CHAPTER XV OVER THE RAPIDS
On the day following her experience with Jim and the foxes, Joyce Millsonce more took to the trail with her dog team. And a dangerous trail itproved to be.
She wanted time to think. And what better opportunity could be afforded?Well tucked in, half buried in caribou robes, with the wind at her backand her toboggan sled gliding over the snow, and with Dannie, the leader,choosing his own course, her mind had little to do but wander at will.
Her thoughts were for the moment on that strange brownish-black rock herfather called pitchblende. He had found samples and had sent them southon the airplane.
"Will they contain radium?" she asked herself. "Much radium?"
Her father had told her a little about the wonders of radium. "A grain,"he had said, "one thirty-second part of an ounce, is worth more thanthirty thousand dollars. In a year all the operators in the worldproduced less than nine grams. Yet a single half gram owned by a greathospital has sent many a poor soul, stricken with the deadly cancerdisease, back to his loved ones in perfect health. The healing qualitiesof radium is one of God's great gifts to man. Think what it would mean tofind a fresh and richer supply of this life-restoring mineral?"
She had thought, and had thrilled to the very core of her being.
So she dreamed on and on and, like many another, all unaware of impendingdanger, enjoyed the drowsy comfort of the passing hour.
Suddenly she was shocked from her dreaming, for her dog team, breakingaway from a leisurely trot, sprang away across the snow like a pack ofhounds in full cry.
Her first thought was, "They are after a snowshoe rabbit. But Dannie! Ihoped he was better trained than that."
So he was. Next instant she knew the cause of this terrific speed and hercheek blanched. The outlaw buffalo, the very one who had before broughther into great peril, was upon their trail. With a mad bellow, with whitefrost pouring from his nostrils like smoke, he charged straight on.
They were on the lake's ice. No trees to climb here. Speed was their onlychance. How fast was a buffalo? Could he outrun a dog team? She was toknow.
The team's speed for the moment saved her. As the buffalo charged down atreeless slope, he fell behind them. One instant more, and he was ontheir trail.
"What if the sled tips and I am thrown out?" she asked herself with ashudder.
But the thought of what might happen was crowded out by that which washappening. The buffalo was gaining. There could be no question about it.
"He has shortened the distance between us by ten yards," she toldherself.
She caught the gleam of his terrifying horns, heard his deep, gutturalbellow; then, dragging her eyes away, she shouted bravely:
"Now! Dannie! Now! _Ye! Ye! Ye!_ Now, Grover! Now, Ginger! _Now! Now!Now! Ye! Ye! Ye!_"
The splendid creatures responded to her call that was half plea, halfcommand, by a fresh burst of speed. But was it enough? She dared not lookback. They sped on across the white waste.
Moments passed, agonizing moments they were. Urging her dogs to theirutmost, she still refrained from looking behind. If she looked her heartmight fail her.
"The way out!" she repeated to herself over and over. "What can be theway out?"
What indeed? She might, if there was time, call upon her dogs to pause intheir mad rush. They might face about and trust their fates to a battle.That these fine fellows would fight she did not question.
"But what chance?" Her voice was choked with a dry sob. "Hindered by theharness, they could never win."
Dark to the left on the horizon a clump of tamarack showed.
"Too late! We'll never make it. We--"
Then suddenly, as upon that other occasion, a curious thing happened; arifle cracked.
This time the result was different. It was as if an avenging God hadsaid: "It is enough." The girl heard a dull thud and, looking fearfullyabout, saw the outlaw buffalo lying upon the snow. A bullet had broughthis mad career to an end.
Instinctively the dogs slowed down. The girl's eyes searched the lowhills for her benefactor. He was nowhere to be seen.
A moment passed into eternity; another and yet another. In all that greatwhite world not a living creature moved.
Seized by a strange new fear, she spoke to her dogs and once more theysped away. Ten minutes later they were back on the trail they hadfollowed in the beginning. And this, she discovered by a study ofsnowshoe prints, was the trail of her father and his companion.
Once more she settled back in peace. But not for long. This was to be aday of days in her life.
* * * * * * * *
Drew Lane followed hot on the trail of his message. Curlie Carson waswarming up his plane for one more journey in the land of great whitesilence when a small, fast monoplane circled above the field for alanding.
This little ship of the air caught Curlie's eye at once. And why not? Itwas painted a vivid red.
