“They’ve found us his hiding place,” Johnny agreed. “And will we watch it? We—”
Suddenly he broke off short to point excitedly upstream.
“A bear cub!” Lawrence exclaimed low. “He’s going to cross the river.”
“We—we’ll get on our sk-ates,” said Johnny excitedly. “Then let’s take him.”
“Can we?” Lawrence was doubtful.
“Sure! We’ll lasso him and tie him up. He’ll make a grand addition to our zoo. Come on!”
Swinging out on the shining ice, skating silently from the hips, the boys glided like two dark ghosts toward the unsuspecting bear cub who, at that moment, had started to cross a broad stretch of slippery ice. Sly silence is, however, a game that two can play at. This the boys were to learn very soon and to their sorrow.
One day the boys had come, quite unexpectedly, upon a half-grown white caribou, or perhaps it had been a reindeer, that had wandered down from some far northern herd. However that might have been, they were filled with regret at the thought that they were not equipped for capturing it for their “zoo.” From that time on they had carried lariats and, by way of some added safety, short, stout spears. They were thus equipped today as they sped swiftly, silently toward the bear cub.
“I’ll toss the lasso over his head, then you watch the fun,” Johnny chuckled.
“I’ll watch all right,” Lawrence agreed. And he did.
Slowly, clumsily, the young bear, no larger than a good-sized dog, made his way across the ice. The wind was away from him. He could not smell the intruders, nor was he aware of their presence until, with a sudden rush, Johnny was upon him.
Never will the boy forget the look of surprise that came over the young bear’s comical face as he stared straight into his eyes. The whole affair was easy, too easy. He passed so close to the cub that he might have touched him. He did not. Instead, he dropped his noose over his head, pulled it tight, then, letting out slack, whirled about to face the cub. What would the cub do about that? He was to know instantly. Throwing himself back on his haunches, the cub began backing and pulling like a balky horse. On his skates, Johnny was no match for him. All he could do was to come along. To his further annoyance, he found that his lariat had whirled about his wrist and tied itself into a knot. As long as the cub kept the line tight he could not untie the knot. He did not quite relish the idea of dashing up to the cub and saying, “By your leave, I’ll untie this knot.” So, for the moment, he played into the cub’s hand.
Then the unexpected happened. With a grunt and a snarl of rage, a huge black bear, the cub’s mother beyond a possible doubt, dashed over a ridge to come charging straight at Johnny and the cub.
“Hey! Hey! Look out!” Lawrence shouted. “Drop your rope and beat it.”
“I—I can’t,” Johnny cried in sudden consternation. “He—he’s got me tied.”
“Tied!” Lawrence gasped.
“It’s ’round my wrist.” Johnny watched wide-eyed while the huge mother bear came tobogganing down the high, steep river bank. She hit the ice like a bobsled and, dropping on hind legs and tail, came sliding straight on.
Just in time, Johnny came to his senses and began doing a back-stroke. Only by inches did he miss the husky swing of the angry bear’s paw.
“Cut the rope,” Lawrence shouted.
“Al-all right, I’ll—I’ll cut it.” Johnny dug into a pocket with his free hand. A pocket knife. It must be opened. With one eye on the cub, who for the moment sat whining, and the other upon the mother bear, who was scrambling awkwardly to her feet, he had no eyes left for his knife. Just as, having gripped the handle with one hand, the blade with the other, he managed to open the knife, the cub, going into frenzied action, gave him a sudden jerk that sent the knife spinning far out on the ice.
“It’s gone,” he groaned.
No more time for this. Old mother bear was after him. Fortunately this old bear was heavy with fat. She had been preparing for a winter’s sleep. Still she could travel and she was fat and furious. Her skill as a skater was something to marvel at.
Since he could not escape from the rope, the only thing for Johnny to do was circle. Circle he did. One time around with the bear at his heels; two times around he had gained a little; three times around he caught the gleam of his knife. Could he stoop and pick it up? He bent over, made a reach for it, struck a crack with his skate and all but fell.
“I—I’ll get it next time,” he breathed.
