said there were search planes out looking for the missing plane.”
“There is no missing plane. Yesterday morning four men rented a plane.
Last evening the plane returned—with four men. There was another crew on
duty at the airport. They couldn’t suspect that the passengers were four
_different_ men.”
Kruger seemed to enjoy the boys’ discomfort. “By the time the American
authorities discover that any of you are missing you will be well out of
reach in Siberia.”
“Across that narrow stretch of water we were talking about,” Parker
taunted them. “The Bering Strait.”
The man with the gun took them through a series of tunnels that slanted
up steeply through the mountainside. The ascent was severe, and every
ten minutes or so they would stop to rest. When they emerged into the
open again, Sandy saw that they were at the site of the main diggings.
The terrain was pockmarked with shafts and tunnels. Rusty train tracks
disappeared into the gloomy mine tunnels, and abandoned dump cars tilted
up through the snow drifts about the entrances. Far below, the main
building of the Kennecott mine squatted at the foot of the mountain;
from this perspective it reminded Sandy of a miniature cardboard house
sitting on a floor of cotton beneath a Christmas tree. They followed a
path around a bend to the mouth of a huge tunnel. To one side of it a
flaking, rusted cable car rocked gently from a metal cable that was
equally rusted. It scraped and screeched monotonously at the slightest
gust of wind.
“In here,” Kruger ordered. “This was one of the main shafts of the
mine.”
They walked along the rail ties back about one hundred yards, where a
rectangle of yellow light splashed into the corridor from a doorway in
one wall of the tunnel. Kruger motioned them through the doorway into a
big chamber that evidently had served as a locker room for the miners.
Rotting wooden benches and tin lockers cluttered up the room, many of
them overturned, all of them sagging. A large gasoline lantern burned on
a long wooden table in the middle of the room. On either side of the
table sat a strange man with a rifle across his knees. Across the table,
seated all in a row on a bench, their hands and feet tied, were Dr.
Steele, Professor Crowell, Lou Mayer and Tagish Charley.
“Dad!” Sandy burst out. “Am I glad to see you! Are you okay?”
Dr. Steele managed a strained smile. “I’m all right, Son. We all are.
But I can’t say I’m glad to see you boys.” He turned to one of the men
with the rifles. “Did you have to drag them into it, Strak? They’re only
boys. They don’t even know what this is all about.”
The man he addressed, a short, intense fellow who moved with the quick,
nervous motions of a squirrel, stood up and walked toward the new
arrivals. He stopped in front of Sandy and stroked his prominent
clean-shaven chin.
“So this is your son, Dr. Steele? A fine-looking lad.” He spoke careful,
formal English. “I, too, regret that he and the other youth had to
become involved. But we couldn’t take any chances. They would have
notified the police that you were missing and....”
“Don’t be a fool!” Professor Crowell snapped. “The police will discover
our absence soon enough.”
Strak smiled patiently. “I disagree. Secrecy has been the keynote of
your project. Only a few people in both your governments—high
officials—know your real purpose in coming to Alaska. By the time they
discover you are missing, we will all be safely out of the country.”
“Of course, Dr. Steele, you could spare your son and his friend a lot of
unnecessary hardship by co-operating with us,” Kruger said. “Just the
answer to one simple question....”
“You’re wasting your time,” Dr. Steele said flatly.
“Have it your own way.” Strak sighed wearily. “You will tell us, you
know. That is certain. Today, tomorrow, next week or six months from
now. We can wait.”
Kruger pushed the boys toward the bench where the other hostages were
seated. “Parker, help me tie these two up.”
When the boys were securely bound, Strak motioned Parker to follow him.
“Come, Parker. Let us go outside. We have a few things to discuss in
private.”
“You want Malik and me to stay here and guard the prisoners?” Kruger
asked.
Strak hesitated a moment, then shook his head. “No, come along. You
should all hear this.” He glanced at the prisoners. “I don’t think
they’ll get loose.” He smiled. “And even if they did, where would they
go? We’ll be up at the entrance—the only entrance.”
The four men left the room and their footsteps echoed off down the
tunnel. In the dim light of the lantern Dr. Steele’s face was drawn and
pale.
“I’ll never forgive myself, getting you boys mixed up in this,” he said.
“Once I knew they were on to us, that we hadn’t deceived them into
thinking this was an innocent geological expedition, I should have sent
you back to California on the first plane.”
