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[Illustration: FRANK READE WEEKLY MAGAZINE Containing Stories of
Adventures on Land, Sea & in the Air]
_Issued Weekly—By Subscription $2.50 per year. Application made for
Second-Class Entry at N. Y. Post-Office._
No. 25. NEW YORK, APRIL 17, 1903. Price 5 Cents.
[Illustration: FRANK READE, JR AND HIS ELECTRIC ICE SHIP; OR, DRIVEN
ADRIFT IN THE FROZEN SKY. _BY “NONAME._”]
Ahead, Frank now saw a boyish figure
in the midst of a pack of ravenous
wolves. He was armed with a revolver
with which he was firing into them,
while he shrieked to frighten them
away. Up to him rushed the ice ship.
FRANK READE
WEEKLY MAGAZINE.
CONTAINING STORIES OF ADVENTURES ON LAND, SEA AND IN THE AIR.
_Issued Weekly—By Subscription $2.50 per year. Entered as Second Class
Matter at New York, N. Y., Post Office. Entered according to Act of
Congress in the year 1902, in the office of the Librarian of Congress,
Washington D. C., by Frank Tousey, 24 Union Square, New York._
No. 25. NEW YORK, APRIL 17, 1903. Price 5 Cents.
Frank Reade, Jr., and His Electric Ice Ship;
OR,
DRIVEN ADRIFT IN THE FROZEN SKY.
By “NONAME.”
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I. STEALING A BOY.
CHAPTER II. THE VILLAIN CAUGHT.
CHAPTER III. BAFFLED.
CHAPTER IV. NOVA ZEMBLA.
CHAPTER V. BARNEY AND THE BEAR.
CHAPTER VI. THE FISHING STATION.
CHAPTER VII. INTO DANGEROUS GROUND.
CHAPTER VIII. THE MAMMOTH.
CHAPTER IX. CAUGHT IN A TRAP.
CHAPTER X. PLUNGED IN A LAKE.
CHAPTER XI. BEARDING THE LION IN HIS DEN.
CHAPTER XII. THE BOY AND THE WOLVES.
CHAPTER XIII. OFF THE CLIFF.
CHAPTER XIV. CONCLUSION.
CHAPTER I.
STEALING A BOY.
It was late on a cold November night in the city of Boston, the sky was
obscured by dark, stormy clouds, a bleak wind was whistling through the
almost deserted streets, and the lights in the lamps flickered dimly.
A plainly attired man with white hair and a black mustache was walking
away from the railroad depot with a handsome boy of seventeen, clad in
the natty blue uniform of a military academy.
“Alfred Milburn,” the boy was saying pleadingly, “do not keep me in
suspense any longer. Tell me why you wrote me to come to Boston to-night
from my school. What serious news have you to tell me?”
“You must prepare yourself for a great affliction, Walter Grey,” the man
replied. “I hate to break bad news, but——”
“Great heavens!” exclaimed young Grey, suddenly—“my mother——”
“She suddenly became insane, and I have had to place her in a private
asylum,” said Alfred Milburn, in low, gentle tones.
A stifled cry of woe escaped the boy, and he burst into tears, for his
mother was the only relative he had in the world.
He paused and glanced piteously at the lawyer, who had been acting as
administrator of the fortune his father had left, and saw that Milburn
was very pale and greatly agitated.
As soon as Walter could master his grief, he asked, tremulously:
“When did this horrible misfortune occur, sir?”
“Just a week ago, my boy. I am very sorry for you. Brace up! She may
recover her reason. I will take you to see her to-night.”
There was a spark of hope in what the lawyer said, and Walter eagerly
grasped at it, and answered:
“I can never get over this shock; but I shall try to be courageous, Mr.
Milburn. Take me to her. Let me see my dear mother. Perhaps I can do
something for her.”
“Very well,” replied the lawyer. “Come this way.”
He turned into a street bordering the water front, and casting a rapid
glance around, failed to see any one except three men, attired in the
garb of sailors, crouching in an adjoining doorway.
The lawyer drew his handkerchief from his pocket, wiped his face with
it, and while apparently returning it to his pocket, dropped it.
Instantly the three sailors darted from the doorway.
One of them, in a captain’s uniform, darted up behind the boy, flung an
arm around his neck, pulled his head back, and clapped a sponge
saturated with chloroform to Walter Grey’s nostrils.
A cry of alarm pealed from the startled boy’s lips, but it was quickly
checked by a pressure of his assailant’s arm, and the moment he began to
inhale the fumes of the drug he became stupefied.
Milburn recoiled a few steps.
His dark eyes were flashing with excitement.
He cautiously glanced around, and then saw a young man coming.
“Captain Ben Bolt!” he hissed.
“Well?” gruffly asked the man who held young Grey.
“There’s some one coming.”
“Blast it! But the boy’s senseless!”
“The fellow is running toward us.”
“He’s seen ther struggle, then.”
“Yes. What shall we do?”
“Carry ther lad aboard the Red Eric.”
“And you?”
“We’ll lay that lubber out!”
The lawyer picked the drugged boy up and hastened over the muddy street
with him toward a big whaling ship lying at one of the docks.
In the meantime the three sailors surrounded the newcomer.
He proved to be a dashing-looking young man, with a dark mustache, a
symmetrical and athletic figure, and an intellectual face.