To his surprise he found that next time the knife was well out of his reach. Then to his utter horror, he saw that the perverse cub was standing still, making an animated Maypole out of himself and that it would be no time at all until the rope would be all wound around him. They would meet face to face, cub, mother bear and boy. And after that? He shuddered as he sped along that ever-narrowing circle.
“I’m coming in,” Lawrence shouted.
“No, you—”
Johnny could say no more. Lawrence was already in. Skating straight at the bear to attract her attention, Lawrence shot past her and slapped her sharply on the nose.
It was a daring and effective endeavor. Turning with a snarl, completely abandoning her cub at this fancied insult, the bear went after him with a rush.
That was all right as far as it went. The skating was good. The bear was fast, but not fast enough to catch him. There is, however, an end to all things. There was an end to that stretch of ice. It ended in a series of rapids that were not frozen over.
Lawrence groaned as he saw open water ahead. To his added terror, he saw that the river narrowed at that point. That the bear could outrun him on land he knew all too well.
“Got to be an artful dodger,” he told himself.
At that moment how he rejoiced that he had trained himself as a hockey skater. Swinging about in a half circle, he sped toward the right-hand bank. But the bear was there ahead of him.
Just as she reared up for a sledge-hammer blow, the boy whirled squarely about and shot away to left. Again he was too late for a safe passage, but not so much too late. He was gaining. Three more times, then with a joyous intake of breath he shot past the bear and was away.
In the meantime, Johnny, safe for the moment from the mother bear, had hastily unwound the surprised cub, then had rushed him with such speed that the rope was off his neck before he could lift a paw. The cub was free. So was Johnny. And there were no regrets.
“Johnny,” said Lawrence as he joined his companion five minutes later, “I don’t think we want any bears in our zoo. They’re too playful.” They were to change their minds about this, but that was to come sometime later.
“That,” said Johnny with a chuckle, “was almost funny.”
“Yes,” Lawrence agreed, “almost.” He did not laugh. “Almost, but not quite.”
A moment later he exclaimed, “Johnny! Where are the otters? We can’t lose them.”
“They’ll probably hunt us up. They—” Johnny broke off short. “Look!” he murmured low. “Look! There’s the silver fox. He’s out of his hole. He—he’s going to cross the ice.”
Lawrence glanced back to the spot where the bears had been. They had vanished. “This time,” he whispered, “we’ll get that old silver fox. We simply must.”
Johnny felt his pulse quicken as he sped along over the ice. The silver fox had come out of the hole. There could be no doubt of that. Would he dodge back in again or would he start across the ice?
“If he starts!” the boy breathed.
He must not be too fast nor too sure. Last time he had muffed a glorious chance. Slowing up, he slid in behind a clump of elders and came to a standstill. There, gripping a shrub, he stood trembling like a butterfly ready for flight.
As for Lawrence, he was coming on more slowly. Naturally more cautious than his cousin, he had an eye out for trouble. That fat old mother bear might still be lurking among the ridges. He had not forgotten how she had come charging down upon them.
“Can’t take unnecessary chances,” he told himself. “Life is wonderful. I am sure that taking unnecessary chances is wrong. It is making light of God’s great gift to us—life.”
Ah, yes, it was good to live just now. For the first time in their lives his little family felt sure of having a home of their own. As he glided slowly along he thought of the summer’s struggle. At first it had been damp and bitterly cold. Then the sun had been hot and the mosquitoes had come in swarms.
Through all this they had labored on; father, mother, and these two stout boys. It was said that gangs of men would be along to clear patches of land and build cabins. To this they had not listened. “We came to make our own way,” they insisted. “We are pioneers. Pioneers must work.”
When garden and potato patches were planted they had started the cabin. Selecting, from near and far, trees that were dead but not decayed, they had built a cabin whose walls would not warp and shrink as would those built of green timber.
Later, in the autumn when sharp winds told of a long winter ahead, they had cut squares of tough sod and piled them about the cabin until it seemed a sod house. When the question of a heating stove had arisen, they had discovered an abandoned gasoline barrel, had cut one hole for a door, another for the stove-pipe, had done a little drilling and riveting, and thus had made a stove that, fed on crackling fir logs, laughed at the Arctic cold.