“Don’t blame yourself, Dad,” Sandy said quietly. “I wouldn’t have left
you, knowing that you were in some kind of serious trouble.”
“That goes for me too, sir,” Jerry backed him up.
“What I don’t understand,” Sandy said, “is how they caught you.”
“We walked right into their hands,” Professor Crowell explained. “Parker
knew we were coming up to the Kennecott mine and tipped them off. They
flew up ahead of us, hid their plane in the trees and covered up the ski
tracks. When we arrived they were waiting for us.”
“A whole gang of them,” Lou Mayer put in. “Seven of them, armed to the
teeth. Four of them took our plane back to Cordova so the people at the
airport wouldn’t report us missing.”
“I know,” Sandy said grimly. “They took care of the hotel too. By the
time the authorities get suspicious it will be too late. The one called
Kruger says we’ll be in Russia by then.”
Dr. Steele and Professor Crowell looked at each other hopelessly.
“Unless we tell them what they want to know,” Dr. Steele said.
Sandy’s eyes were puzzled. “Just what are they after? I guess you can
tell us now.”
Dr. Steele smiled wanly. “I guess we can.” He paused before he went on.
“Although he’s better known as a geologist, Professor Crowell is one of
Canada’s leading physicists. During World War Two he was assigned to
rocket research work for the Canadian Army and continued to specialize
in this field after the war.
“About six months ago an old Yukon prospector submitted an ore sample to
a government assay office at Whitehorse. He said he had been prospecting
on the Alaskan border and struck what he believed was a vein of gold. An
analysis of the sample revealed traces of copper, but no gold. But much
more important, it revealed strains of a rare element that the Canadian
government was testing as a catalytic agent in top-secret experiments
with a new solid rocket fuel.
“For years now rocket experts have acknowledged that solid fuels are
more practical than liquid propellants—even more so for the big manned
rocket ships of the future. The trouble is, up until now the solid fuels
haven’t been too dependable. Professor Crowell believes this new element
will solve the most serious drawbacks, but unhappily it’s about as rare
as uranium. During the past few months there have been teams out
searching for it all over the Dominion, without much success.
“Then, unexpectedly, this old prospector shows up with an ore sample
laced liberally with it. The assay office at Whitehorse dispatched it to
Ottawa immediately and Professor Crowell was consulted. It was his
opinion that they were on to something big. A special agent flew up to
Whitehorse to interview the prospector, but tragically—any way you look
at it—the poor old man had passed away from pneumonia only a few days
before the agent arrived.
“Now the big problem was to find out where the dead man had picked up
the ore. All kinds of soil and rock analyses were made on it without any
specific results. It was the professor’s guess that it came from
somewhere in the vicinity of the Kennecott copper mine. There was copper
in the sample, of course, and the old miner had mentioned vaguely at the
assay office that he had discovered it somewhere ‘on the border.’ A
layman couldn’t be expected to know exactly where the border lies;
actually, he may have wandered well into Alaska.
“In any case, the Canadian government conferred with Washington, and it
was decided to send a joint team up to Alaska composed of Professor
Crowell, Lou Mayer and myself.” He glanced toward the doorway and added
sourly, “We didn’t count on it ending up a three-nation team.”
“How did they find out?” Sandy wanted to know.
Dr. Steele shrugged. “They have the most efficient espionage system in
the world. That we have to give them credit for.”
Sandy pursed his lips solemnly. “But they still don’t know what the
element is?”
“Or how it’s employed in the manufacture of the rocket fuel,” Professor
Crowell declared emphatically. “I’m the only one who can tell them that.
And I’ll die first.”
“Watch it,” Jerry cautioned. “I think I hear them coming back.”
The sound of approaching footsteps reverberated hollowly through the
mine. Strak appeared in the doorway alone. “Kruger and Malik have gone
down the mountain to help Parker clear a runway,” he told them. “We’ll
be taking off with a heavy load.”
Sandy made a quick mental count. “That plane will never get off the
ground with ten of us.”
Strak smiled. “I agree. But there are only seven of us who will be
making the trip.”
“What do you mean?” Dr. Steele demanded.
“Just that you and your son and Professor Crowell are the only ones who
have any real value to us. The rest will remain here.”
Dr. Steele was shocked. “You can’t intend to leave them tied up in this
mine? They’ll starve to death or die of exposure.”
