Professor Stern swung back into the saddle and they followed the bear’s trail into the woods. There were great, towering ancient pines, clustered together so that their heavy foliage meshed to form a solid roof above the forest floor. Only a fine dusting of snow had filtered through their heavy branches onto the thick carpet of pine needles that cushioned the earth. The horses’ hoofbeats were barely audible as they picked their way between the trees, which were bare for at least twenty feet up.
“It’s like being in a cathedral,” Sandy said reverently. The voices of the men ahead sounded embarrassingly loud in the silence beneath the pines.
A pine cone skittered out from under the hoof of Jerry’s horse and rattled across the dry needles. Jerry started and almost slipped out of the saddle.
“Watch it, boy,” Sandy cautioned him. “How is it going, anyway?”
“I’ll be okay, once old Dobbin and I get ourselves co-ordinated. Every time he goes up, I’m coming down and vice versa.”
Sandy grinned. “You’re too tense. Relax and try to imagine you’re part of the horse.”
“I know what part I feel like,” Jerry said wryly.
On the other side of the grove they picked up the bear’s trail again. It headed up a steep, rocky hillside, dotted with patches of scrubby trees and huge boulders. The horses had slippery footing and they went very slowly now.
Thorsen took his rifle out of the saddle boot, levered a shell into the chamber and rested it across the saddle in front of him. The other men followed suit.
Professor Stern turned and smiled reassuringly at the boys. “Don’t be alarmed. It just doesn’t pay to take any chances. I’ve heard of these wily old bears doubling back on their trail and setting up an ambush for unwary hunters.”
Jerry swallowed hard and cast a nervous glance back over his shoulder. “Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to bring up the rear.” His horse skidded unexpectedly on a mound of loose stones and Jerry clutched it frantically around the neck with both arms, burying his face in the thick mane. When the horse had steadied itself again, he straightened up and settled himself gingerly in the saddle.
He touched one hand to the seat of his pants and moaned. “How can one part of you feel so hot when the rest of you is so cold?”
Sandy was sympathetic. “Yeah, I feel for you, pal. That old saddle gets pretty hard after a while. And this is a rough way to get initiated to horseback riding to begin with.”
They rode on for another half hour until they came to a shallow ravine with a dense growth of white birch trees and underbrush. Thorsen studied the steep rocky slopes of the ravine carefully. Except for a light dusting of snow they were wind-blown clean, as was the rocky shelf on the other side.
“I can’t see any sign of a trail. For all we know, he may be hiding down there in those trees,” he said.
Professor Stern nodded in agreement. “It’s possible. I’d hate to run into a Kodiak in those close quarters. What do we do now?”
“We play it completely safe,” Thorsen replied. “Some of us can ride around the ravine—it’s no more than a quarter of a mile to the north—and see if we can pick up his trail on the other side. If we do, we can assume he’s not waiting to pounce on us in the ravine. Those who remain here can safely ride across directly.”
“Why don’t we all ride around together?” Chris wanted to know. “What’s the point of leaving anyone here?”
Thorsen stroked his silky beard. “Because if Mr. Bearishiding in the ravine, we have him trapped. One group can flush him out into the guns of the other group.”
“That seems sound,” Stern acknowledged. “Which of us will stay here?”
“Jerry and I will,” Sandy volunteered. “Both of us are pretty tired, and it’ll give us a chance to rest.”
“All right,” Stern said. “Better make sure your guns are ready for action in case that bear surprises you.”
As the three men rode off along the edge of the ravine, the boys dismounted and tethered their horses to a bare, crooked sapling. Sandy sat down on a boulder with his buffalo gun across his knees, but Jerry remained standing.
“I may never sit down again,” he told Sandy.
Soon the three men passed out of sight where the ravine curved back behind a ridge, and the boys turned their attention to the birch trees below them.
“Think our bear is down there?” Sandy asked.
“Naw, I bet he’s miles away from here by now.”
The words were scarcely out of Jerry’s mouth when the sound of a rock clattering down the far side of the ravine jerked their eyes upward. Standing beside a big boulder on the rocky shelf facing them was the biggest bear they had ever seen in their lives. His long, shaggy fur was tipped with silver, and on his underside it almost brushed the ground. The monster seemed oblivious of their presence.
