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. Bear _is_ hiding 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 I _could_ hit 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 movie _King 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.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The Ghost Mine
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, where _did_ they 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. It _was_
spooky, 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.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The Plot Revealed
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.”