled assorted boxes wrapped in gaily colored tissue and tied with tinseled ribbon. He leaned over and shook his friend.
“Hey, Jerry, wake up!”
Jerry snorted and opened his eyes, heavy-lidded with sleep. “Whazza matter?” he mumbled.
Sandy grinned. “Looks like Santa was here while we were asleep. C’mon, get up.”
Sandy rolled out of his sleeping bag, put on his trousers, shirt and boots and went over to the tree. Kneeling down, he read the tags on the packages: “‘To Sandy from Dad,’ ‘To Jerry....’ Hey! There’s something here for everybody.”
He looked up and saw his father, Professor Crowell and Lou Mayer standing in the doorway that led into the tiny kitchen. They were all smiling broadly.
“Well, don’t just sit there,” Dr. Steele said. “Pass them around.”
As Sandy had observed, there was something for everyone. An intricate chronometer wrist watch that told the days of the month and even the phases of the moon for Sandy; a candid camera for Jerry; a gold fountain pen for Lou Mayer; and a fine steel hunting knife with a silver inlaid handle for Tagish Charley. Professor Crowell, with genuine Yuletide spirit, gave a set of ivory chessmen he had bought from an Indian at Fort Nelson to the three weathermen. They, in turn, presented the professor and Dr. Steele each with a pair of fine snowshoes.
After they had burned the wrappings in the fire, Sandy remarked rather sadly, “Gee, Dad, now I wish I hadn’t left your present back home. But Mom said we’d save all the gifts till we got back.”
Dr. Steele put his arm around his son’s shoulders. “Sandy, the best present you could ever give me is just being here.” He reached for Jerry with his other arm. “That goes for you too, Jerry.”
Right after breakfast, they said goodbye to their new friends and headed north again. They drove into Watson Lake, just across the border in Yukon territory, about two o’clock. Watson Lake was one of the largest towns along the Alaska Highway. In addition to a Mountie station and an R.C.A.F. base, there was an airstrip for commercial airlines and accommodations for putting up passengers overnight. They drove straight out to the air force base, where the sentry ushered them through the gate with a snappy salute as soon as Professor Crowell identified himself.
“The old prof really rates in these parts, doesn’t he?” Jerry mused, as they drove through the precisely laid-out checkerboard streets past neat log-cabin barracks to the HQ building.
They were even more impressed by the reception the professor received from the Base Commander, an old friend he had worked with in World War II.
“You’re just in time for Christmas dinner,” the Commander told them happily. “Roast turkey with all the trimmings.”
Jerry rubbed his stomach gleefully. “This stands to be the best holiday season of our lives, Sandy. Wherever we go people give us Christmas dinners.”
The geologists decided to stop over at Watson Lake and get an early start the next morning for the long, grueling uphill drive over the divide.
“What is the divide?” Jerry asked.
“A high shelf on the continent that determines the direction of water drainage,” Dr. Steele explained. “In the case of North America, it’s the Rocky Mountains. All the rivers and streams on one side of the Rockies run in a generally easterly direction; on the other side they flow to the west.”
“Will we have any trouble driving up those mountains with all this snow and ice?” Sandy inquired of the R.C.A.F. Commander.
“Well, it’s a pretty tortuous route,” the officer admitted. “But the ascent is fairly gradual. With chains you shouldn’t have too much trouble. Of course, if it should snow again, that would be another matter.”
“We’ll get an early start,” Professor Crowell told them. “About sixA.M.”
It was gray and cold when they left Watson Lake on the last leg of their journey on the Alaska Highway.
“At Whitehorse, we’ll give the car and truck a rest and take to the air,” Dr. Steele explained. “The Canadian government has put a plane at the professor’s disposal for as long as we’re up here.”
But the big attraction at Whitehorse as far as the boys and Tagish Charley were concerned was the big dog-sled race to Skagway.
“The professor says it’s okay with him if Jerry and I ride ballast,” Sandy informed the Indian. “That’s if it’s all right with you?”
“Okay by me,” Charley said. He glanced sideways at Jerry. “But this boy keep eating so much he get too fat to sit on sled.”
Sandy let out a guffaw and Jerry pretended to sulk. “You guys have a nerve,” he said. “You both lick your plates cleaner than Black Titan does.”
“If Tubby, here, is too much of a load for the huskies,” Sandy suggested, “we can always let him run behind the sled.”