“I don’t think he sees us,” Sandy whispered to Jerry. “They have very poor eyesight. And we’re upwind of him so he can’t smell us.”
But the horses caught the scent of the bear and began to whinny and stamp their hoofs in terror. The big Kodiak’s ears went up and he lifted his head, probing the air with his sensitive snout. Slowly he reared up on his hind legs.
Jerry couldn’t restrain a gasp of astonishment and wonder. “Wow! Will you look at the size of him! He must be ten feet tall if he’s an inch.”
When the bear stood erect, Sandy could see a red, matted spot on his left shoulder. “Someone shot him all right,” he said. He pressed his lips firmly together and lifted the big rifle to his shoulder. “Well, here goes.” Then he added, “You take a bead on him too, Jerry, in case I miss.”
“I’m so jittery, I don’t think Icouldhit the side of a barn,” Jerry answered breathlessly. Nevertheless, he brought up his rifle.
“It’s an easy shot,” Sandy told him. “Only about forty yards. I’ll try for a head shot. You aim just below the left shoulder. And take off your mittens, idiot.”
Sandy squinted down the long barrel, fixing the sight on a spot directly between the bear’s eyes. Very gently he squeezed the trigger. There was a tremendous explosion and a numbing blow against his shoulder that sent him somersaulting backward off the boulder. He lay there stunned for an instant. Then Jerry grabbed the front of his parka and pulled him to his feet.
“What a recoil,” Sandy mumbled.
“Forget the recoil!” Jerry was hopping up and down in excitement. “You got him! Look! One-shot Steele, that’s you. Bet you could have made a chump out of Buffalo Bill.”
Sandy focused his bleary eyes across the ravine. The Kodiak was just a big mound of motionless fur sprawled out on the ground.
“Come on!” Jerry pulled at Sandy’s arm. “Let’s hurry over there so we can make like big-game hunters when those other guys show up.” Using his rifle as a staff, he started down the slope into the ravine.
Sandy caught up to him at the bottom and grabbed the rifle away from him. “Don’t ever do anything like that again!” he snapped. “You dope! You might have blown your head off—or at least your hand. This is a loaded gun. You’ve got to have respect for it. Never point it at yourself or anyone else.”
Jerry flushed and dropped his eyes. “Yeah, you’re right. It was a dopey thing to do. I’m so crazy excited I forgot.”
“Okay.” Sandy handed the rifle back to him and they crashed through the brush and brambles that grew among the trunks of the birches. Scrambling up the far slope, Sandy was aware of a heavy weight banging against his right hip. He slipped his hand into his pocket on that side and touched the cold metal grip of the Colt automatic. He had forgotten about it when he packed the heavy parka away after the sled race.
He had just withdrawn his hand from his pocket when Jerry, who was in the lead, reached the top of the ravine. As his eyes cleared the rim, he stopped short and let out a wild yell. Then the bear lumbered into full view, looming over Jerry like a cat over a very small mouse. The monster’s red-rimmed eyes blazed with hatred and Sandy could see pink foam gleaming on the long, bared fangs. It came to him as an incredible shock that here they were face to face with the most dangerous living thing in all the world—a wounded, pain-crazed Kodiak bear.
“Jerry! The gun! Shoot!” Sandy spat the words out jerkily.
Obeying mechanically, Jerry swung the long barrel up and fired in the same motion. The slug plowed harmlessly between the bear’s legs, kicking up dirt and gravel. But it turned out to be a lifesaving shot. Caught off balance, Jerry was kicked off his feet by the booming recoil and went tumbling head over heels down the steep grade. At the same time Sandy drew out the big .45 pistol and cocked it. Then, as the bear dropped to all fours, with the obvious intention of attacking, Sandy fired at its hairy throat. The Army Colt .45-caliber packs a tremendous wallop. At such close range, it knocked the giant Kodiak back on its haunches.
Sandy pumped the last bullet into the bear’s midsection, then turned and ran down the slope. Jerry was just getting to his feet when he reached the bottom of the ravine. “Find a tall tree and climb it,” Sandy yelled. “Come on!”
