Roy J. Snell

“ After that, for a long time, they sat in silence, listening to the faint, all but inaudible sounds of an Arctic night and watching the world that seemed so new, so fresh, so ready for those who were good and kind and true. Can souls speak, though no words be uttered? Who knows? Joyce wondered, but did not speak.
It often happens that we go from joy to sorrow in a single hour. So it was with Joyce. Her hour with Jim had been one of transfiguration. To go from communion with a human companion to seek a four-footed friend might seem the imperfect ending of a perfect hour. ”

“ Beside some ancient river bed, on the rocks above a cataract that even winter could not conquer, at the crest of some mountain-like ridge, he might come upon the brownish-black, velvet-like quartz that would spell riches for old Sandy, Scott and himself. Always he thought first of his brawny, gray-haired friend.
“He is past seventy,” he told himself. “A prince of a man. Always lived for others. Ever a prospector, this is his last great adventure. It must be a real one. It surely must!”
His mind returned often to the strange tales Curlie had told him, tales of the “Gray Streak.” ”

“ No one would start back with him to bring a dog sled load of gasoline to his plane before dawn.
He was just pushing away the warm robe he had drawn over his knees when a curious sound reached his ears, a clank-clank like the moving of gears.
“How strange!” he exclaimed. “Up here close to the Arctic Circle. What a night! Will wonders never cease?”
A low dark bulk came gliding over the ice. The clank-clank grew louder. ”

“ As he closed his eyes now he seemed to see the girl, Joyce Mills, as he had seen her on that day when, after their final battle with a great city’s crime, she had asked:
“When do we go back?”
They had stood then on a rickety little dock before a deserted cabin on the shore of Lake Huron.
How well he recalled his own answer: “We don’t go back. We go on into the silent North, perhaps. It may be that we shall find a land where men are just and merciful and kind.” ”

“ To one who first flies over the Arctic wastes of the far Northwest, the landscape seems as unmarked as the sweeping blue of a landless sea. No cities, no villages, no roads, no railways, no farmhouses, not so much as a cabin is there to guide him in his skyway wanderings. As time passes, as he flies the same route again and again, that which lies beneath him becomes familiar. There is the river. Here it forms as an S. There it winds like a serpent. Here it is thickly bordered by trees, there lined only by low-growing willows. ”

“ 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 than thirty thousand dollars. In a year all the operators in the world produced less than nine grams. Yet a single half gram owned by a great hospital has sent many a poor soul, stricken with the deadly cancer disease, back to his loved ones in perfect health. The healing qualities of radium is one of God’s great gifts to man. Think what it would mean to find a fresh and richer supply of this life-restoring mineral?” ”

“ As the skis bumped, and then bumped again on the icy surface that was the landing field at Fort Chipewyan, Curlie’s eyes strayed toward the golden moon as a voice seemed to whisper: “Somewhere beyond the sky there is a power that guides and guards our ways.” ”

“ He had sent those bits of rocks, that gave promise of producing mineral worth a million dollars an ounce, over to Resolution. They were now in the fuselage of Curlie’s plane.
“Guard them well,” had been the prospector’s last word of admonition. “Those samples are pitchblende. From pitchblende comes radium. And radium has been a boon to mankind. Through its mysterious rays of light it has cured thousands of that most dreaded of diseases, cancer. If we can but discover a cheaper supply, we will be benefactors of the whole race. Take them to Edmonton. ”

“ Drew Lane followed hot on the trail of his message. Curlie Carson was warming up his plane for one more journey in the land of great white silence when a small, fast monoplane circled above the field for a landing.
This little ship of the air caught Curlie’s eye at once. And why not? It was painted a vivid red.
“In the name of all that’s good!” he cried, when he saw Drew Lane spring with his pilot from the cockpit. “You don’t expect to do detective work up here in that fire wagon, do you?”
Drew laughed as he gripped Curlie’s hand. “What does color matter? It’s speed that counts. ”

“ Johnny agreed. “But the worst is yet to come. Look to your bow. Set your arrow squarely. If you must shoot, shoot to kill. More than one honest person’s life depends upon it.”
They crept through the bushes to a point where they might command a view of the doorway to the cabin and the open space before it. Then, sinking down in the snow behind the black bulk of a spruce tree, they awaited the zero hour.
Johnny drew his watch from his pocket. A minute ticked itself into eternity, then another and yet another.
“Sandy does not come,” Johnny whispered. “What’s keeping him?” ”

“ Before the parachute, from which Drew Lane had so mysteriously dropped, had floated out from the cloud, the Red Racer, still manned by Drew’s pilot, had passed into another cloud.
“He does not know,” Curlie told himself. “He believes that Drew made a safe landing and will believe it until some one has told him the truth.”
It came to him that it was his duty to hunt out the Red Racer and break the sad news.
“But what would be the good? One does not fall thousands of feet and survive. My first duty is to the living.” ”