Suddenly, Charley hunched down and squinted through the windshield. “Plane,” he announced curtly.
The boys followed his gaze but could see nothing. “Where?” Sandy asked.
Charley pointed toward a line of snow-capped mountain peaks in the distance surrounded by blue haze. Sandy saw a speck that moved out of sight behind one of the peaks. He couldn’t make out what it was.
“Are you sure it wasn’t a bird?” he said uncertainly.
“It plane,” Charley said firmly.
“Maybe it’s from one of the road stations,” Jerry suggested.
“I guess so,” Sandy said and pushed down a little harder on the accelerator to close the gap between them and the station wagon, which had drawn about a quarter of a mile ahead.
Gradually the road climbed, winding and twisting through canyons and hugging mountainsides in hazardous stretches. At one such spot Jerry peered down into the chasm that dropped off steeply on one side and clapped his hands over his eyes.
“I think I’ll get out and walk the rest of the way,” he groaned.
Sandy’s face was grim as he nursed the big truck around the curves, never letting the speedometer needle climb above the 30 on the dial.
Then, without warning, a great throbbing roar bore down on them from the rear. Instinctively, they ducked their heads as it seemed to shatter the roof of the cab. An instant later a plane appeared through the windshield zooming down the road toward the station wagon.
“Yipes!” Jerry exclaimed. “What does he think he’s doing?”
“The crazy fool!” Sandy said angrily. “He could have scared us off the highway. Look at him! He can’t be more than fifty feet off the ground.”
The little ship skimmed over the station wagon and started to climb in a wide arc.
“You think it’s a scout plane from one of the road stations?” Jerry said anxiously.
“I don’t know,” Sandy replied, trying to keep one eye on the road and the other on the circling plane. “It looks as if he’s coming back again.” Gratefully, he noted that they were approaching a less treacherous section of highway.
Once more they heard the little plane gunning its motor at top speed as it flew up behind them. As it passed over them, a small round hole appeared, as if by magic, at the top of their windshield.
For a moment they were too stunned to react, then Jerry yelled, “They’re shooting at us!”
With an unintelligible oath, Tagish Charley whirled in the seat and reached back through the curtain partition into the rear of the truck. “Stop!” he told Sandy as he pulled out his hunting rifle.
As Sandy brought the lumbering vehicle to a skidding halt at the side of the road, he saw that the station wagon had pulled up also, and the three geologists were piling out frantically.
Tagish Charley motioned to a patch of timber about a hundred yards away. “Go—fast.” The three of them floundered through knee-deep drifts as the engine roar of the plane built up in their ears.
“Down!” Charley bellowed. “Flat!” As the boys flattened out, the Indian turned, dropped to one knee and threw the rifle to his shoulder. He squeezed off two shots, leading the plane as if it were a wild duck. In return, a fusillade of shots from the plane kicked up the snow all around them.
“Those guys really mean business!” Jerry yelled as they scrambled to their feet and ran for the woods again.
“This is like one of those nightmares where you’re being chased by a wild animal and your legs move in slow motion,” Sandy gasped, churning through the snow.
They reached the trees just before the plane swooped over them again. Crouching behind a tree bole, Charley emptied his rifle at the retreating ship. A slug splattered the bark just above his head.
This time as the plane climbed, a thin spiral of smoke trailed back from the engine, and the rhythm of the motor was uneven.
Sandy let out a cheer. “You got him, Charley! Good shooting.”
Immediately the plane broke off its attack and headed north. Sandy led the way down the road to where the three geologists were standing by the station wagon, watching the ship dwindle to a speck in the distance.
“Are you okay, Dad?” he yelled anxiously. “Anybody hurt?”
“No, just badly frightened,” Dr. Steele replied. “How about you fellows?”
“No casualties,” Sandy reported breathlessly. “Just a bullet hole in the windshield.”
“It seems as if Charley saved the day,” Professor Crowell said. He took one of the Indian’s big hands in both of his. “I’m glad you decided to come along, my friend.”
Charley gave him one of his rare, quick smiles. “Bad men try hurt you—” He paused and drew a finger across his throat.
“Like I said before,” Jerry declared, “I’m glad he’s on our side.”
The Indian cocked his head toward the truck, where the dogs were setting up a raucous clamor. “I go see if huskies okay.”