Together they stumbled into the woods. Sandy remembered that on their way over they had passed one gnarled birch with a trunk as big around as a man’s waist. In the manner of so many trees of this species, it had branched out into three thick, sturdy limbs at a height of about four feet. Without breaking his stride, Sandy leaped up, planted one foot in the crotch and clawed and shinnied his way up through the branches. He kept climbing until the limb began to bend beneath his weight. Then, with his heart fluttering like a frightened bird, he looked down, half expecting to see his friend in the embrace of the great bear. There was no trace of either Jerry or the Kodiak.
“Here I am,” Jerry’s voice rang out, so startlingly close that Sandy almost lost his hold on the branch. The sight of Jerry swaying back and forth on an adjacent limb at least five feet above him, arms and legs wrapped tightly around it like a monkey, made him weak with relief. In spite of their precarious position, he had to smile.
Jerry was appalled. “He’s hysterical. Stark, raving mad,” he cried. “Sandy! Snap out of it.”
“I’m fine,” Sandy said. “It’s just that I didn’t expect to see you up there.”
“Where did you think I’d be? Back there, Indian-wrestling with old Smokey so you could escape?”
“I don’t know how you got up there so fast. I didn’t even see you pass me.”
“Brother,” Jerry said huffily, “if you had been as close to that critter as I was you’d be back in Valley View by now.”
As yet there was still no sign of the bear on the ground below them. Sandy searched the rocky shelf where they had encountered him, but it was empty. The clatter of horses’ hoofs drew his attention back to the side of the ravine they had come from. Professor Stern and the other two men came galloping into view and reined in their horses.
“Here, in the tree!” Sandy hailed them. “We’re up in the tree.”
Stern’s face reflected his relief—and not a little amazement. “What on earth are you doing in a tree? And what were those shots we heard?”
“We shot the bear. Then he came to life again and chased us up here.” Sensing the professor’s understandable confusion, he grinned. “I guess that sounds pretty wild, doesn’t it?”
“Indeed it does,” Stern admitted. “But never mind that. Where is the bear now?”
“I don’t know.”
Thorsen and Chris Hanson were already starting down into the ravine, rifles ported for action. Stem dismounted and followed them. Cautiously the men made their way through the trees. Before they reached the far side of the ravine the boys lost sight of them.
After several minutes of complete silence, Sandy began to get anxious.
“Maybe that old bear was hiding behind a tree,” Jerry suggested, “and clobbered each one of them as they went by him, like the Indians used to do.”
Finally they heard Stern’s voice calling to them. “You guys can come down now.”
Sandy was puzzled. “That’s funny. I guess the bear got away after all.” He slid hurriedly to the ground.
When they emerged from the birch grove, both boys stopped dead. Sandy shut his eyes tight, opened them, shut them, and opened them again. He couldn’t believe what he saw. The three men were standing at the bottom of the slope, all flashing broad grins. At their feet was the mountainous carcass of the bear.
“You—you sure he’s dead?” Sandy stammered.
“Yeah,” Jerry said. “He’s a tricky one.”
Thorsen jabbed his toe into the shaggy body. “Quite dead, I assure you, my young friends.”
“We had just reached the end of the ravine when we heard the shots,” Professor Stern said. “Now tell us what happened.”
Both talking at once, the boys recited the story of their escapade with the big Kodiak.
“You remember that old movieKing Kong, where the girl first sees this giant gorilla?” Jerry asked. “Well, that’s how I felt when this thing came at me. Oh broth-er!” He shuddered.
Sandy took out the black Colt pistol. “And this is what saved our lives.”
Thorsen took it from him and examined it admiringly. “A true gem. Do you know how this gun was developed? During the Philippine Insurrection, American troops were being demoralized by fierce Moro tribesmen, savage warriors who carried wicked bolo knives. The Moros would pop up out of the jungle without warning and attack the soldiers at such close quarters that it was impossible for them to use their rifles. And the Moros were so physically powerful that the average pistol couldn’t stop them. Even with a half dozen bullets in them, they could decapitate an enemy with their bolos before they died. The Army Colt .45 was designed especially to stop them. And it did the job well—with one slug.”
“It certainly stopped this monster,” said Chris Hanson.
“But it was a very lucky shot,” Professor Stern tempered his praise. “The first shot you fired with the rifle creased his skull and stunned him. He was probably still whoozy when you ran into him, or you might not have had a chance to get in a second shot. Your last shot severed the jugular vein. It was a very lucky shot,” he emphasized.