“Pioneers!” he whispered. “We are pioneers.” How he loved that thought.
Of a sudden his attention was drawn from past to present by Johnny’s beckoning hand. With a quick twisting glide, he moved silently forward until he was at his companion’s side.
“Look,” Johnny gripped his arm. “There is the fox. He hasn’t started across yet and—”
“And there are the otters!” Lawrence broke in with a shrill whisper.
“Yes,” Johnny agreed. “That’s the queer part of it. They came just so close to the fox, then seemed to shout something at him.”
“Like one boy daring another to come out and fight,” Lawrence laughed low.
“Yes, or inviting him to a game of tag,” whispered Johnny. “And look! There he goes! There goes the fox! Good old otters! They are helping—helping a lot.”
He had spoken the truth, the fox was after one of the otters.
“Little good it will do him,” Lawrence chuckled. “Those otters are more at home on ice and in water than on land.”
“Listen!” Johnny’s voice was tense now. His figure stiffened. “In a minute I’m going after him. I’ve got the bag. If I get him I’ll pop him inside. I won’t miss now. You just follow along slowly. I might need you.”
“Al-all right,” the younger boy agreed.
There might have been boys who would have said, “This is my turn. You muffed last time.” Not so Lawrence. All too well he knew the skill and natural daring of his cousin. And, after all, in their little family the rule had ever been, “Each for all and all for each.” So he watched his cousin glide silently out for one more adventure.
Ten seconds later in watching the little drama of wild life being played there on the ice, he had all but forgotten Johnny. Never before had he seen the tame otters put on such a clever show. Just as the larger one had so far escaped the onrush of the fox that he was becoming discouraged, the small otter, with cunning and extreme daring, slipped up and all but shouted in the fox’s ear. At once, the now thoroughly angered fox turned to dash after this second intruder.
No sooner had the first otter been abandoned than he turned about to begin slipping up on the fox to dare him for one more race.
“For all the world like a game of tag!” Lawrence murmured.
All this was aiding Johnny, though it is to be doubted whether the otters knew the value of their antics. The fox was being led farther and farther out on the ice. At the same time his attention was so held by this strange game that he was almost certain to miss catching sight of the boy who now glided closer, ever closer to him.
“Good old otters!” Johnny repeated in a whisper as, drawing his moose-hide mittens tight, he prepared for the final dash.
“He’s going after him,” Lawrence thought as, with a thrill shooting up his spine, he glided from his sheltered spot, ready, if need be, to come in on the finish.
With a suddenness that must have been startling to the keenest eyes, Johnny swept down upon the fox and the otters. Did the otters see him? Beyond doubt. They saw everything. But the fox? For once he was caught quite unawares. One startled look, a quick squatting down on the ground, and Johnny was at his side. Before the fox could relax from this stiff pose, Johnny’s hands, like a brass collar, were about his neck.
“You got him!” Lawrence shouted, springing into action. “You got him! Hurray!”
Then a terrible thing happened. Overjoyed at their great good fortune, Lawrence for the moment lost his bearing. Of a sudden his skate struck ice that crunched ominously. He tripped to go plunging forward into the black waters of the racing river. He had fallen into an open pool.
“I’ll drown,” he thought, as, in an involuntary manner, he struck out with his hands in a swimming motion. All too late he saw ice ahead. Next instant he was beneath the river’s ice.
Johnny saw all this. With a gasp of terror he all but dropped the fox. Then, scarcely knowing what he did, he thrust the fox as if he were his mother’s fur scarf, into the moose-hide bag, drew the strings tight, then shot away toward the spot from which his cousin had vanished.
As Lawrence shot beneath the ice, life seemed near its end. Yet there had never been a time when life had seemed so real and so joyous as now. For a second panic gripped him. Holding his breath, he tried to think.
In an instant his mind was clear. He knew what he should do. There were two open pools farther on. How far? He did not know exactly. Could he hold his breath till then? He must hope. And he must try to move over closer to the shelving bank. If he reached the pool he might then touch bottom.
Desperately he struggled to draw himself over to the left. His head hummed. His lungs were bursting, his heart pounding.
“It—it’s the end,” he thought.