He had been behind the lawyer and the boy when they left the depot, and
seeing the assault and Milburn’s indifference, he correctly concluded
that the boy had been led into a trap.
“You scoundrels!” he panted: “what are you doing to that boy?”
“Keep away thar!” roared the captain, threateningly. “Mind yer own
business and clear out of this.”
“Never, until that boy is released!”
“Go fer ther meddler, my lads!”
As the three seamen closed in on him, the stranger doubled up his fist
and struck out straight from the shoulder.
Biff! Bang! Thump! went his fists like pile drivers, and every time they
struck a man went down.
“When people of your stamp fool around Frank Reade, Jr., you generally
get left!” muttered the gallant stranger.
The sailors swore as they got up, and the captain drew a pistol.
“Cuss yer!” he growled, as he leveled the weapon at Frank’s head. “I’ll
blow yer brains out fer them welts!”
Bang! went the pistol, and a cry escaped Frank.
He clapped his hand to the side of his head where the ball had grazed
his scalp, and reeling back, fell senseless to the ground.
“Run, boys!” hoarsely cried the desperate captain. “I had ter do it or
he’d got ther best of us! That shot’ll fetch ther p’lice!”
They rushed over to the whaling ship unseen, leaving their victim lying
bleeding and senseless on the sidewalk.
Boarding the vessel and going into the cabin they found the lawyer there
in the gloom with the drugged boy.
“Well?” eagerly asked Milburn. “Did you down the stranger?”
“Shot him!” answered Ben Bolt, with an oath. “I see yer got ther lad
aboard all right.”
“Yes; you had better put him out of sight.”
“Stow him below in a locker, boys,” said the captain to his two men.
They carried the limp form of Walter Grey out of the cabin.
When they were gone, Milburn handed the captain a big roll of bills.
“Here are the $2,500 I promised you to shanghai the boy,” said the
lawyer. “You must maroon him in the arctic regions, so he can never
return. If you should bring me evidence of his death I will double the
amount I just gave you. Will you do it, captain?”
He bent nearer to Bolt, and hissed this in such sinister tones that the
captain started, and muttered hoarsely:
“Do yer mean fer me ter put him out of ther way?”
“Yes,” was the emphatic reply.
“Why dyer want this done?”
“I’ll make a clean breast of the matter. I hold some money in trust
belonging to the boy and his mother. If both die I can do as I like with
their fortune. Although the woman is sane, I have paid dearly to have
her confined in an asylum. She is disposed of. Now it only remains to
get rid of the boy. This I leave to you.”
“I’ll do it!” muttered the captain.
“Remember, the money I paid you is some of the boy’s fortune. The
remainder you are to get will come from the same source. If you fail,
you will get no more of the bank notes, and may not only have to
disgorge what you now have, but also answer in court as my accomplice.”
“Trust me, Alfred Milburn.”
“I’ll go now.”
“An’ as I’ve cleared my manifest in ther Custom House, an’ thar’s a tug
waitin’ ter haul us out, I’ll put to sea right away, so’s no one will
have a show ter git aboard an’ find ther lad.”
“You are bound for the Polar regions now?”
“Ay, ay—ther Kara Sea, off Nova Zembla, in s’arch o’ whales.”
After some further conversation the rascally lawyer parted with the
villainous captain and went ashore.
The Red Eric put to sea immediately afterward, carrying the unfortunate
Walter Grey away to the frozen polar regions.
In the meantime a crowd had been attracted by the pistol shot, and
surrounding Frank Reade, Jr., they carried him into a drug store, where
his wound was dressed.
He did not recover his senses until after the ship departed, and then
found a policeman standing beside him, to whom he explained what had
happened.
“My name is Frank Reade, Jr.,” said the wounded young man. “I am an
inventor of submarine boats, flying machines and overland engines, and
reside in Readestown. I have just invented a flying ice boat, and came
to Boston to get some things for her construction. While I was passing
the railroad depot on my way to the hotel where I am stopping, I saw a
man and boy go by in the same direction I was taking. Then I observed
how he was led into the trap.”
“What ship did they take him on?” asked the policeman.
“The Red Eric.”
“Come and show me.”
They left the drug store, and reaching the dock, learned from some
longshoremen that the whaler had just departed for the Arctic.
It was a bitter disappointment, as they could not now hope to rescue the
boy from his captors.
Seeing that he could do nothing further in the matter, Frank took his
departure and proceeded back to the hotel.
As he entered the office he observed a woman standing before the clerk
weeping bitterly, and heard her say in sob-choked tones:
“Do not refuse me lodging here, sir! You surely would not have me roam
the streets all night for want of shelter.”
“Madam,” replied the clerk, “as you have no money to pay for your
lodging here, I have no right to take you in.”
“Oh, this is dreadful,” said the lady in tones of great distress.
She was a very refined-looking person, with gray hair, a good face, and
wore a very handsome dress, but she had on no hat.
The clerk shrugged his shoulders and turned away.
Frank was moved with pity for the lady.
He saw that she was no professional beggar.
Approaching her and doffing his hat, he said politely:
“Excuse me for interfering, madam, but I could not fail hearing what you
said. If you will allow me, I would be very glad to pay your expenses at
this hotel for a week.”
A cry of joy escaped the woman as she glanced at Frank.
“Thank Heaven!” she muttered. “I am safe—safe!”