“You don’t have to convince me, Professor,” Sandy said soberly. “As of now I am a retired bear hunter.”
Two days later the Sterns and the Hansons came down to the airstrip to see the boys off. Professor Stern promised to send the bearskin to Valley View as soon as it was cured. “It will make a nice trophy to spread out in front of your fireplace,” he told Sandy.
“I think I’ll donate it to our local boys’ club,” Sandy said.
“And every time a new fellow joins up, he’ll have an excuse to tell what a big hero he is,” Jerry joked.
Sandy laughed. “I bet I looked like a big hero up in that tree all right.”
Russ Parker appeared in the doorway of the plane. “All revved up and ready to go. You fellows set?”
The boys said their last goodbyes and climbed into the cabin.
Mrs. Stern waved and yelled, “Thanks again for refilling my freezer.”
“We’ll eat it up the next time we come,” Jerry said.
Parker slammed the door and bolted it, then went forward to the cockpit. “Fasten your safety belts,” he ordered. The little plane took off smoothly and climbed over the bay. Through the window next to him, Sandy caught a last glimpse of the twin domes of the Russian church and the ancient sea wall with its great iron rings where the fur traders used to tie up their ships. The sun sparkled on the blue water and glinted briefly off the metal oil tanks of the U.S. naval base far across the bay. Parker leveled off at 10,000 feet and set a northeast course.
Sandy unbuckled his seat belt and went up front to the cockpit. “How long will it take to fly to Cordova?” he inquired.
“With this tail wind no more than two hours,” Parker said. “We should be landing a little after ten. Your dad and the professor want to fly back to Juneau this afternoon.”
Sandy nodded. “From there we’re taking a commercial airline back to Seattle.”
Parker put the ship on automatic pilot and turned sideways in the seat. “Not driving back down the highway?”
“No. Professor Crowell decided the trip was too rugged in the winter. He’s leaving his dogs up here until spring. Anyway, Jerry and I have to get back to school, so we were planning to fly back in any case.”
Listening to the conversation with one ear, Jerry looked up from the book he was reading. “Hey, Sandy, back in Valley View the guys are just steeling themselves for a session with Miss Remson in English Four. Isn’t that great? And here we are three thousand miles away and two miles in the air. Think we’re safe from her?”
“Sure,” Sandy said. “And Miss Remson would probably be just as glad if you stayed that far away from her.”
Parker pointed out a range of mountains just visible on the northwest horizon. “Too bad you don’t have time to visit the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes.”
“That’s an interesting name. What is it?”
“Before Mount Katmai erupted in 1912 it was a fertile farm region. Then the whole top of the mountain blew off—two cubic miles of rock vaporized into thin air. One hundred miles away in Kodiak they had to shovel the dust and ashes off the roof tops.”
Sandy whistled. “That’s as bad as having an H-bomb drop in your back yard.”
“Maybe worse,” Parker said grimly. “Then the entire floor of the valley erupted into little fumaroles, or volcanic potholes, that spewed out molten sand. Thousands of them. That’s where they got the name Ten Thousand Smokes. Today there are only seven of them that are still active, but the valley is a desert wasteland.”
Sandy squinted through the windshield, imagining he could see a thin ribbon of smoke rising from one of the peaks. “What happened to old Mount Katmai? Is it still active?”
“Well, the experts think it’s still boiling way down inside. There’s a big lake in the crater now, but it never freezes. I’ve heard it’s warm enough to swim in.”
Jerry, who had come forward to listen to the story, was wonderstruck. “Why, I bet you could land a plane on the lake and find out,” he said.
“It’s a thought,” Parker agreed, not too enthusiastically. “Maybe some day I’ll try it.”
For the remainder of the trip, he captivated the boys with other tales about the big land, and almost before they knew it they were approaching Cordova. The traffic was light and the tower gave them immediate clearance to land.
A quarter of an hour after the plane touched down, they were on their way to town in the auto of a radio technician who was going off duty. Russ Parker remained at the field to give the Norseman a thorough inspection before the afternoon flight to Juneau. “We’ll take off about one, I guess,” he told them as they were leaving.
