THE MYSTERY OF MINE No. 1
When Johnny Thompson saw that the wolf-hounds were on his trail, though he
was without weapons of any kind and practically destitute of clothing, he
decided to put as great a distance as possible between himself and the
Russians, then to turn upon the pack and sell his life dearly, if indeed
it must be sold to a murderous pack of half wolves.
As he sped forward, through his mind there ran all manner of stories told
round northern camp fires. The stories had to do with these same Russian
wolf-hounds. A man had once picketed his dogs near him in a blizzard and,
creeping into his sleeping bag, had slept so soundly throughout the night
that he did not realize the drifting snow was burying him. He had awakened
to struggle against the weight of snow but could not free himself. Months
later, when the spring thaw had come, his bones had been found picked
clean by his wolf-hounds. A child at Nome, Alaska, playing with his
father's team, was scratched by one of them. The smell of blood had set
them wild. They had attacked him, and before help could arrive had torn
him in pieces. These stories flooding his memory lent added speed to his
stalwart limbs.
He ran three miles, four, five miles. But at each added mile, the yelp of
the hounds came more distinctly to him. Now he could hear the loud flap as
they sucked in their lolling tongues.
He was becoming fatigued. Soon he must turn and stand at bay. He looked to
the right and left of him. A cutbank presented a steep perpendicular
surface against which he might take his stand with the knowledge that they
could not attack him from the rear.
"But shucks!" he half sobbed. "What's the use? I'll be frozen stiff before
they get courage to attack me."
To the cutbank he ran, then, turning, waited.
With rolling tongues, the dogs came hurrying up to form themselves into a
circle, seven gaunt, gray wolf-hounds grinning at one naked boy.
Then Johnny, catching the humor of the situation, not only grinned back,
but laughed outright, laughed long and loud. What he said when he had
finished was:
"Bowsie, you old rascal, why didn't you tell me it was you?"
It was his own team. Having been unhitched at the time, they had
recognized the stride of their master and had deserted with him. It was
indeed a joyous meeting.
There was, however, no time to be wasted. The bitter cold air made
Johnny's skin crinkle like parchment. His feet, in contact with the
stinging snow, were freezing.
Two of the dogs still wore their seal-skin harnesses. These Johnny tore
off of them and having broken the bindings, wound them in narrow strips
about his feet, tying them firmly around his ankles.
So, with his feet protected from the cold, he took up the fifteen miles of
homeward race, the seven dogs ki-yi-ing at his heels.
Five miles farther on, he came upon a cache built by some Reindeer
Chukche. In this he found a suit of deer skin. It was old, dirty and too
small, but he crowded into it gratefully. Then with knees exposed and arms
swinging bare to the elbows he prepared for a more leisurely ten miles
home. He was quite confident that the lazy and stolid Russians were not
following.
Johnny was well within sight of the friendly hill that sheltered his cabin
from the north wind, when, with a sudden gasp, he stopped and stared.
Coming apparently out of the very heart of the hill, an immense brown
object extended itself along the horizon and at last floated free in air.
To understand this strange phenomenon, we must know what had been
happening at camp, and what Pant had been doing since finding the
mysterious black bill.
The ball was covered with black paper. This much, Pant discovered at once.
The rest he left to the seclusion of his pup tent and the light of a
candle.
When at last he unwrapped the paper, he found nothing more than a film, a
small, moving-picture film. This had been developed, dried, then rewound
on a spool. The remainder of the inner contents of the ball was nothing
but blank paper with never a scratch of writing upon it. When Pant had
examined each scrap carefully, he held the film to the light. There were
pictures on it. As his keen eyes studied them, his expression changed from
that of puzzled interest to intense surprise, almost of horror.
For a full half hour he sat there holding them close to the light, then
far away; tipping them to one angle then another, mirroring them on the
retina of his eye until nothing could efface them. Then, having rerolled
and rewrapped them, he hid them away among his deer skins and turning
over, fell asleep.
He was awake again by sunrise, and without pausing for breakfast went
directly to the entrance of Mine No. 1. Having entered without a light, he
made his way to the back of the cavity. There he paused to listen. The
earth shudder seemed to fairly shake the rocks loose about him. One pebble
did rattle to the floor. The next instant there came the clang of rocks on
metal. A light flashed. It was in Pant's hand. In the gleaming circle of
light from his electric torch, a brightly polished disk of metal appeared.
It was eating its way through the frozen wall of sand and rock. One second
the light flashed, the next second Pant was hurrying from the mine as if
his life depended upon it.
Dashing down the hill, he broke into the mess-room where the men were
assembled for hot-cakes and coffee.