“ But there may come a time in this battle of the board, as in the battle of life, when knights and bishops, castles and queens have fallen, when the poor little pawn in a single move takes on a position of tremendous importance. All the time, with his snail-like pace, he has been coming closer and closer to the king-row. When the time comes, when he is prepared to glide across that last black line into the king-row, if there is no knight, bishop or queen to stop him, then he may look back from the king-row and say: ‘I am about to make a wish. ”

“ Curlie showed his disappointment at this fresh discovery. He had come a long way on a wild goose chase. He had hoped against hope that this cabin might furnish a clue to the solution of the mystery that gathered itself about that gray rover of the sky. Yet here was Jerry telling him there was not a chance.
“But why didn’t he tell us he was a trapper?” he objected.
“These men of the North are silent fellers,” Jerry said slowly. “You’ll find that out. They live in the midst of silence. They’re here because they love silence. People that like cities live in ’em and talk aplenty. ”

“ Of course mineralogists are always hoping to find richer deposits. And when some one does make the discovery, even if it’s on the North Pole, men will go after it. And the man that finds it will be rich beyond his wildest dreams; what’s more, he will be classed as one of the world’s greatest benefactors. What better could he ask?”
“What indeed?” murmured Scott Ramsey, his young partner.
“This stuff,” said Sandy, touching the sack with his moccasined foot, “must go where the other samples have gone, to Edmonton.”
“Be a week before the next mail plane goes south,” said Johnny. ”

“ Once Curlie did wrinkle his brow. He was thinking of the mysterious gray ship he had followed into the storm.
“If that keeps up,” he told himself, “the sky will no more be safe. It will be full of lurking dangers as was the Spanish Main when pirates and buccaneers lurked in every cove.”
[97]
With all his thinking he could not solve the mystery of the nameless and numberless plane. Instead, from out the air there leaped a fresh mystery. A simple thing in the beginning it was too—only a bird in flight.
Birds are common enough in the Arctic. ”

“ In her more sober moments she puzzled as ever about the stolen films. Matters were coming to a head in their mining camp. Hope ran high.
“But one is a thief,” she whispered more than once. “Jim, Clyde, Lloyd, which could it be? Jim is so religious, so kind and so—so—How could he? Clyde saved my father’s life. How could I doubt him? And Lloyd went all through that terrible war as a boy soldier. He might have gone home from the horror of it all simply by saying the word, yet he never said that word. How can one doubt a man like that?” ”

“ Johnny nodded.
“It’s no clearing. No axe has been put to any tree. When God and the birds planted these low forests they left this place for me.
“Spring and summer,” he mused, “they are marvelous here. The wild ducks come to lay their eggs and rear their young. There’s an egg or two extra for me. There are ptarmigan in the low hills and fish aplenty. A light rifle and a gill-net, that’s all you need for living well.
“At night you hear the bull moose calling to his mate. One stormy day you see the caribou passing by your cabin, a line many miles long, straking away toward the north. ”

“ Johnny started to his feet. Sandy pulled him back. Once more the fire flared up, then again died away.
[142]
“See bird.” The Voice rose high. “Strange bird. Not Devil Bird. Bird, how you say? Like raven. So big. No croaks. No black. Gray like clouds when sun not yet up. Fly, fly fast, that bird. Fly far. Not sing, that bird. White man keep in box. White man let him out, say: ‘Fly away! Fly straight!’ Fly far, that one.”
“Must be a carrier pigeon,” Johnny thought to himself. “But who would have a pigeon in such a land?”
Two minutes of silence. Sandy cast more tinder on the fire. ”

“ Individuals will ever answer this question in their own way. The soldier of fortune, going from war to war throughout a long lifetime, seeks only adventure. Men of great wealth, shuddering at thought of anything approaching true adventure, lock themselves up in their caged offices to count their gold.
However we are to answer this question, it is necessary to state that while Johnny Thompson and Curlie Carson were passing through thrilling adventures, their good friend Joyce Mills was enjoying a taste of great good fortune. ”

“ It may appear strange that out of the three possible cabins on this section of the river Curlie chose to come to earth before the one occupied by the rough and ready little world war hermit who had in so strange a manner defied him when a pigeon had been tracked to his window.
“Oh, it’s you, me lad!” the scrawny little man exclaimed, as Curlie climbed from the cockpit. “Sure it’s sorry vittals I be ’avin’, but such as they be, y’ are welcome.”
“Ptarmigan!” exclaimed Curlie. “Nothing better than that!” A brace of these birds hung by the cabin door. ”

“ Scarcely less heroic was a lone gray figure, traveling in the opposite direction. With unerring instinct this gray form followed back over the trail Johnny and his team had traveled. This lone gray figure was only that of a dog; but even a dog, with a purpose, may become a hero.
* * * * * * * *
Once more in Johnny Thompson’s mind, as he felt the strange gray plane whose pilot he had not so much as seen go thundering on, many questions whirled round and round. Why, why was he a captive? Why was D’Arcy Arden here? ”