And then, up he popped. Just in time, as his feet touched, he gripped the edge of the ice and held there. Ten agonizing seconds he clung there, then a voice shouted, “Hold on, I’m coming.”
Ten seconds more and Johnny, who had leaped to the bank and raced along it, reached out to grip his mackinaw.
“Now!” he shouted. “Out you come.” And out he came.
Weak from excitement and exhaustion, he lay there for a time motionless.
“This won’t do,” Johnny exclaimed at last. “We’ve got to get going. Here,” he dragged the sodden mackinaw from his cousin’s shoulders, then put his own sheep-lined coat in its place. After putting his own dry mittens on Lawrence’s hands, he pulled him to his feet.
“It’s you for skates and the ice, then home as fast as ever you can.” He pushed him on before him.
As his skates touched the ice Lawrence felt new warm blood racing through his veins. He was off with the speed of the wind. And after him, with a moose-hide sack dangling at his side and filled with one very angry silver fox, came his loyal, anxious yet joyous friend and cousin, Johnny.
The day, for this part of the world, was not extremely cold. Lawrence’s trousers froze into pipe-like forms, but his sturdy, youthful body resisted the cold and sent him speeding on his way.
Dropping down on the river bank at last, they dragged off their skates to take the usual short cut through the timber.
As he passed the carefully built shelter beside that narrow stream, Johnny recalled the note tacked to a post and wondered afresh whether the mysterious Bill would arrive, just as the note said he would, on July 1st.
“Who do you suppose he left that note for?” he exclaimed suddenly.
“Haven’t—the—slightest-notion,” Lawrence panted, still racing along. “One—thing—is—sure. I’m—going—to—be—there—when that day comes.”
“We’ll both be there,” Johnny agreed. Somehow, as he thought of it, in a strange way it seemed that Bill and the silver fox must in some way be associated with each other. “Pure moonbeams,” he assured himself, yet the thought remained in the back of his mind.
There is something in the north that is called “Grapevine telegraph.” This name is given to the mysterious means by which, in a land devoid of telephone and telegraph, news travels fast and far. Was it this unreal telegraph that, six hours later, as Lawrence, none the worse for his experience, lay before the roaring fire, brought a stranger to their door? Who can say? Be that as it may, there he was.
“Excuse me for intruding,” said the tall, smiling stranger as he brushed the snow from his moccasins. “I heard you’d got a silver fox and I just had to have a look at him. It’s been three years since I saw one. I’m Jim Clem. Got a claim over on the other side of the settlement.”
“You—you’ve seen silver foxes.” Johnny was on his feet.
“Hundreds of ’em.” The stranger smiled.
“Hun-hundreds,” Johnny stammered. “I thought they were rare.”
“Used to be,” admitted Jim Clem. “Still are, fairly so. Did you get a good one?”
“Yes, I—well,” Johnny whirled about. “I’ll show you.” Opening the back door, he dragged in a small wire cage. “We just put him in this for a little while,” he half apologized.
“Oh! He’s alive. Hurt much?” Jim asked.
“Not hurt at all.”
“Not hurt?” Jim stared. “How’d you catch him?”
“With my hands,” Johnny chuckled. Then, seeing that this would not stand as a bare statement, he explained briefly their method of capture.
“Say-ee,” Jim exclaimed, dropping into a chair, “you’re regular natives. And that’s a fine specimen. Time was when you’d get two thousand dollars for him.”
“Yes, we—”
“But not now,” Jim broke in. “Never again. Know much about foxes?”
“No, we—”
“Then, I’ll tell you.” Jim settled back in his chair. “I worked on a silver fox farm for three years. ‘Million Dollar Farm,’ they called it. And that’s what it was. Raised only silver foxes.
“But you don’t get that way all at once,” he laughed. “Not by a great deal. Take that fellow you got there. Suppose you find him a mate and decide to start raising silver foxes. Pretty soon you’d have a lovely lot of cute little fox cubs. But would they be silver foxes? Not one. That’s almost certain.”
“Not one?” Lawrence sat up.
“That’s it,” Jim agreed. “You’d get two or three little red foxes and, with great luck, a cross fox, that’s all.”
