STARTLING PERILS
In the harbor at Vladivostok a thirty-ton gasoline schooner threaded its
way through narrow channels left by ocean liners and gunboats toward a
deserted water-front where half-dismantled warships of ancient Russian
design lay rotting in the sun. Straight to a rickety wharf they made their
way.
Hardly had they thrown a line over a swaying post when two men sprang
across the narrow space.
"Watch your step!"
It was Johnny Thompson who spoke. The man with him was the young doctor of
his outfit.
As they cleared the dock and entered a side street of this metropolis of
eastern Russia, they walked with a heavy tread; their step lacked the
elasticity that their youthful faces would warrant. They were either very
weary or very heavily burdened. No burdens were visible, though something
might be concealed beneath their greatcoats. There was, indeed, a
bulkiness about their forms from shoulder to waist, but in this Arctic
clime, coming as they had from the north, one might easily credit this to
sweaters.
As they reached the shadow of a building, Johnny stopped and fumbled in
his pocket. At the same time his gaze wandered away toward the north.
"Wonder where Pant is now?" he grumbled. "I miss the little rascal, don't
you?"
"Sure do."
"Wonder what made him drop us flat that way?"
"Can't say. Had a reason, though. He always had a reason, and a good one.
There was something he wanted to do."
"Hope he does it quick and gets on down here. He's been part of my
bodyguard so long, I confess I don't feel safe in a new place like this
without him."
Johnny stopped fumbling in his pocket and drew forth three yellow slips of
paper.
"Here's the messages. I wrote 'em all down. Mighty little good they'll do
us."
He read them aloud:
"'When can you come across?'"
(Signed) "M."
"'We must produce. At once.'"
(Signed) "M."
"'Am in danger. Come across.'"
(Signed) "M."
"What does a fellow get out of that, anyway?" he grumbled. "What does this
fellow 'M' expect? The first one reached us after we'd been operating two
months, the second a month later, and the third a month after that. What
does he think this land is like? Three thousand miles! But then, I suppose
the rotten Russians did it. Made threats, likely."
"Doesn't give any address," commented the doctor.
"Not a scratch. We'd better go to the Red Cross headquarters, wherever
that is. Let's hunt it up."
Again they took up their heavy, even tread and came out from the narrow
street onto a broader one, which appeared to lead to the business section
of the city.
As Johnny sniffed the pungent odor of spring in the twilight air, he was
forcibly reminded of the time consumed in that journey from the mines to
Vladivostok. He regretted the many delays. When they occurred, he had
fairly fumed at them. He realized now that "M," whoever that might be, the
agent sent from Chicago to superintend the distribution of supplies for
the refugee orphans, might have been compelled to leave Russia before
this. That the Russians, disturbed by a thousand suspicions and fears,
would not tolerate a stranger who had no apparent purpose for being in
their land, he knew all too well. The agent could state the purpose of his
presence in the beginning and get away with it, but when months had
elapsed and nothing had been done, what dark suspicions might be directed
against him?
Johnny heaved a sigh of resignation. Nothing that had happened could have
been avoided. Time and again ice-floes clogging the waters of those
northern seas had threatened to crush their craft, and only by long
detours and many hours of tireless pulling away from the giant cakes had
they found a passage. The journey could have been made by reindeer in the
same length of time. As he thought of that, his heart skipped a beat. What
if the little yellow men who had come so near making away with that two
hundredweight of gold had succeeded in securing reindeer, and had made
their way to Vladivostok? What would they not risk to regain possession of
the gold that had been snatched from them?
As he thought of this, he picked his steps more cautiously along the
slippery streets. He cast a glance to the right and left of him. Then he
started and plucked at his companion's sleeve.
"Hist!" he whispered. "Watch the alley to the right!"
* * * * *
When Pant so abruptly deserted Johnny Thompson's service, leaving only a
vaguely worded note to tell of his going, he had, indeed, a plan and a
purpose. So daring was this purpose that had he taken time to think it
through to its end, he might never have attempted it. But Pant thought
only of beginnings of enterprises, leaving the conclusions to work
themselves out as best they might, effectively aided by his own audacity.
His purpose can best be stated by telling what he did.