"In the name of all that's good!" he cried, when he saw Drew Lane springwith his pilot from the cockpit. "You don't expect to do detective workup here in that fire wagon, do you?"
Drew laughed as he gripped Curlie's hand. "What does color matter? It'sspeed that counts. She's the fastest thing in the air. Let me get sightof those robbers in that lumbering old mail truck and you'll seesomething pretty. The Red Knight of Germany won't be in it with me.
"But tell me." He sobered. "You've seen this gray outlaw of the air. Doyou think it could be the plane that was stolen in Chicago?"
"Y--e--s," Curlie said slowly. "It could be. Same type of plane and allthat. But--"
"But what?"
"Nothing. At least not a thing that's tangible. Just a fancy, I suppose.I found a mitten in my room. It was made from the pelt of a Siberianwolf-hound."
"For John's sake!" Drew Lane stared. "What's that to do with an outlawplane?"
Curlie told him of the carrier pigeon, of the copied message, and of thetheft in the night.
"That," agreed Drew when he had ended, "may have a bearing. At leastwe'll not forget it. But, as for me, I stick to the theory that thisoutlaw is driving the stolen mail plane. There were valuable papers onboard, being transferred from one city to another. Owners have offered alarge reward. And say!" he exclaimed, "why couldn't those fellows betrying to collect the reward through carrier pigeons?"
"Wrong end to," Curlie objected. "If they were doing that the pigeonswould be sent in a crate to the persons paying the reward. Then the planwould be to have them released with the reward in thousand dollar billsattached to them."
"That's right. Well, we'll see."
Drew then changed the subject. "You're off for the North?"
"In an hour."
"I'll trail you."
"How far?"
"Until I get a hunch to sail away on my own."
"Which won't be long," Curlie grinned, and then led him away for a cup ofcoffee.
* * * * * * * *
In the meantime, strange and terrible things were happening to Joyce andher friends. With her team she had left the lake and had traveled twomiles into the low hills when, on rounding the point of a ridge, shesighted her father.
Quite close at hand, he was bending over a rocky ledge that hung above arushing cataract. "A dangerous position," she told herself. "One stepand--"
To her great consternation, at that instant she saw him throw up ahand--then plunge downward.
There is a section to the north and east of Great Slave Lake where thesurface of the land is one heap of gigantic rocks. The land falls off tothe west so rapidly that the streams are little more than cascadesplaying continually over giant stairways. It was into one of theseunnatural streams that her father had fallen.
Even as Joyce stood looking, too terrified to move, Clyde Hawke, apowerful swimmer, plunged in after her father. So swift was the water,however, that he was three yards behind in the mad race for life.
Never very strong, Newton Mills, now prematurely old, offered littleresistance to the wild torrent that appeared determined to carry him todestruction. One fortunate instance, for the moment, saved him. Anoverhanging snag caught at his stout jacket. It held for a space ofseconds. Before the stout canvas gave way, he had secured a tight grip onthe snag. Ten seconds more, and the brave young westerner, swimming withone hand, had gripped the older man by the arm and was struggling tobring him ashore.
The battle seemed all but won when, without warning, the snag gave way tocast them once more upon the mercy of the torrent.
To Joyce, who had made her way to the brink of the stream and stood readyto lend a hand, all seemed lost.
The last vestige of hope left her when, with a cry of horror, she sawthem, tight in one another's grip, disappear beneath the ice of the poolthat lay beyond the rapids.
"They're gone! Gone!" she sobbed.
But what was this? Beyond the narrow stretch of ice was a second chain ofrapids less precipitous than the first. Poised on a rock at the verycenter of the rapids, she had seen a lone pelican waiting for fish. Now,as if disturbed, he rose and went flapping away.
"Can it be--"
Plunging headlong over rocks and treacherous ice, she made her way tothis second space of open water. She was just in time to lean far overand grip Clyde by the collar of his coat. Then, securing a hold upon astout willow bush, she clung with the grip of death. Not one life, buttwo, depended upon her strength and endurance. Clyde Hawke still retainedhis grip upon her father. Together they had passed beneath the ice andhad come out on the other side.
Ten minutes of heart-breaking battle with the elements, and they had won.Or had they? True, her father lay upon the snow beside the exhaustedyouth who had risked his life to save him; but he neither moved norspoke. Was he dead? She could not be sure.
