PLAYING A LONE HAND
Hardly had Johnny Thompson in Vladivostok uttered his warning to the
doctor than a figure leaped out at him from a dark doorway. Not having
expected an attack from this direction, Johnny was caught unprepared. A
knife flashed. He felt a heavy impact on his chest. A loud snap followed
by a scream from his assailant. There came the wild patter of fleeing
footsteps, then the little drama ended.
"Hurt?" inquired the doctor, a deep concern expressed in his tone.
"Nope," Johnny smiled. "But I'm afraid the rascal's ripped a hole in one
of my moose-hide sacks. The gold is leaking out."
"Hang the gold!" ejaculated the doctor. "Let it go. It's done its
part--saved your life. An armor of gold! I'd say that's some class!"
"That's all right," said Johnny, still keeping an eye out for other
assailants. "But sentiment won't buy biscuits and honey for starving
children. Gold will. Give us a hand at stopping the leak."
"Go easy," admonished the doctor, "you'll give the whole thing away."
They worked cautiously, revealing nothing to a possible prying eye. When
the task was completed, Johnny stooped to pick up the hilt of the broken
blade. He turned it over and over in his hand, regarding it curiously.
"Oriental, all right," he murmured. "I wonder if those little rascals
could have beaten us here."
"Come on," exclaimed the doctor impatiently, "this is no place for
wondering. I'm for a safe place inside somewhere."
A few turns brought them to Red Cross headquarters, and to one of the big
surprises of Johnny's rather adventurous life. He had hardly crossed the
threshold when his lips framed the word:
"Mazie!"
Could he believe his eyes? Yes, there she was, the girl chum of his
boyhood days, the girl who had played tennis and baseball with him, who
had hiked miles upon miles with him, who swam the sweeping Ohio river with
him. The girl who, in Chicago, having tried to locate him, had come near
to losing her life in a submarine.
"Mazie! Mazie!" he whispered. Then, "How did you come here?"
"By boat, of course," smiled Mazie. "How'd you think?" She took both his
hands in hers.
"But, Mazie, this is a man's place. It's dangerous. Besides, what--"
"What's my business? Well, you see, I'm your agent. I'm going to spend all
that splendid gold you've been digging to help the orphans. I'm 'M.' It
was I who did all that frantic wireless stuff. Did you get it?"
"I did," smiled Johnny, "and if I'd known it was you I would have come on
by wireless."
"But now," he said, after a moment's reflection, "as Jerry the Rat would
say, 'Wot's de lay?'"
Mazie sighed. "Honest, Johnny, have you the gold? Because if you haven't,
it's 'Home, James,' for me. These Russians are the most suspicious people!
They've threatened to put me aboard ship twenty times because I wasn't
making good. I wasn't feeding anybody, as I have said I would. And, oh,
Johnny!" she gripped his arm, "the last three days I've been so
frightened! Every time I ventured out, day or night, I have seen little
yellow men dogging my footsteps; not Japanese military police, but just
little yellow men."
"Hm," grunted Johnny, "I fancy Doc and I met one of them just now. He
seemed to know us, too. Here's his dagger."
"Broken?" exclaimed Mazie. "How?"
Johnny stepped to the door of the small parlor and closed it.
"Gold," he whispered, "an armor of gold."
From beneath his coat he drew a sack of gold.
"Yes, Mazie, we've got the gold--plenty of it. Again I ask you, 'Wot's de
lay?'"
Mazie clasped her hands in glad surprise. For fully three minutes she
acted the part of a happy child dancing around a Christmas tree, with
Johnny doing the part of Christmas tree and delighted parent all in one.
At last, she came down to earth.
"What we need is food and shelter for the poor little wretches. Oh,
Johnny, I can't tell you--"
"Don't need to," interrupted Johnny, "I soldiered in this God-forgotten
hole for nine months. Tell me what we can do first and fastest."
"Well, there's a great empty hotel down in the street St. Jacobs. It has a
wonderful dining-room, big enough for a thousand women and children. We
can rent it for gold."