The considerate radio man dropped them off in front of the old-fashioned hotel where Dr. Steele had said they would be staying. The clerk at the desk informed them that the geologists were still registered, but that he had not seen them since the previous morning.
“Are you certain they didn’t come back when you were off duty?” Sandy asked him.
“Positive,” the clerk declared. “The chambermaid said their beds haven’t been slept in.”
Sandy looked at Jerry helplessly. “Well, I guess we’ll just have to wait for them.”
The clerk gave them a passkey to one of the two adjoining rooms occupied by Dr. Steele and his party. When they entered the room, the boys were surprised to see that the geologists hadn’t even started to pack. Clothing, books and toilet articles were scattered everywhere.
Jerry looked at his wrist watch. “We’re never going to take off for Juneau at one o’clock at this rate. It’s after eleven now. Are you sure you didn’t get the days mixed up, Sandy? Maybe your father wasn’t expecting us until tomorrow.”
A little seed of fear began to grow inside of Sandy. “No, he said the third. Professor Crowell told Russ he wanted to fly to Juneau today, too. I can’t understand it, Jerry. If Dad didn’t expect to be here when we got back from Kodiak, he would have left word for us. Anyway, they couldn’t have been planning to make any overnight trips. They didn’t take razors, toothbrushes or anything; my dad shaves every morning even when he’s on a fishing trip miles from civilization. I don’t like it, Jerry.”
Jerry’s face turned pale under its perpetual tan. “Sandy, you don’t think those enemy agents...?” He left the sentence unfinished.
Before Sandy could reply, the telephone on the stand between the twin beds jangled harshly. The boys looked at each other hopefully.
“Maybe that’s Dad calling.” Sandy threw himself across one of the beds and picked up the receiver eagerly. But it was Russ Parker phoning from the airfield.
“I don’t think it’s anything to worry about,” Parker said, “but I just found out that your dad and his friends chartered a plane yesterday morning to fly out to McCarthy. That’s an old ghost town near the abandoned Kennecott copper mine. When they didn’t show back last night, the authorities figured they had been forced down somewhere with engine trouble. Search planes have been combing the area all morning, but there’s no sign of the plane, crashed or otherwise.”
“What do you think we should do, Russ?” Sandy asked in a tight voice.
“I dunno. I sort of thought we might fly out that way ourselves and have a look.”
“That’s a good idea, Russ. Jerry and I will be out as soon as we can hitch a ride. Thanks for calling.” He slammed down the receiver and related the latest development to Jerry. Minutes later they were on their way.
As they swooped low across the small ghost town of McCarthy, Parker banked the plane sharply and indicated the unblemished expanses of white around the town. “No one has set down here since before the last snow,” he said.
“Is there anywhere else they might have landed?” Sandy asked.
“Maybe up at the mine proper. We’ll fly up that way and have a look.”
“Imagine having a ghost town up here,” Jerry marveled. “I thought they were exclusive to the old American West. It’s kind of spooky, everyone packing up and leaving a place. Almost as if it was haunted.”
“Ghost towns are haunted in a sense,” Sandy said. “By poverty and hunger. They’re towns that build up around mines and have no other livelihood. If the mines close down they’re doomed.”
“Any community that puts all its eggs in one basket runs the risk of becoming a ghost town,” Parker put in.
“Why did the Kennecott mine shut down?” Sandy asked curiously.
“The ore just ran out,” Parker said. “Here we are now.”
Below them Sandy saw a sprawling shedlike structure that seemed to be hanging on the side of a hill. “That’s the main building,” Parker said. “See those long wires that look like trolley cables? They used to send the ore down from the shafts by cable car. Then it was loaded on trains and shipped to Cordova to be put on ships.”
On a level plateau below the Kennecott mine, they spotted the long twin ski marks of a plane. There were two sets, one set almost parallel to the other.
“No doubt about it,” Parker said. “A plane landed here recently. And it took off again.” He brought the Norseman’s nose up and began climbing.
“But if they took off again, wheredidthey go?” Sandy was sick with fear. The idea of his father lying badly injured—or worse—in the wreckage of a crashed plane terrified him. “If—if they had cracked up, the search planes would have found them by now, wouldn’t they?”