Strak shrugged. “That’s a risk we will have to take. Perhaps in time
they may be able to get loose. Perhaps they will make it back to
civilization. Who can tell? The Indian seems to be a resourceful
woodsman.” He walked over and stood in front of Tagish Charley. “Tell
me, Doctor, he _is_ alive, isn’t he?”
Tagish Charley’s face betrayed no trace of emotion. He had not spoken a
word since the boys’ arrival. All the while he had sat stiffly on the
bench, hands behind him, eyes staring fixedly at the rock wall in front
of him—as detached as any cigar-store Indian could be, or so it seemed
to Sandy.
In sudden irritation Strak bent close to Charley, flashing his electric
torch into his face. “You insolent Indian dog! You can speak, can’t
you?”
Then, for the first time, Charley showed some sign of life. Slowly he
lifted his eyes to Strak’s face and said solemnly, “Charley too busy to
talk—until _now_!” As he shouted the last word, his two powerful arms
whipped free from behind him and wrapped around his tormentor.
Strak tried desperately to bring up his rifle, but he was helpless in
Charley’s grizzly-bear hug. The air whistled out of his lungs like a
wheezing bellows, and there was the distinct snap of a rib cracking. He
moaned softly and fainted. Charley let him drop to the floor.
“Atta boy, Charley!” Jerry said exultantly.
They all winced as the Indian held up his hands in the light. His wrists
were raw and bleeding from rubbing at the rope. “Big spike in bench
where I sit. Slow work, but at end I saw rope through.” He bent over
Strak and removed a hunting knife from the man’s belt. Quickly he cut
through the ropes that bound his own ankles. Then he went along the
bench freeing the others.
“Come on!” Dr. Steele said, grabbing up Strak’s rifle from the ground.
“No time to lose. The others will be coming back soon.” He led the way
out of the room and down the tunnel to the entrance.
At the foot of the mountain beyond the abandoned mine building, they
could see the plane sitting like a toy in the snow. The three enemy
agents were bustling around it, mere specks at this distance.
“They’re still working on the runway,” Sandy observed.
“What do we do when they come back?” Jerry asked.
Lou Mayer indicated the rifle the doctor was holding. “We have one gun.
We can make a fight of it at least.”
Dr. Steele was not enthusiastic. “All three of them are armed. I’m
afraid it wouldn’t be much of a fight.” His voice was grim. “Some of us
would be hurt—or killed.”
“Why couldn’t we rush down the hill when we see them start up?”
Professor Crowell suggested. “They’d be inside, coming up through the
shafts. By the time they got up here, we’d have quite a head start on
them. If we get to that plane—”
Dr. Steele shook his head. “We’d never stand a chance without snowshoes,
and they’re all down at the mine shed. They’d have a field day picking
us off with their rifles while we flounder through those hip-deep drifts
on the mountain.”
“Then we’ve got no choice,” Lou Mayer said gloomily. “We’ve got to make
a stand here.”
“Wait a minute!” Sandy cried out, the bud of a wild inspiration forming
in his mind. “Is there any chance _that_ thing still works?” The others
followed his gaze upward to the old cable car creaking and rocking to
the right of the entrance.
The professor sighed. “I’m afraid not. These cable cars were operated by
power machinery down at the depot.”
“I know,” Sandy said. “But we’d be coasting downhill.”
There was a gleam of interest in Dr. Steele’s eyes. “That sounds
logical. What do you say we have a look at it, Son? But keep down. We
don’t want Kruger and the others to spot us against the snow.”
They slunk out of the shadow of the mine entrance, darting quickly
behind the cover of the cable car. Dr. Steele climbed into the open cab
and squinted up at the rigging. “Looks to me as if the only thing that’s
restraining it is that safety lock,” he said.
Sandy disagreed. “What about the pulley cable? That must be anchored in
the shed below. She won’t roll unless that’s free.”
Dr. Steele studied the arrangement of rollers and cables more closely.
“You’re right,” he admitted. He pointed to the steel hook-eye at the
back of the car where the pulley cable was attached. “The wire is pretty
frayed back here. Possibly we could hack through it. I saw an old ax
back in the cave.”
“It’s sure worth a try,” Sandy said. “How do you think that overhead
cable will hold up when we start rolling downhill?”
“I’d say it’s in pretty good condition. They put a good coating of
grease on all the machinery before they shut the mine down. They must
have hoped to use it again, or possibly to sell it.”
Professor Crowell’s voice rang out urgently from the tunnel entrance.