"For gold," said Johnny, setting a sack of gold on the table.
"Then we can get rice and sweet potatoes from China by ship, for gold."
"For gold," again echoed Johnny, banging three heavy sacks on the table.
"Oh, aren't you the Midas!" exclaimed Mazie, clapping her hands.
"But, Johnny," she said presently, "there's one more thing. It's hard, and
I'm afraid a bit dangerous. Rice and sweet potatoes are not enough for
starving people."
"I'll say not."
"They need soup. Many would die without it. Soup means meat. We must have
it. The nearest cattle are a hundred miles away. The Mongols have them.
They are the border traders between China and Russia, you know. They have
cattle--hundreds of them. They can be bought for gold."
"For gold," smiled Johnny, patting his chest which still bulged
suspiciously. "I'll be off for the cattle in the morning. I'll leave Doc
here to do what he can, and to look after you."
"Good!" exclaimed Mazie, clapping her hands again. "The Red Cross will
supply you a band of trustworthy Russians to help drive the cattle here.
The Mongols won't dare bring them."
"All right," said Johnny. "And now, what about the supposed hospitality of
the Red Cross? I'm hungry. So is Doc."
"Right this way," and Mazie hurried through the door.
Half an hour later the two were enjoying such a meal as they had not eaten
for months; not because of its bountifulness, nor richness, but because it
was prepared by a woman.
"To-morrow," said Johnny, as he murmured good-night, "I am to venture into
one more unknown land."
"Yes, and may your patron saint protect you as he has done in the past,"
said Mazie.
"My patron saint is a miss," smiled Johnny, "and her name is Mazie.
Good-night."
* * * * *
Realizing that he was trapped, the instant that forms blocked the door of
the machine sheds at the Seven Mines, Pant tackled the problem of escape.
If these were natives or yellow men, they would treat him rough. If they
were Bolsheviki, he could hope for no better fate. His only hope lay in
escape. The place had no other door and no open windows. He must gain his
freedom by strategy. Evidently, he must play the cat-and-mouse act about
the piles of supplies and machinery.
As he dodged back to a position behind a large ore crusher, he managed to
catch sight of the two men.
"Bolsheviki!" he gasped inaudibly. "What giants!"
Full-bearded giants they were, reminding him of nothing so much as of
Bluebeard in the fairy books, or the Black Brothers in "The Lost River."
Seeming to scent him, as a dog scents a rat, they moved cautiously down
the narrow passage between piles. As yet, they had not caught sight of
him. Hope rose. Perhaps they would pass by him. Then he could make a dash
for it. Yet, this was not entirely satisfactory. They would follow him,
would see where he had gone, if he escaped to the mine. Then all his plans
would go glimmering.
Instantly there flashed through his mind a bolder and, if it worked, a
better plan. Moving close to the crusher, he put his hand to the great
hopper that rested on and towered above it. This was made of iron and was
fully eight feet wide and quite as deep. His keen eye measured the
aperture at the bottom. No giant, such as these were, could crowd through
that hole. And the hopper was heavy. Applying all his strength to it, he
felt it give ever so slightly. It was not bolted down; it was merely
balanced there. He would be able to topple it over. And, once over, it
would be a difficult affair to handle, especially from beneath.
As he waited, his heart thumped so loudly that it seemed the Russians must
hear and charge down upon him.
They came on cautiously, peering this way then that. He caught the gleam
of a knife, the dull-black shine of an automatic. It was a man hunt, sure
enough--and he was the man. Now they were five paces from him, now three,
now two. His breath came in little inaudible gasps. His muscles knotted
and unknotted.
And now the moment had come. The men were even with the crusher, on the
opposite side from him. Gathering all his strength, he heaved away at the
hopper. There followed a grinding sound, a shout of warning, then a dull
thud. The enemy were trapped.
Pant spun round the crusher like a top. Seizing the wire he had arranged
for his improvised sled, he rushed toward the door, dragging the batteries
after him.