"Arms! arms!" he panted. "Rifles, automatics, anything. A pick, two picks.
C'mon."
The men, believing that he had gone mad, stood staring in speechless
astonishment.
"C'mon, can't you?" he pleaded. "It's the yellow men, the dirty little
yellow men. They've got an infernal machine for cutting out the pay dirt
in blocks. They've looted Mine No. 1 while we slept. That was the
earth-tremble. C'mon, can't you? Bring rifles! Anything. We'll get them
yet!"
Catching a glimmer of his meaning, the men dashed to the bunkroom and
clubroom, to appear a moment later armed with such weapons as they could
find.
Arriving at the entrance of Mine No. 1, Pant held up a finger for
silence.
"Arms ready," he whispered, "your left hand on the shoulder of the man
ahead of you. I'll lead."
Without a light, he entered the mine and beckoned the men to come on. With
soft and shuffling tread they followed, like a chain gang entering a
dungeon. They took fifty paces, then they halted. A light flashed.
Instantly every man gripped his weapon.
It was only Pant. What they saw before them caused involuntary
ejaculations. A hole some eighteen inches square had been cut in the
frozen wall.
For a second they listened. The silence was so complete that the ticking
of a watch sounded like the beat of an alarm clock.
"They've gone," whispered Pant. "C'mon."
His light blinked out. There followed the sound of garments rubbing
against the walls. The man behind Pant felt him one instant, the next he
was gone. He had crawled through the hole. There was nothing to do but
follow. One by one, thrusting their rifles before them, they crawled
through this narrow door from the mine. To what? They could not even
guess.
"'Tis fair spooky," whispered Jarvis to Dave. "'Ow does 'e know 'ow 'e
should go? Can 'e see in the dark? 'Ow'd 'e come by the name Pant
anyway?"
"Langlois give it to him," Dave whispered back, "the fellow that was
killed here, you know. He claimed Pant could see in the dark and began
calling him 'Panther Eye.' The men cut it down to 'Panther,' then to
'Pant.' That's all I know about it."
"'E's rightly named," growled Jarvis, as he fumbled his way through the
hole in the dark.
"This way," came the low whisper of Pant. "As you were, hand to
shoulder."
Only the soft pat-pat of their footfalls on the floor of what appeared to
be a narrow runway broke the tomb-like silence of the place. Now and
again, as they moved forward, Dave Tower felt his shoulder brush some
unseen object. Each time he shivered and shrank back. He expected at any
moment to hear the roar of rifles, to find himself engaged in deadly
combat with the mysterious robbers who had looted the mine of its treasure
while they worked within a stone's throw of it.
Twice they paused. A silence so deep that it was painful ensued. No sound
came. They marched solemnly on. And now, they had struck a steep incline.
"Down low; down low; down low," came whispered back from man to man.
They stooped to an almost creeping posture and began to climb. The ascent
was steep as a stair. Twice Dave lost his footing, and once came near
sending his rifle crashing to the frozen earth. Some one behind was less
fortunate. There came the clang of steel, then deathly silence.
Again they crept upward. Suddenly a ray of light cut through the gloom. In
another second, they were in a veritable flood of light. And yet, as they
glanced rapidly to right and left, they saw walls of rock. Above them too
was a vaulted ceiling. Only before them was light. What could it mean?
In an instant they knew. Leaping toward the opening, they expressed their
surprise in unchecked exclamations.
"A balloon! A balloon!"
It was true. It seemed to them, as they looked, that the whole side of the
mountain had burst open and allowed a giant dirigible balloon to float out
from its depth.
What had really happened was evident. These robbers, having located the
rich mine and having no concession to mine it, had discovered this natural
cave and had cut a channel from it to the place of the gold deposit. They
had reached the point by balloon. Having deflated it, they had stowed it
away in the cave and had blocked the entrance of the cave with snow. The
next blizzard had defaced every sign of their presence. Doubtless there
had been a small secret entrance to the cave which none of Johnny
Thompson's men had discovered.
"They're gone!" exclaimed Dave.
"And I 'ates to think 'ow much gold they took with 'em," mourned Jarvis.
"Quick, the airplane!" shouted Pant, turning to the two aviators. "There's
a machine gun on it. We'll halt them yet. I better go with you. Some of
the rest of you explore the interior here. They may not have taken the
gold."
Dave Tower snapped on his flashlight, and, after taking one more look at
the giant black "sausage" in the sky, turned to assist the others in the
exploration of the looted mine. He had little hope of discovering the
treasure, but he did want to see how they had accomplished the task.
One more question crowded its way to the front: "How had they killed Frank
Langlois?"