Parker chewed thoughtfully on his underlip. “I would think so. Unless they wandered outlandishly far off course. But there isn’t any reason why they should have. The last two days and nights have been perfect for flying.” Ominously, he added, “But we can’t discount that possibility altogether. There’s so much territory to cover even with an air search that a small plane might be missed. In Canada they insist that private planes follow well-traveled routes like the Alaska Highway instead of flying the beam, for that very reason. If you have to make a forced landing, there’s a better chance you’ll be found promptly.”
“Listen,” Sandy implored the pilot, “let’s land here and look around. Maybe we’ll find a clue or something to show where they went.”
Parker shrugged. “Sure, if it’ll make you feel any better. But if they were here, they definitely took off again.”
Parker landed the Norseman smoothly, cutting across the ski tracks of the other plane. He taxied to the far end of the clearing, turning her about in position for a take-off, then cut the engines. The plane settled heavily in the snow.
“Looks pretty deep out there,” Parker estimated. “We better dig out snowshoes from the baggage compartment.”
They had landed about a quarter of a mile away from the main building of the mine, and because of the boys’ inexperience on snowshoes it was a slow walk.
“I feel just like a duck,” Jerry grumbled as he brought up the rear, flopping along in the clumsy, webbed footgear. “Overgrown tennis rackets, that’s all they are.”
“You’re not supposed to try and walk the way you do in shoes,” Sandy instructed him. “You just shuffle along.”
At last they stood beneath the big ramshackle structure. Itwasspooky, Sandy had to admit to himself, just as Jerry said. Once this building had been the nerve center of a booming industry, buzzing with activity and life. Now it stood on the hillside, gaunt, decaying and silent. Before many more years it would become a rickety skeleton.
He shuddered as Parker led them up on the moldy loading platform and into the tomblike dampness of the shed. “We can go on up to the main building through here. There are stairs right inside.” They passed through a doorway into a room illuminated only by the slivers of daylight that penetrated the cracked boards.
Suddenly, Russ Parker did an about-face and began talking. “Well, here we are.” Only he seemed to be talking to someone in back of them.
Sandy whirled quickly and saw that the doorway was blocked by a huge man wearing a stocking cap and a plaid mackinaw. His face was hidden in shadow. But the big Lüger pistol in his right hand was very plain to see.
In his other hand the stranger carried a square electric lantern. He turned the powerful beam on Sandy and Jerry. “Did you have any trouble with them, Parker?”
“Not a bit,” Parker said. “The Steele boy suggested himself that we land here. And of course there was no trouble at all persuading him to fly out here with me.”
The boys looked from Parker to the other man in bewilderment. “Russ,” Sandy pleaded, “tell us what’s going on. Who is this guy?” He turned on the stranger belligerently. “Do you know where my father is?”
“My name is Kruger,” the man snapped. “And, yes, I do know where your father is. Now, turn around and march up those stairs.” He waved the pistol at them threateningly.
As the boys started up the stairs, the men fell behind and lowered their voices. “How do you like that!” Jerry declared. “Russ Parker is in with these characters.”
“I can hardly believe it,” Sandy said miserably. “Anyhow, at least I know Dad is okay—so far,” he amended.
“No conversation, please,” Kruger ordered sharply.
“Parker, you sneak,” Sandy said bitterly, “you won’t get away with this. The authorities know my dad and his friends are missing. And when we don’t show back at the airfield there’ll be even more search planes combing this area.”
The pilot began to laugh. “No one knows your father and the others are missing. No one at all. By now the hotel has received a telegram from Skagway saying that Professor Crowell and his party returned there on urgent business and that someone will pick up their luggage and pay their hotel bill.”
Sandy was confused. “But—but what about the people at the airport? You said there were search planes out looking for the missing plane.”
“There is no missing plane. Yesterday morning four men rented a plane. Last evening the plane returned—with four men. There was another crew on duty at the airport. They couldn’t suspect that the passengers were fourdifferentmen.”
Kruger seemed to enjoy the boys’ discomfort. “By the time the American authorities discover that any of you are missing you will be well out of reach in Siberia.”
“Across that narrow stretch of water we were talking about,” Parker taunted them. “The Bering Strait.”