“You see,” he leaned forward, “a silver fox is a freak, just as a half-white robin is. If a half-white robin hatches his eggs his young ones are likely to be jolly little robin redbreasts, nothing more.
“Only by keeping foxes for years and years can you at last hope to raise pure silver foxes. That takes thousands and thousands of dollars. Four brothers went in for that in a big way years ago. Last year they sold 13,000 pelts for more than $1,000,000. And that,” he added, “figures up to something like $77.00 apiece.”
“That’s what our fox is worth,” Lawrence groaned. “And we’d have to kill him to get that?”
“Oh, sure,” Jim grinned. “But truly,” his face sobered, “that’s the tough part about fox farming. In the end you’ve got to kill ’em, so some fine lady can drape their skins about her neck.”
“I’d never sell ours to a fox farm,” Lawrence said with conviction.
“How about selling him alive to some zoo?” Johnny asked hopefully.
“Don’t know very much about that,” Jim replied slowly. “I wouldn’t hope too much. There are 5,000 fox farms these days. And they raise some beauties.
“But if you mean to keep this fellow alive,” he added, “you want to get a wooden barrel and make it into a den for him. Pack it all ’round with chaff and moss to make it warm. Then build him a wire pen all about it. He’ll get along fine if you do that.
“I’ll have to trot along.” He rose to go. “Come and see me. I’ll tell you more about ’em. They’re interesting no end, foxes are.” He bade them goodnight.
“Well,” Johnny drawled slowly, “Old Silver won’t buy us a tractor, that’s sure.”
“No,” said Lawrence. “But we can learn a lot about him and we can at least keep him from eating our chickens. Don’t give up the ship. We’ll happen onto something yet.”
There are other rewards than money in this life of ours. Remarkable achievement of any sort usually brings us kind words of deserved praise from our fellowmen. It was so with Johnny and Lawrence. More than one settler had suffered from the night raids of Old Silver. Now that he was in prison his captors were highly praised.
Still the problem remained; should they give up their dream of complete independence and go in debt for a tractor?
“I think you’d better,” said Johnny. “There are only a few left and they are going fast.”
“There’ll always be the Titan,” Lawrence laughed.
“Yes, the Titan,” Johnny agreed. “But who could ever pay for that tractor?”
The Titan was a powerful new type of tractor. Only one had been brought on and that one was priced at a cool thousand dollars.
“We’ll wait a little longer,” was Mr. Lawson’s decision. “The tide of fortune may turn our way.”
News travels fast in the north. When the time came for the boys to make one more journey to the store at Palmer everyone had heard of their catch.
“Here they come,” someone shouted as, stamping the snow from their feet, they entered the smoke-filled room.
“Here they come. They bring ’em back alive!” someone else shouted.
“Well,” Lawrence drawled, “we bring them anyway. Got two minks today. That’s two more that won’t carry off folks’ chickens.”
“I hear you boys got a silver fox.” There was a suggestion of antagonism in Jack Mayhorn’s voice as he said this.
“Yes,” Johnny replied. “And we’ve still got him.”
“Do you know, fellows,” Jack gave vent to a chuckle that seemed a little strained, “back in Michigan, where I lived on the shores of Lake Superior, there was a feller who used to go lake-trout fishin’. He trolled with an out-board motor. Always got ’em, too, a whale of a fine catch.
“But you know,” he edged forward in his chair, “there was net fishermen there, too. Fished fer a living. And one day when we was lookin’ over this sportin’ fellow’s catch, the fish he claimed he’d caught trollin’ we found had net marks on ’em.”
“Net marks?” someone said.
“Sure.” There was a shifty look in Jack’s eyes. “He’d been liftin’ nets an’ helping himself to the fish that didn’t belong to him. And I was wonderin’,” he paused, “just wonderin’, Johnny, if that silver fox of yours mebby had a lame foot or—or somethin’.”
The silence that followed was painful. Johnny made no reply. His fingers worked along his palm, that was all.
It was Blackie Dawson who spoke at last. “I take it, Jack,” he spoke slowly, “you are insinuating that these boys took the fox from your trap. Let me tell you, old man, that sort of thing calls for a fight; in the north it does.”