“Hurry up! Kruger and the others are starting back.”
Dr. Steele pulled Sandy down out of sight in the car. “We’ll stay here
until they enter the shed.” He called over to Tagish Charley, “Charley,
duck back into the mine and get a couple of those picks that are lying
around.”
Peering over the rim of the cable car, Sandy watched the three men make
their way on snowshoes back to the mine. As soon as they had disappeared
into the shed, Dr. Steele shouted for the others. “Come on, we’ve got to
work fast. Charley, over here with those picks, quickly!”
Lou Mayer, Professor Crowell and Jerry scrambled aboard the car while
Dr. Steele gave instructions to Tagish Charley. “You work on the
hook-eye and pulley, Charley. I’ll knock out the safety lock. The rest
of you just pray.”
One solid blow tripped the safety lock, and the car moved forward about
a foot until the taut cable stopped it. The cable itself was more of a
problem. Sandy had the uncomfortable sensation that his leaping heart
was trying to squirm out of his throat and escape from his body.
The tension was unbearable as Charley pounded away at the pulley with
strong rhythmic strokes of the ax. At first it seemed impervious to the
dull blade. Then, with relief, Sandy saw one strand snap with a musical
twang. Charley swung harder, encouraged by this success, and another
strand broke. Each strand that let go put additional stress on the
remaining strands, making Charley’s task a little easier. The last two
snapped together with a loud report.
The car shuddered and began to roll forward slowly. There was the
nerve-shattering screech of metal against metal as the overhead rollers
and the main cable protested violently at being used so rudely after
twenty-one years of inactivity. Snow, rust and metal shavings cascaded
down on the car’s occupants as it picked up momentum.
The boys let go with a tremendous cheer and Professor Crowell and Dr.
Steele shook hands solemnly. Sandy glanced behind them at the rapidly
diminishing tunnel entrance, but as yet there was no sign of Kruger and
the other two enemy agents.
Fortunately the pitting of the cable and the rust and stiffness of the
rollers reduced their acceleration sufficiently so that they crashed
into the bumpers at the foot of the incline with only a moderate jolt.
The cable car split the rotting wood on the bumper’s face, but the
springs behind it cushioned the jolt.
Sandy extricated himself from the mass of scrambled limbs gingerly.
“Everybody okay? No broken bones?”
There was a chorus of relieved okays.
Dr. Steele climbed out into the snow. “All right. Into the shed and on
with those snowshoes.” Apprehensively, he looked up the mountain, but
the enemy agents still had not appeared.
As Sandy strapped on the great clumsy snowshoes, he made a suggestion.
“Let’s take the other four pairs with us. That will slow them up even
more if they try to follow us.”
“Good idea,” Tagish Charley grunted. “But I got better one.” He picked
up the ax he had carried with him from the cable car and began to attack
the surplus snowshoes furiously. When he had demolished them, he
straightened up and, to everyone’s amazement, grinned broadly. “They no
go very far now.”
They were halfway to the plane when a distant gunshot came to them
faintly through the thin, dry air. Turning, Sandy could make out three
ant-like specks on the mountainside near the tunnel where they had been
held prisoner.
“They’ve discovered we’re gone,” he said.
“And they’re shooting at us,” Jerry commented nervously.
“We’re not in much danger at this range,” Professor Crowell assured
them. “Without telescopic sights, it would take a mighty lucky shot to
hit anyone.”
Nevertheless, they were all greatly relieved when they were seated
snugly in the cabin of the plane and Professor Crowell had the motors
gunning smoothly. “Those fellows did a mighty fine job on this runway,”
the professor said charitably. He advanced the throttle and the ship
glided ahead smoothly. They cleared the trees at the far end of the
clearing with plenty of room to spare and climbed in a sweeping curve
that took them over the mountain. Far below on the snowy slope they
could see the frustrated agents hopping about and shaking their fists in
the air.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Final Victory
“They’ve caught the entire gang!” Dr. Steele reported excitedly as he
burst into the boys’ hotel room at Cordova a little after eight the next
morning.
Sandy sat up and massaged the sleep from his eyes. “No kidding, Dad.
When?”
“Army Intelligence moved in on Strak, Parker and the other two at dawn.
They gave up without a fight. Seems they put in a pretty rough night.
Strak was in bad shape, thanks to Charley, but he’ll live to stand trial
for espionage.”
“What about the rest of the gang?”