Time restored strength to the plucky Clyde Hawke. Then together theycarried Newton Mills to a sheltered crevice among the rocks. Aftergathering dry twigs and branches, they built a roaring fire.
"It's the only thing that will save him," Clyde explained. "Home is toofar away."
Joyce removed her warm fur parka. Then she walked a short distance up thehill. When she returned Clyde had stripped off her father's clothing and,after chafing his limbs, had dressed him in her parka. As she came up herfather's eyes opened and he murmured hoarsely: "That was close, awfulclose!" Then his eyelids fell.
With the hatchet from his belt Clyde cut off spruce branches and builtthem a shelter. Sheltered by the three walls of boughs and warmed by thefire, they soon were as comfortable as they might have been in the cabin.
When her splendid mind had regained its full powers, Joyce sprang up andcried:
"The dog team!"
She had left the dogs, she hardly knew where. And the toboggan sled waslined with caribou-skin robes.
"I will go for them." She stood up. "As soon as you are dry enough to besafe, we can take him home in the sled."
"When you're back I'll be O.K.," Clyde said simply.
A hurried search showed her the dogs curled up in a low run where thesled had tangled in the willows. "Good old pups!" she murmured, as shegulped down a sob.
Two hours after dark they arrived at camp from an expedition that hadthreatened to be the most disastrous in the entire history of theenterprise. Newton Mills was still unconscious. Would he recover? Whocould say?
By great good fortune they found Punch Dickinson there with his plane. Hehad arrived late and was prepared to stay all night. Although nightflying is, as a rule, off the program of Arctic flyers, he agreed in thisextremity to go to Resolution for the doctor.
A little more than two hours later, there came the thunder of the motorand Punch was back with medical aid.
"It's the shock and exposure," was the doctor's verdict. "With care heshould pull through."
"He'll get the care right enough," said Jim Baley. "He ain't one of themsorry old men. He's a king. That's what he is. We'll stick with him if wedon't never find narry a bit of radium nor gold."
"Come to think of it," Punch Dickinson started up from his place by thefire, "I've a message for you. Report on your pitchblende I guess."
He drew two envelopes from his pocket.
"Curious thing happened." He seemed ill at ease. "You know two bags ofsamples went down; both of them pitchblende? Well, some way the tags weretorn off and there's no way of telling which sample belongs to whichoutfit. I--I'm sorry it came out that way. But up here I guess you're allfriends in the same game. Luck for one is luck for all."
"Luck for one, luck for all?" Joyce wondered as her mind went over thewords.
"What's to be done?"
Clyde, the westerner, scratched his head. "Guess we get first look,"smiled Lloyd Hill, putting out a hand for the envelopes.
"Seems that it might be a case of sending down more samples," he murmuredas he tore open the first envelope.
"I'm sorry some one blundered," Punch apologized. "I know how hard it isto get samples. I--"
"Just a minute." Lloyd Hill held up a hand. "Looks as if it hasn't madeany difference. The reports are almost identical; same amount of copper,same nickel, same cobalt and--"
"Radium! Radium!"
Instantly the word was on every tongue. "Just a trace," said Lloydreluctantly. "Not enough to make the slightest difference. In otherwords, we lose, all of us; the other fellows, too."
"Oh!" The cry that escaped the girl's lips was a cry of pain. Her fatherhad hoped much from his radium rock. She had hoped, too. She had dreamed.Johnny Thompson had dreamed. They were all friends together. And all hadlost.
"And now this!" she whispered as she turned to hide a tear that would notstay. "Now father is desperately ill. If he recovers I must tell himthis. And we hoped so much!" Truly this was her darkest hour.
The air of the cabin suddenly seemed oppressive. Throwing on a coat, shewandered out into the night. As she stood there bathing her hot templesin the cool night air, a figure moved silently toward her.
"You find gold? Mebby yes? Mebby no?"
It was the Indian, he of the traps. He had found his broken trap, shefelt sure of that. As she looked he seemed to leer at her in a mockingmanner. Then he passed on into the night.
The look on that man's face disturbed her. Many things troubled her. Shewas tired, needed rest.
"I must sleep," she told herself.
The doctor was to remain, at least for the night. Her father was in goodhands. Creeping away to her small room, she disrobed in the dark and wassoon fast asleep.