Jack made no reply, but Johnny did.
“I’m sorry,” he said, speaking slowly. “It doesn’t mean a fight to me.”
“You won’t fight?” Blackie stared at him.
“Not to settle a personal grudge,” Johnny replied slowly. “If Jack wants to think we took the fox from his trap, that’s his privilege. If he would like to examine the fox that’s his privilege also. But I’m not going to beat him up just to make him take back something he’s said. That might seem to be a point of honor but we all have our own codes of honor. It may seem queer but I’d rather take an insult than give someone a beating.”
“Take a beating you mean,” Jack sneered. He was nearly twice Johnny’s size.
“Joe,” said Johnny, turning to the store-keeper, “you told me you got two pairs of boxing gloves through the mail.”
“Sure, Johnny, I did. Here they are.” Reaching behind him the store-keeper drew out two pairs of gloves.
“Put ’em on, Johnny,” Blackie encouraged.
“Put ’em on! Put ’em on!” came from all over the room. There was a stir of expectancy in the air.
“Sure, I’ll put them on,” Johnny grinned. “What do you say, Joe? I’ll box you five rounds. Five friendly bouts for fun, money or marbles.”
The crowd stared, Johnny was talking not to the man who had offered the insult but to his friend the store-keeper.
For a moment Joe stood staring at him. Then, as the light of a smile spread over his face, he said, “Sure, Johnny, I’ll box you, not for money or marbles, but just, you might say, for fun.”
It will be a long time before the settlers of Matanuska Valley will again witness such a match as followed. Five rounds for fun, between friends? Yes, perhaps. And yet there were times when even Johnny doubted that. True, he was not angry for a moment, just in there doing his best. But Joe? He was wondering about him.
Though he had told no one in the valley about it, Joe had, only the year before, belonged to the U. S. Marines. The Marines neither give nor ask quarters. And Joe had been champion of his regiment. As for Johnny, well you know Johnny. If you don’t, you should have been there that night.
From the start it was leather against leather, a slap for the chin, a thrust at the heart, a bang on the side of the head, and after that a clinch.
Seldom had men been more evenly matched. Joe was older, more experienced, Johnny younger, faster on his feet.
They had not been going a minute when an involuntary ring had formed about them. In that ring, gaping open-mouthed was Jack Mayhorn.
Twice Johnny was down on a knee. Each time he was up and at it. Once, backed into a corner, Joe tripped and fell. He, too, was up before the count of three.
The fifth round was wild. Had there been an announcer, he must surely have lost his mind calling, “A right to Johnny’s chin, a left to his ear. The ear is bleeding. Oh—a! A slam on the side of Joe’s head that makes him slightly groggy. Johnny’s following through. The clinch! The referee (Blackie) separates them. They are sparring now. Now! Oh, now! Johnny takes one on the chin. He’s down. One—two—three—He’s up again.” So it went to the end.
As the cowbell, rung by young Larry Hooker, announced the close of the round, the crowd went wild with enthusiasm, but Joe, seizing Johnny by the glove, dragged him into the kitchen at the back of the store.
“Boy, you’re a whiz!” he exclaimed. “There was a time or two when I thought you had me.” He was mopping Johnny’s face with a wet towel.
“Not a chance,” Johnny laughed. “I didn’t know what I was stepping into but I did my best.”
“Listen,” Joe held up a hand. The tumult in the outer room had died down. Blackie Dawson was about to make a short speech. “Gentlemen,” he was saying, “the day after tomorrow at early candle light, there’ll be another boxing bout in this room. It will be between—” he paused—“between Jack Mayhorn and—he—he has a choice—Johnny Thompson or Joe Lawrence.”
“No!” a voice fairly roared after the shouts had subsided, “I got a bad foot. My footwork, it ain’t no good at all.” It was Jack Mayhorn who spoke.
“So it’syourfoot that’s bad and not that silver fox’s foot?” Blackie bantered.
The crowd let out a roar that could have been heard a mile.
“That’ll about fix Jack Mayhorn,” said Joe. “He’s not likely to bother you much now.”