Lou Mayer shivered and hugged his arms tightly around his body. “And to think I could have been a teacher in a nice cozy classroom in some peaceful college in the balmy South instead of shooting it out with enemy agents in the Yukon—” He stopped short and looked guiltily at Dr. Steele. “I’m sorry, sir. That just slipped out.”
“That’s all right, Lou,” Dr. Steele said. “I think by now the boys have a pretty good idea of what we’re up against.” Sensing the question that was forming in Sandy’s mind, he added hastily, “But for the present, at least, that’s all we can tell you.” As Lou and the professor were getting back into the station wagon, he whispered to his son, “At least this little incident answers our question about Charley, once and for all.”
“It sure does,” Sandy agreed. “We’ll see you later, Dad.” He and Jerry turned and trudged back to the truck.
Jerry’s voice was small and numb. “Wow! Enemy agents! Wow! Wait till the guys hear about this!”
They rolled into Whitehorse late that night. The boys were surprised to find a fairly modern city with paved streets, rows of stores and shops and street lamps. As they drove down the main street, festively decorated with wreaths, colored lights and holly, Jerry shook his head.
“Why, it looks pretty much like Valley View.”
“They even have bowling alleys,” Sandy pointed out. “And neon signs.”
Later, as they ate supper in the hotel dining room, Dr. Steele told them about the origin of the city: “Whitehorse was born in the gold rush, when thousands of sourdoughs trekked over the mountains from Alaska and the Pacific ports to seek their fortunes. Whitehorse was sort of a jumping-off place. They ran the rapids to Lake Laberge in anything that would float—barges, rafts, scows—and on down the Yukon River to Dawson. A few of them struck bonanzas, but most of them found only poverty and disillusionment. There’s just no way to get rich quick.”
“I know you’re right, Dr. Steele,” Jerry remarked. “Though I was kind of hoping that Sandy and I could strike out north with Professor Crowell’s dog team and stake ourselves a claim. That French cook back at the road station even gave me a jar of that sourdough of his to get us started.”
Professor Crowell laughed. “Before you boys do anything like that, you had better see how you stand up to the rigors of the trail during the big race to Skagway.”
“When do we start?” Jerry asked.
“The day after tomorrow.”
Charley gulped down a small roll with one bite. “Tomorrow we give huskies plenty exercise. Not much to eat.”
Sandy frowned. “You’re going to starve them before the race? Won’t it weaken them?”
Charley grunted. “No starve. Huskies can go week without food. They little hungry, they run faster and fight harder.”
“What are you, Lou and Professor Crowell going to be doing the rest of this week?” Sandy asked his father as they left the table.
His father thought about it a minute before answering. “Well, tomorrow we thought we’d fly up to Fairbanks and visit the University of Alaska. The president’s an old friend of mine. We hope to inspect some of the fossils they’ve dug up lately. I understand they have some fine specimens on display.”
“Gee, I wish we could come with you,” Sandy said. “That sounds like interesting stuff.”
“Yeah,” Jerry agreed. “We kids in the States never get to see things like that.”
“Why, that’s not so, Jerry,” Professor Crowell objected. “Your American museums and universities contain some of the most fascinating specimens of prehistoric beasts that I’ve ever seen. The last time I visited the American Museum of Natural History in New York I saw the leg of a baby mammoth that was completely intact. It had been preserved for centuries in a glacier, and the museum kept it in a deep freeze.”
“The professor’s right, Jerry,” Sandy admitted. “The trouble with so many of the kids we know is that they’re too lazy to use their eyes and their ears—and their legs.”
Dr. Steele interrupted. “As a matter of fact, did either of you boys know that Black Bart, the notorious stagecoach bandit, is reputed to have buried a strongbox with $40,000 in gold in the hills back of Stockton?”
“Gosh, no!” Jerry exclaimed. “What do you say, Sandy? Let’s go on a treasure hunt next summer. That’s practically in our back yard.”
Professor Crowell smiled. “That beats digging for gold in the Yukon, I’d say.”
“How long will you be in Fairbanks?” Sandy wanted to know.
“Oh, no more than a day,” Dr. Steele said. “We want to get back to Skagway to see you fellows come across the finish line in the big race.”
“In first place, of course,” Jerry added smugly.
“That would be a treat,” Professor Crowell said.
“Now I think we should all go up to our rooms and get a good night’s sleep,” Dr. Steele suggested. “We’ve had a long, trying day.”