When he left the schooner that night and crossed over the shadowy shore
ice, a blizzard was rising. Already the snow-fog it raised had turned the
moon into a misty ball. Through it the gleaming camp fires of the
Bolshevik band told they had camped for the night not five miles from the
mines.
The blizzard suited Pant's purposes well. It might keep the Russians in
camp for many hours, and would most certainly make an effective job of a
little piece of work which he wished to have done.
With a watchful eye he skirted the cabin they had left but a brief time
before. A pale yellow light shone from one of the windows. Either the
place was being looted by natives, or the yellow men had taken refuge
there. The presence of a half-score of dogs scouting about the outside led
him to believe that it was the natives. Where, then, were the Orientals?
Breathing a hope that they might not be found in the mines or the machine
sheds, he hurried on. With a hand tight gripped on his automatic, he made
his way into Mine No. 1. All was dark, damp and silent. The very ghost of
his dead comrade seemed to lurk there still. Who was it that had killed
Frank Langlois, and how had it been done? Concerning these questions, he
now had a very definite solution, but it would be long before he knew the
whole truth.
Once inside the mine, he hastened to the square entrance that had been cut
there by the strange buzz-saw-like machine of the Orientals. The wall was
thin at this place. With a pick he widened the gap until the machine could
be crowded through, and with great difficulty he dragged it to the
entrance of the mine. Once here his task was easier, for the machine was
on runners and slid readily over the hard-crusted snow. With a look this
way, then that, he plunged into the rising storm. Pushing the machine
before him, he presently reached the mouth of Mine No. 3 in which three
days of steam-thawing had brought the miners to a low-grade pay dirt. The
cavity was cut forty feet into the side of the bank which lay over the old
bed of the river.
Having dragged the machine into the farthest corner, he returned to the
entrance and at once dodged into the machine sheds. To these sheds he made
five trips. On a small dog-sled he brought first a little gasoline engine
and electric generator, next eight square batteries, then some supplies of
food, a tank of gasoline, and some skin garments from the storeroom. His
last journey found the first gray streaks of dawn breaking through the
storm. He must hasten.
With a long knife he began cutting square cakes of snow and fitting them
into the entrance of the mine. Soon, save for a narrow gap well hidden
beneath a ledge of rock, the space was effectively blocked.
He stretched himself, then yawned sleepily.
"It's a poor game that two can't play at," he muttered. "Now, if I can get
this machinery singin', we'll see what Mine No. 3 has saved up for us.
Unless I miss my guess, from the way the rock lays, she'll be a rich
one."
With that he crept into his sleeping-bag and was soon lost in the land of
dreams.
Pant's first act, after awaking some six hours later, was to connect four
of his batteries in series, then to connect the ends of two wires to the
poles of the series. The wires were attached at the other end to a socket
for an electric light.
When the connections were completed he screwed in a small bulb. The
filament in the lamp glowed red, but gave no light.
Two batteries were added to the series, then two more. At this, the light
shone brightly, dispelling the gloom of the place and driving the shadows
into the deepest recesses.
With a smile on his lips, the boy twisted a wire into a coil, connected it
to the battery circuit, watched it redden, then set his coffee-pot over
it.
He was soon enjoying a cup of hot coffee and pilot bread.
"Not so bad! Not even half bad!" he muttered good-naturedly to himself.
"Electricity is great stuff. Now for the mining stunt!"
He listened for a moment to the howl of the blizzard outside, then began
busying himself with the machinery at hand. Connecting the batteries to
the gasoline generator to give it a "kick-off," he heard the pop of the
engine with evident satisfaction. He next connected all his batteries in
series and, having connected the engine, ran wires from it to the motor in
the strange, mining buzz-saw. There followed a moment of suspense, then a
grunt of disgust.
"Not enough voltage. Gotta get more batteries to-night. Dangerous, too.
Storm's going down. Bolsheviki coming in. Natives prowling an' yellow men,
don't know about. Gotta do it though."
At that he sat down on his sleeping-bag, and, with arms outstretched, like
Jack London's man of the wild, he slept the uneasy sleep of one who hunts
and is hunted.
Night came at last and, with it, wakefulness and action. Cutting a hole
through the snow-wall, which under the drive of the storm had grown to a
surprising thickness, he crept out and slid down the hard bank, leaving no
tracks behind.