An hour later, when the customers had “cleared out and gone home,” Johnny and Lawrence found themselves in Joe’s kitchen. Blackie and Joe were there. So was Mrs. Joe. They were all eating huckleberry pie and drinking hot chocolate.
“Johnny,” said Joe, feeling a plaster on his chin, “why did you do it?”
“Do what?” Johnny stared.
“Pick on me for a fight. I never done you no wrong.”
“That’s why,” was Johnny’s astonishing reply. “It’s an old Eskimo custom.”
“What is?” They all stared at him.
“According to the Eskimo law,” Johnny went on soberly, “if you are going to be killed it has to be done by a near relative or very close friend. So-o—” he added with a spreading grin, “I thought you’d do as well as anyone. And you did—even better.”
“Anyway,” Blackie supplemented after their laugh was over, “folks in Matanuska Valley will know who among us can put up a good scrap and that always helps.”
When one is young he thinks only of the present and the future, never of the past. As the two boys walked home that night, they thought much of the future. The bond of friendship between them and Blackie Dawson was growing stronger every day. When spring came, would they go booming away with him on a Coast Guard boat in search of adventure in Bristol Bay? Who could tell?
In the meantime there was work to be done, plenty of it. Some twenty acres of land was yet to be cleared. In the spring stumps must be pulled. Without a tractor this would mean back-breaking labor.
“Perhaps we can get more foxes?” Lawrence said, thinking out loud.
“Yes, and other wild creatures,” Johnny added. “That country ‘back of the beyond’ has never even been explored. There must be wild life back there that’s never been seen. Peary found white reindeer on one of his expeditions. Who can tell what we’ll come upon if we keep up our search?”
Who, indeed? The boy had spoken more wisely than he knew.
Johnny awoke with a start. What had wakened him? He could not say for sure. He had a feeling that it had been a human voice, perhaps a shout.
Propping himself up on one elbow he listened intently. There came no sound save the long-drawn distant howl of a wolf. “Must have dreamed it,” he murmured as he drew deep into the caribou-skin bed.
The night was cold, bitter cold. It was dark. Like chilled white diamonds, stars glistened in the sky. “What a change a few hours can make,” he thought. They were sleeping in the mysterious Bill’s shelter, he and Lawrence.
Why were they sleeping in this cheerless shelter? Warm beds awaited them at home. When one is young he does not need too good an answer for the thing he does. Both Johnny and Lawrence were born scouts. They loved the sharp tang of cold on their cheeks, followed by the quick glow of a campfire. The smell of wood-smoke, deer steak broiled over coals, dreamy hours just sitting before the fire, not talking, just thinking, all these were a joy to them. So they liked to get away for a night. Bill’s camp was a convenient place.
Johnny did not fall asleep at once, instead his mind was crowded with dreamy thoughts.
Perhaps Bill was a gold prospector. Perhaps he had discovered gold. Then when he returned to this camp, they might all go tramping away to find the spot and stake out claims.
“That would ruin the settlement,” he told himself. “People would desert their dreams of making homes for brighter, more illusive dreams of wealth. And yet—” What did he wish? He could not tell.
When they had retired for the night the moon had been shining, a bright fire gleamed before their shelter. Now all was gloomy and cold. Should he rekindle the fire? “No. Too chilly,” he shuddered. “Wait till morning.”
The days that had gone before had been uneventful ones. More and more he had come to realize that they must have a tractor. Long hours they had worked clearing timber. Brush was burned. But wood must be saved for fires, for buildings and fences. Every day saw larger piles of wood on the cleared land.
“With a tractor and a stout sled we’d have it hauled home in no time,” Lawrence had said to his father. “Without it—”
“Wait a little longer,” his father had counseled.
So they were waiting and tonight, sleeping in Bill’s shelter, they were still waiting.
So Johnny thought and dreamed until at last he fell asleep.
Perhaps he slept an hour, perhaps less or more. Then he awoke with a suddenness that set his senses reeling.
“Law-Lawrence!” he shouted in wild consternation. “The bear! The bear!”
Something solid and heavy as a bear had landed with all but crushing weight on his chest. It still rested there but did not move.
“That’s no bear,” said a gruff, good-natured voice. “That’s my pack. Sorry! Didn’t know you was here.”