“The local police arrested them as they were trying to board a freighter
at Valdez. It’s a clean sweep.”
“Wow!” Jerry was awake now, his eyes as big and shiny as tin plates.
“That’s what I call action.” Grinning, he added, “We sure could have
used a little bit of that kind of action yesterday. Where were all the
cops and G-men then?”
“In an operation like this one,” Dr. Steele explained, “they had to stay
way out on the fringes until the last moment. That was a risk we knew
we’d have to take from the start if we hoped to spring a trap on this
gang of ruthless saboteurs. If we had an army of bodyguards dogging our
footsteps, they never would have been lured in.”
“Lured in?” Sandy was perplexed. “You mean we were sort of decoys for
the spies?”
“In a way,” Dr. Steele admitted. “I couldn’t tell you that, even
yesterday. But now it’s officially okay to let you in on it.”
“But what about the rocket fuel Professor Crowell was working on? I
thought we came up to look for some rare element.”
“That of course was our primary reason for coming to Alaska. And of
course we’ll continue to search for Element X. But when the enemy agents
began to hound us so persistently, we saw an opportunity to make a
double killing.”
Jerry stretched. “Only we came awful close to being the ones who were
killed.”
“We had a narrow scrape,” Dr. Steele agreed. “It was ingenious of them
to take back the plane to Cordova after they ambushed us at the mine.
Our people were holding back, of course, and it really threw them off
the trail. As far as they knew, we had checked back into the city and
then disappeared into thin air. With a bit more luck the gang might have
smuggled us out of the country.”
Jerry laughed. “Hey, Sandy, can you see us going to school in Siberia?”
“Frankly, no,” Sandy told him. “You have enough trouble with English.”
Dr. Steele broke in with “That reminds me. We have to think of getting
you boys back to Valley View. You don’t want to miss too much more
school.”
“Speak for yourself, Doctor,” Jerry crowed. “How can you expect us to go
back and associate with little school kids after battling Yukon
blizzards, Kodiak bears and spies? It’s positively undignified.”
Dr. Steele smiled tolerantly. “Don’t feel that way, Jerry. Remember,
adventure and excitement may be just around the corner, whether you’re
in Alaska or California.”
“Yeah, that’s right,” Jerry said thoughtfully. Then he added, with a
gleam in his eye, “Besides, it’ll be great to come up with our story
when Pepper March starts spouting about that cruise he was supposed to
take. Boy, will _his_ eyes pop! And you know what? We might even be able
to stump Quiz Taylor. Wouldn’t that be something? Okay, Valley View,
here we come! How about it, Sandy?”
Sandy stretched blissfully. “I’m ready. In fact, I’m way ahead of you.
How about next summer?”
SANDY STEELE ADVENTURES
1. BLACK TREASURE
Sandy Steele and Quiz spend an action-filled summer in the oil fields of
the Southwest. In their search for oil and uranium, they unmask a
dangerous masquerader.
2. DANGER AT MORMON CROSSING
On a hunting trip in the Lost River section of Idaho, Sandy and Mike
ride the rapids, bag a mountain lion, and stumble onto the answer to a
hundred-year-old mystery.
3. STORMY VOYAGE
Sandy and Jerry James ship as deck hands on one of the “long boats” of
the Great Lakes. They are plunged into a series of adventures and find
themselves involved in a treacherous plot.
4. FIRE AT RED LAKE
Sandy and his friends pitch in to fight a forest fire in Minnesota. Only
they and Sandy’s uncle know that there is an unexploded A-bomb in the
area to add to the danger.
5. SECRET MISSION TO ALASKA
A pleasant Christmas trip turns into a startling adventure. Sandy and
Jerry participate in a perilous dog-sled race, encounter a wounded bear,
and are taken as hostages by a ruthless enemy.
6. TROUBLED WATERS
When Sandy and Jerry mistakenly sail off in a stranger’s sloop instead
of their own, they land in a sea of trouble. Their attempts to
outmaneuver a desperate crew are intertwined with fascinating sailing
lore.
PUBLISHED BY SIMON AND SCHUSTER
Transcriber’s Notes
--Copyright notice provided as in the original—this e-text is public
domain in the country of publication.
--Silently corrected palpable typos; left non-standard spellings and
dialect unchanged.
--In the text versions, delimited italics text in _underscores_ (the
HTML version reproduces the font form of the printed book.)
End of Project Gutenberg's Secret Mission to Alaska, by Roger Barlow