The man with the gun took them through a series of tunnels that slanted up steeply through the mountainside. The ascent was severe, and every ten minutes or so they would stop to rest. When they emerged into the open again, Sandy saw that they were at the site of the main diggings. The terrain was pockmarked with shafts and tunnels. Rusty train tracks disappeared into the gloomy mine tunnels, and abandoned dump cars tilted up through the snow drifts about the entrances. Far below, the main building of the Kennecott mine squatted at the foot of the mountain; from this perspective it reminded Sandy of a miniature cardboard house sitting on a floor of cotton beneath a Christmas tree. They followed a path around a bend to the mouth of a huge tunnel. To one side of it a flaking, rusted cable car rocked gently from a metal cable that was equally rusted. It scraped and screeched monotonously at the slightest gust of wind.
“In here,” Kruger ordered. “This was one of the main shafts of the mine.”
They walked along the rail ties back about one hundred yards, where a rectangle of yellow light splashed into the corridor from a doorway in one wall of the tunnel. Kruger motioned them through the doorway into a big chamber that evidently had served as a locker room for the miners. Rotting wooden benches and tin lockers cluttered up the room, many of them overturned, all of them sagging. A large gasoline lantern burned on a long wooden table in the middle of the room. On either side of the table sat a strange man with a rifle across his knees. Across the table, seated all in a row on a bench, their hands and feet tied, were Dr. Steele, Professor Crowell, Lou Mayer and Tagish Charley.
“Dad!” Sandy burst out. “Am I glad to see you! Are you okay?”
Dr. Steele managed a strained smile. “I’m all right, Son. We all are. But I can’t say I’m glad to see you boys.” He turned to one of the men with the rifles. “Did you have to drag them into it, Strak? They’re only boys. They don’t even know what this is all about.”
The man he addressed, a short, intense fellow who moved with the quick, nervous motions of a squirrel, stood up and walked toward the new arrivals. He stopped in front of Sandy and stroked his prominent clean-shaven chin.
“So this is your son, Dr. Steele? A fine-looking lad.” He spoke careful, formal English. “I, too, regret that he and the other youth had to become involved. But we couldn’t take any chances. They would have notified the police that you were missing and....”
“Don’t be a fool!” Professor Crowell snapped. “The police will discover our absence soon enough.”
Strak smiled patiently. “I disagree. Secrecy has been the keynote of your project. Only a few people in both your governments—high officials—know your real purpose in coming to Alaska. By the time they discover you are missing, we will all be safely out of the country.”
“Of course, Dr. Steele, you could spare your son and his friend a lot of unnecessary hardship by co-operating with us,” Kruger said. “Just the answer to one simple question....”
“You’re wasting your time,” Dr. Steele said flatly.
“Have it your own way.” Strak sighed wearily. “You will tell us, you know. That is certain. Today, tomorrow, next week or six months from now. We can wait.”
Kruger pushed the boys toward the bench where the other hostages were seated. “Parker, help me tie these two up.”
When the boys were securely bound, Strak motioned Parker to follow him. “Come, Parker. Let us go outside. We have a few things to discuss in private.”
“You want Malik and me to stay here and guard the prisoners?” Kruger asked.
Strak hesitated a moment, then shook his head. “No, come along. You should all hear this.” He glanced at the prisoners. “I don’t think they’ll get loose.” He smiled. “And even if they did, where would they go? We’ll be up at the entrance—the only entrance.”
The four men left the room and their footsteps echoed off down the tunnel. In the dim light of the lantern Dr. Steele’s face was drawn and pale.
“I’ll never forgive myself, getting you boys mixed up in this,” he said. “Once I knew they were on to us, that we hadn’t deceived them into thinking this was an innocent geological expedition, I should have sent you back to California on the first plane.”
“Don’t blame yourself, Dad,” Sandy said quietly. “I wouldn’t have left you, knowing that you were in some kind of serious trouble.”
“That goes for me too, sir,” Jerry backed him up.
“What I don’t understand,” Sandy said, “is how they caught you.”
“We walked right into their hands,” Professor Crowell explained. “Parker knew we were coming up to the Kennecott mine and tipped them off. They flew up ahead of us, hid their plane in the trees and covered up the ski tracks. When we arrived they were waiting for us.”
“A whole gang of them,” Lou Mayer put in. “Seven of them, armed to the teeth. Four of them took our plane back to Cordova so the people at the airport wouldn’t report us missing.”