“Lawrence!” Johnny exclaimed. “It’s Bill!”
“Not Bill neither,” the stranger disagreed. “They call me Smokey Joe.”
“Smokey Joe!” Johnny peered into the darkness, trying to get a look at the man’s face. “Smokey Joe. I’ve heard of you.”
And he surely had. Smokey was a well-known character in the valley. The old-timers told how he came and went. Always in search of gold, he would disappear for months.
“Then,” one of the motherly women added, “just when we think he’s gone for good, up he pops again. We feed him up and patch his clothes. Then, like some boy, he’s off again.
“But he’s no boy,” she added. “He came to Alaska in the gold rush of ’97.”
“Eighteen-ninety-seven!” Johnny had exclaimed. “More than forty years ago!”
“He never left,” the gray-haired lady had added. “He came from the Cumberland Mountains somewhere and he still speaks in their queer way.
“They say,” she added with a lowered voice, “that he struck it rich once, had nearly half a million dollars, and that he’s got some of it hid away in the hills somewhere. But, then,” she sighed, “you can’t believe anything you hear and only half you see in Alaska. Alaska is a place of wild dreams.”
Johnny was recalling all this as he made haste to split dry wood into fine pieces, whittle some shavings, then light a blaze in their out-of-doors fireplace.
“It’s about morning,” he said, at last looking into Smokey Joe’s seamed face. “Did you come far?”
“Been travelin’ mighty nigh all night,” the old man drawled. “Me and my hounds here.” He nodded at three powerful dogs, already curled up on the snow for a sleep. “Right smart cold up yonder. Hit’s a sight better here in the bottoms.”
“We’ll have coffee before you know it,” Johnny said cheerily. “Coffee and sour-dough flap-jacks.”
“Ah,” the old man sucked in his breath. “Sour dough flap-jacks. They shore do stick to yer ribs. Reckon Smokey Joe’s the flapjack eatinest feller you almost ever seed.”
Lawrence grinned. This old man spoke a strange language.
“A bear!” Smokey chuckled. “You all thought I were a bear! That’s right smart quare.”
“We almost caught a cub,” Johnny explained. “Caught him alive, I mean.”
“Almost.” Lawrence laughed. “But his mother objected.”
“Bears,” said the old man, blinking at the fire. “Back thar in them thar glaciers thar’s bears you might nigh wouldn’t believe the plain truth about.”
“Why?” Johnny sat up. “What’s strange about them?”
“Might nigh everythin’s quare, I reckon. Hm,” the old man sniffed the coffee, “smells powerful good.”
“It’ll be boiled in a minute or two,” said Johnny. “But tell me about those bears.”
“They’re blue, plumb blue, like a thin sky.” The old man struggled for words. “They’re right smart woolly like sheep, I reckon. But they ain’t sheep. God-a-mighty, narry a bit of it. One of them clawed my lead dog like tarnation. An’ they’re the fish-eatinest critters you most ever seed.”
“Polar bears?” Johnny suggested.
“Polar bears, big as good-sized hounds!” Smokey sniffed. “Who’s ever hearn tell of sech polar bears?”
Who indeed? Johnny was growing excited and confused. “Woolly, blue bears no bigger than dogs,” he was thinking. “What kind of bears could they be?”
In his confusion he upset the coffeepot and spilled half its contents. For all this, there was plenty left. Smokey Joe drank it piping hot, ate in a ravenous manner. Then, springing to his feet and calling to his dogs, declared he must get down to Palmer for a new pack of grub.
“He’s found a trace of color in some dashing stream that doesn’t freeze, not even in winter,” was Johnny’s conclusion. “He’s going to hotfoot it right back and get rich—maybe.”
“But, Johnny,” Lawrence was not smiling, “do you really suppose there are any such bears as he described?”
“Of course not,” was Johnny’s prompt reply.
“But, Johnny, if there were, if we caught one alive! No bigger than a dog. We could do it, Johnny. We could buy a tractor.”
“Forget it. It’s all a pipe dream, I tell you.”
But Lawrence did not forget Smokey Joe’s blue bears, nor, in the end, did Johnny.