“That sounds good to me,” Lou Mayer seconded. “It will be a real pleasure to rest my weary bones on an honest-to-goodness bed with a soft mattress.”
“You chaps go ahead,” said Professor Crowell. “I’m going down the street to the police barracks and report that incident with the plane today.”
“Do you really think that’s wise?” Dr. Steele asked gravely.
“The chief constable is a reliable man,” the professor told him. “He can be depended upon to be discreet. He may have received a report from one of these local airstrips about a small plane making an emergency landing. I don’t think those fellows could have traveled too far with their engine smoking like that. If they did land near here, we can put our people on their track.”
Dr. Steele nodded. “Good idea. Do you want me to come with you?”
“That won’t be necessary,” the older man assured him. “I’ll take Charley along.”
Upstairs, when the boys had bathed and changed into their pajamas, they lay in the dark in the small hotel room they shared and discussed the events of the day.
“What do you think it’s all about, anyway?” Jerry wondered. “We know enemy agents are after the professor. But why? It’s not like he was an atomic scientist or something. What could they want with a plain old geology professor?”
“I don’t know,” Sandy said worriedly. “But it must have something to do with our reason for coming up to Alaska. You can bet my dad and the professor didn’t make the tripjustto look at fossils and take soil samples. Well, we’ll just have to wait and see.”
“Br-r-r,” Jerry said, “it’s like walking through a haunted house on Halloween Eve. You don’t know what to expect. But whatever it is, you know it won’t be good.” He threw back the covers and got out of bed.
“Hey, where are you going?” Sandy demanded.
Jerry padded across the room barefoot. “I just want to make sure that door is locked.”
The day of the big race was bitter cold and the sky was leaden with snow clouds scudding across the mountain peaks around Whitehorse. A huge crowd had gathered at the starting line on the outskirts of the city, and the air rang with merry voices and the yelping of dogs. Sandy and Jerry huddled close to a big bonfire outside the officials’ tent while Tagish Charley made a last-minute check of the sled and the dogs’ harnesses.
One of the judges came up and spoke to Sandy. “I understand you boys are from the States. What do you think of our big country?”
“It’s very exciting, sir,” Sandy said.
“And very cold,” Jerry added.
The judge laughed. “Wait until you’re out on the trail a few hours. Then you’ll know how cold it is. You’re riding with Professor Crowell’s team, right?”
“Yes, sir. And we’re really looking forward to it. This is some big event, isn’t it?”
The air was charged with a holiday atmosphere. Men and women were laughing and singing as they sipped from steaming mugs of coffee and tea; and a few were drinking from mugs that Sandy suspected contained even stronger brew.
“The race from Whitehorse is a time-honored ritual,” the judge told them. “Back in the old days, the course was even longer. From Dawson to Skagway, almost six hundred miles.”
“Good night!” Jerry said. “Those poor dogs must have worn their legs down to the shoulder.”
“As a matter of fact,” the judge went on, “Klondike Mike Mahoney used to operate a mail and freight route from Skagway to Dawson.”
“Who was Klondike Mike Mahoney?” Sandy asked.
“A rather fantastic young man who came to the Yukon during the gold rush and became a living legend.” He smiled. “You might say he was our counterpart of your Davy Crockett.”
“Hey! What are they doing?” Jerry pointed to a group of Eskimos who were laughing and whooping as they catapulted an Eskimo girl high into the air from a large animal hide stretched taut like a fireman’s net.
“That’s one of their favorite games,” the judge said. “You’ve probably played something like it at the beach—tossing a boy up in a blanket.”
“Yeah,” Jerry said. “But not likethat. She’s better than some acrobats I’ve seen on the stage.”
Time after time, the slender Eskimo girl shot into the air, as high as twenty-five feet, like an arrow, never losing her balance. While they were watching her, Tagish Charley joined them by the fire. In his one hand he held a sheet of oiled paper on which were spread a half-dozen cubes that looked like the slabs of chocolate and vanilla ice cream served in ice-cream parlors.
“Eat,” Charley said, offering them to the boys.
Sandy took one gingerly. “Looks good. But what is it?”
“Muk-tuk,” the Indian grunted.
“A Northern delicacy,” the judge said with a straight face.
Jerry stuffed one of the cubes into his mouth with gusto. “Say, that’s good. Tastes like coconut.”
Sandy nibbled at his with more reserve. “It does a little. Maybe a little oilier. What’s it made of?”