The storm had abated; the moon and stars were out. As he dodged into the
store sheds, he fancied that he saw a shadow flit from sight at the other
end.
Working rapidly, he unearthed four fresh batteries. They were heavy
affairs. A sled improvised from a plank and a bit of wire would aid him in
bringing them up the hill. He had just arranged this contrivance and was
about to turn toward the door, when a sudden darkening of the patch of
moonlight admitted by the open door caused him to leap behind the massive
shape of a smelter. He peered around the edge of it, his breath coming
rapidly.
Through his mind sped the question: "Bolsheviki, natives, or yellow men?"
* * * * *
Upon freeing itself from the frozen claybank, the sausage balloon, with
Dave Tower, Jarvis and the unconscious stranger on board, rose rapidly.
In their wild consternation, Dave and Jarvis did not realize this until
the intense cold of the upper air began to creep through the
heavily-padded walls of the cabin.
At this, Jarvis dropped on his stomach and stared down through the
plate-glass on the floor.
"Shiver my bones!" he ejaculated, "we're a mile 'igh and goin' 'igher!"
At this word Dave dashed for the door. He had it half open. A blast of air
so cold that it seemed solid ice rushed its way through the opening.
Immediately Jarvis threw himself against the door.
"What'll y' do?" he stormed. "I 'ates to think 'ow stiff you'd freeze
h'out there in the 'alf of a second."
Dave shook with the cold and the excitement. The stranger in the corner
groaned.
Jarvis sprang to the gasoline motor.
"If we can get 'er started we'll 'ave some 'eat."
After five minutes of fumbling about with stiffening fingers, he
straightened up with a sigh.
"Can't make 'ead nor tail of 'er. These bloomin' 'eathen; they make such
queer riggin's."
Dave did not answer. He had discovered a series of sealed wet batteries
lined against the wall and, having dragged one of these loose from its
wiring, prepared to test it out with a piece of insulated wire.
In a second there came a blinding flash.
"Charged! Charged to the gunwale!" he exulted. "Now if we can only hook
them up with the heating system of this cabin, we're all right. Give us a
hand."
Jarvis, catching his idea, began searching for the connecting wires of the
heating system, while Dave connected the batteries in series.
"'Ere they are," he exclaimed suddenly. "Right 'ere, me lad."
Soon a life-sustaining warmth came gently stealing over the place.
"Take hoff 'alf the batteries," suggested Jarvis, "'alf's a plenty.
There's no tellin' 'ow long we'll be sailin' in this hark."
This was hardly done when their attention was attracted by the stranger.
He had groaned and turned over.
"Now that it's warm enough," suggested Dave, "we'd better try to help the
poor fellow back to consciousness. If he hasn't suffered a concussion of
the brain, he'll live yet, and perhaps he can tell us things. There are
plenty of questions I'd like to ask him."
"Yes," exclaimed Jarvis eagerly. "'Oo killed Frank Langlois."
They went to work over the man. Having removed his outer garments, they
unbuttoned his shirt and began chafing his hands, arms and chest, till
they were rewarded by a sigh of returning consciousness.
"Where am I?" the man whispered, as he opened his eyes.
"You're all right," answered Dave quickly. "Drink this and go back to
sleep."
He held a cup of steaming malted milk to the man's lips. He drank it
slowly. Then, turning an inquiring look on Dave, he murmured, "American?"
In another second he was lost in a sleeping stupor.
Dave twisted himself about and gazed down at the panorama of purple
shadows that flitted along beneath them.
"Patient doing well," he murmured at last. "Going due north by west. Forty
miles an hour, I'd say. Beautiful prospects for all of us, Mr. Jarvis.
Going right on into a land that does not belong to anybody and where
nobody lives. Upon which hundred thousand square miles would you prefer to
land?"
Jarvis did not answer. He was dreaming day dreams of other adventures he
had had in that strange no man's land.
Finally he shook himself and mumbled:
"No 'opes. No 'opes."
"Oh, I wouldn't say it was as bad as that," smiled Dave. "Let's have a cup
of tea."
"Yes, let's," murmured Jarvis.