“ So spoke the half-caste French-Canadian. So spoke they all. “He is there, somewhere; not here. He has been seen on the Porcupine, at Great Bear Lake, over the Barrens. But not here, sir. Thank God, not here!”
“And all the time,” thought Curlie Carson, as the days passed, “that D’Arcy Arden person is being carried about as a captive. Or, can that be true? Could a girl stand such a life? Or even a woman, or a boy? Think of the mental strain!”
“Drew,” he said one day as they met at the Chink’s at Fort Chipewyan, “if you ever come up to them, be careful. ”

“ Never in all her life had she come upon young men so frank, so kind and so generous, so whole-heartedly serious about their work, and yet so joyous, as the three who at that moment were sending out from the other cabin, to the accompaniment of Jim’s banjo, the hilarious notes of an old backwoods song. ”

“ Who were these great, dark, whiskered men who flew an unmarked plane over these northern wastes?
“One would not think it possible for strangers to live so long and travel so far in such a land without supplies of their own,” he told himself. “Yet in no other land could it be done so easily. In summer it is necessary for dwellers in this land to bring in supplies of gasoline and food for winter’s use. These supplies brought in by steamboat are often left in unguarded spots. Up until now, men in this land have been honest. It is the only way man can survive in such an unfriendly land. ”

“ Curlie spoke slowly. “There are times when I seem to be guided by instinct, or shall we say led by a spirit that is not myself, that is higher and wiser than I. At least,” he half apologized, “I like to think of it that way. Probably it’s all wrong.
“But I say, Jerry!” He sat up quickly. The eagle-eyed one started suddenly, then rising, glided silently away. “I say, Jerry old boy, that chap in the cabin was a world war veteran. A real one from Canada, or perhaps Ireland. He’s one of those scrawny little fellows so small and so quick that a shell couldn’t get them, nor a bullet either. ”

“ How do they in the midst of fog, without sun, moon or stars to guide them, steer frail craft over dark waters to land on unlighted shores before their wigwam doors? How can they know what happens a hundred miles away at the very hour at which it happens? ”

“ Joyce had believed that by this time she knew the young men of her camp as well as she did Johnny Thompson, Drew Lane, or any other person with whom she had been closely associated.
“How hard it is to judge people!” She sighed deeply. To discover that we have been deceived in a friend is always a shock. ”

“ The Indian made no effort to hitch Johnny’s dogs to the sled. There was no need. His own tireless team was still fit for the trail. In the North both dogs and men are accustomed to long hours of rest and long days of toil.
So, with no sound coming from the darkened cabin where, relying on their false security, the mysterious ones slept on, the sled glided away into the night.
For an hour they followed the shore of the lake. Then turning sharply to the left, they climbed a steep hill to go gliding along a ridge. ”

“ Johnny added gently, “is to find the thief. You are the daughter of a detective. Often you have helped your father in his work. This should be easy.”
“I will.” The girl stood up. “I will find him. And when I have, what shall I do?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?” She stared unbelievingly.
“Exactly that. Can’t you see?” He, too, sprang to his feet. “As long as we know what they are doing, they are in a way working for us. If they make a strike, find gold or other rich mineral deposits, we will share with them.” ”

“ After long thought Johnny had decided that it was his duty to tell the men of his camp the story of the stolen films and of the men who at that moment were using their hard-earned leads for profit.
“Old Timer,” Scott Ramsey was saying to Sandy, as they sat beside the roaring fire, “do you think it would be too hard on those fellows to move right in and file on their land the moment they make a strike?”
“Not one whit!” Sandy’s chair came down with a bang. “Trouble nowadays is, too many folks have vague ideas of what’s honest and what isn’t. ”

“ Until his coming into this land he had thought of aviation as a pleasant luxury, mostly to be indulged in by the rich and the near-rich; a necessity in war, a luxury in time of peace. But in this far-flung land of snow the airplane has come to be a thing of great service. ”

“ But the next instant Curlie caught the gleam of the axe and the creature went down.
“It’s a bear. What a lucky stroke!” he said to Jerry.
But wait. The battle was not over; in fact it had hardly begun. Looming high over the man, a great bulk had appeared from out the low forest. Without the least warning it launched itself upon the man. They went down in a heap and for a space of seconds a wild whirl of snow hid them.
“Come on!” Curlie shouted, gripping his bow. “That’s a barren-ground grizzly! The other was a cub. She’ll get him. We must do what we can!” ”

“ Mail planes speeding on their courses dropped the surprising news. Gold-hunting planes picked it up and carried it on. Dog teams creeping over the white surface of the earth did their bit. Every trader, every trapper and every Indian passed the word along. Above and beyond all this was some mysterious means of communication which no one appeared to understand but which none doubted. This carried the news to every corner. And from each corner the word came echoing back: “Drew Lane is here. He rides in a bright red plane. ”