“I know,” Sandy said grimly. “They took care of the hotel too. By the time the authorities get suspicious it will be too late. The one called Kruger says we’ll be in Russia by then.”
Dr. Steele and Professor Crowell looked at each other hopelessly. “Unless we tell them what they want to know,” Dr. Steele said.
Sandy’s eyes were puzzled. “Just what are they after? I guess you can tell us now.”
Dr. Steele smiled wanly. “I guess we can.” He paused before he went on. “Although he’s better known as a geologist, Professor Crowell is one of Canada’s leading physicists. During World War Two he was assigned to rocket research work for the Canadian Army and continued to specialize in this field after the war.
“About six months ago an old Yukon prospector submitted an ore sample to a government assay office at Whitehorse. He said he had been prospecting on the Alaskan border and struck what he believed was a vein of gold. An analysis of the sample revealed traces of copper, but no gold. But much more important, it revealed strains of a rare element that the Canadian government was testing as a catalytic agent in top-secret experiments with a new solid rocket fuel.
“For years now rocket experts have acknowledged that solid fuels are more practical than liquid propellants—even more so for the big manned rocket ships of the future. The trouble is, up until now the solid fuels haven’t been too dependable. Professor Crowell believes this new element will solve the most serious drawbacks, but unhappily it’s about as rare as uranium. During the past few months there have been teams out searching for it all over the Dominion, without much success.
“Then, unexpectedly, this old prospector shows up with an ore sample laced liberally with it. The assay office at Whitehorse dispatched it to Ottawa immediately and Professor Crowell was consulted. It was his opinion that they were on to something big. A special agent flew up to Whitehorse to interview the prospector, but tragically—any way you look at it—the poor old man had passed away from pneumonia only a few days before the agent arrived.
“Now the big problem was to find out where the dead man had picked up the ore. All kinds of soil and rock analyses were made on it without any specific results. It was the professor’s guess that it came from somewhere in the vicinity of the Kennecott copper mine. There was copper in the sample, of course, and the old miner had mentioned vaguely at the assay office that he had discovered it somewhere ‘on the border.’ A layman couldn’t be expected to know exactly where the border lies; actually, he may have wandered well into Alaska.
“In any case, the Canadian government conferred with Washington, and it was decided to send a joint team up to Alaska composed of Professor Crowell, Lou Mayer and myself.” He glanced toward the doorway and added sourly, “We didn’t count on it ending up a three-nation team.”
“How did they find out?” Sandy wanted to know.
Dr. Steele shrugged. “They have the most efficient espionage system in the world. That we have to give them credit for.”
Sandy pursed his lips solemnly. “But they still don’t know what the element is?”
“Or how it’s employed in the manufacture of the rocket fuel,” Professor Crowell declared emphatically. “I’m the only one who can tell them that. And I’ll die first.”
“Watch it,” Jerry cautioned. “I think I hear them coming back.”
The sound of approaching footsteps reverberated hollowly through the mine. Strak appeared in the doorway alone. “Kruger and Malik have gone down the mountain to help Parker clear a runway,” he told them. “We’ll be taking off with a heavy load.”
Sandy made a quick mental count. “That plane will never get off the ground with ten of us.”
Strak smiled. “I agree. But there are only seven of us who will be making the trip.”
“What do you mean?” Dr. Steele demanded.
“Just that you and your son and Professor Crowell are the only ones who have any real value to us. The rest will remain here.”
Dr. Steele was shocked. “You can’t intend to leave them tied up in this mine? They’ll starve to death or die of exposure.”
Strak shrugged. “That’s a risk we will have to take. Perhaps in time they may be able to get loose. Perhaps they will make it back to civilization. Who can tell? The Indian seems to be a resourceful woodsman.” He walked over and stood in front of Tagish Charley. “Tell me, Doctor, heisalive, isn’t he?”
Tagish Charley’s face betrayed no trace of emotion. He had not spoken a word since the boys’ arrival. All the while he had sat stiffly on the bench, hands behind him, eyes staring fixedly at the rock wall in front of him—as detached as any cigar-store Indian could be, or so it seemed to Sandy.
In sudden irritation Strak bent close to Charley, flashing his electric torch into his face. “You insolent Indian dog! You can speak, can’t you?”