A glance backward came near convulsing him with laughter. One of the
Russians had succeeded in thrusting his head through the narrow opening at
the top of the inverted hopper. Here he stuck. To the boy, he resembled a
backwoodsman encircled by a barber's huge apron.
But there was little time for mirth; business was at hand. New problems
confronted him. Were other Bolsheviki near the shed? If so, then all was
lost.
Poking his head out of the door, he peered about carefully. There was not
a person in sight. The wind had risen.
"Good!" he muttered, "it will hide my tracks!"
He was soon speeding across the snow. In another five minutes he was
peering like a woodchuck from his hole in the snowbank. His batteries were
already inside. If he had not been observed, he had only to block his
entrance and leave the wind to plaster it over with drifting snow.
As he looked his brow wrinkled. Then he dodged back, drawing the snow-cake
door after him. The two Russians had emerged from the shed.
* * * * *
For hours on end the balloon, with Dave Tower, Jarvis and the stranger on
board, now hundreds of miles from the mines, swept over the barren
whiteness of unexplored lands. The sun went down and the moon shone in all
its glory. The fleeting panorama below turned to triangles great and
small--triangles of pale yellow and midnight blue. Now and again the earth
seemed to rise up toward them. By this Dave and Jarvis knew that they were
drifting over snow-capped hills. When it receded, they knew they were over
the tundra. Sometimes they caught the silver flash and gleam of a river
the ice of which had been kept clear of snow by the incessant sweep of the
wind.
As Dave crouched by the plate-glass window staring down at that wonderful
and terrible spectacle of an unknown land, he asked himself the question:
"Was this land ever viewed by mortal man?"
The answer could be only a surmise. Perhaps some struggling band of
political exiles, fighting their way through summer's tundra swamps and
over winter's blizzard-swept hills, had passed this way, or lingered to
die here. Who could tell? Surely nothing was known of the mineral wealth,
the fish, the game, the timber of this unexplored inland empire. What a
field to dream of!
His mind was drawn from its revels by a groan from the stranger. He was
awake and conscious. Propping himself half up on an elbow, he stared about
him.
"Where am I?" He sank back, an expression of amazement and fear written on
his face.
"Who are you?" asked Dave.
"I--why--I," the man's consciousness appeared to waver for a second. "Why,
I'm Professor Todd from Tri-State University."
"What were you doing with the Orientals?"
"Orientals?" The man looked puzzled. "Orientals? Oh, you mean the natives;
the Chukches. Why, I was studying them. Getting their language, taking
pictures, getting phonographic records, and--"
Suddenly the man's face went white.
"Where--where are we?" he stammered through tight-set lips. The balloon,
caught in a pocket of thin air, had caused the car to lurch.
"Taking a little trip," said Dave reassuringly. "You're all right. We'll
land after a bit."
"Land? So we are on a ship? I've been sick? We're going home. It is well.
Life with the Chukches was rotten, positively rotten--positive--"
His voice trailing off into nothingness. He was asleep again.
Dave stared at him. Here was a new mystery. Was this man lying? Had he
been in collusion with the Orientals, and was he trying to hide that fact;
or had the rap on his head caused a lapse of memory, which blotted out all
recollections of the affair in the case and mine?
"Look, Dave!" exclaimed Jarvis suddenly, "as I live it's the City of
Gold!"
In the east the sun was just peeping over the horizon. But Jarvis was not
looking in that direction. He was looking west. There, catching the sun's
first golden glow, some object had cast it back, creating a veritable
conflagration of red and gold.
Dave, remembering to have viewed such a sight in other days, and in what
must have been something of the same location, stared in silence for a
full minute before he spoke:
"If it is," he said slowly, "there's only one salvation for us. We've got
to get down out of the clouds. The last time I saw that riot of color it
was on the shore of the ocean, or very near it, and to drift over the
Arctic Ocean in this crazy craft is to invite death."
He sprang for the door which led to the narrow plank-way about the cabin
and to the rigging where the valve-cord must hang suspended.