IN THE LAND OF CARIBOU, MOOSE AND MUSK OX
Within another hour, the first storm of the season had turned into a
blizzard. With the provisions they had on hand the boys would have made a
landing to get what protection they might from the blinding snow and the
now-piercing wind had they dared. They had not yet changed the landing
wheels of the monoplane for their novel snow runners and they realized
that a new start in the rapidly increasing snow was practically hopeless.
Working directly ahead into the gale had so reduced their speed that
Norman had adopted a series of long tacks. He did this in spite of the
fact that for miles at a time it took him from the river valley, which he
was now locating mainly by the wind eddies he had learned to know. There
was no use turning on the searchlight, as it merely gave them a little
longer view into the deep gray emptiness before them.
Thoroughly appreciating their danger, the boys also recognized that a
panic of fear would not help them. If the car should become unmanageable,
they would make the best landing they could and, half burying the
monoplane in the snow, would await in the protected cockpit the breaking
of the blizzard and a new day.
"Anyway," announced Roy at one time, "while I ain't exactly stuck on
being here and it ain't as cheerful as I thought it would be, you got to
say this, the _Gitchie Manitou_ ain't falling down any."
No attention was given to supper and it did not get so cold but that the
heavy clothing and enclosed cockpit--for they had long since been forced
to put up all the sections--were ample protection for the young men.
Seven o'clock, by which time they had expected to be in camp, came, as
did eight and nine. It was now long after dark and, while the storm had
abated somewhat, there was still a heavy wind and plenty of snow.
For hours the boys had been simply following the compass. They had not
caught the roar of the Grand Rapids and felt themselves practically lost.
By their calculation, and allowing for a head wind, they had concluded
that they would have covered the three hundred miles by ten o'clock. If
at that time they could make out no signal light, they had decided to
come down on the upland and go into camp for the night.
Their calculation was purely a guess but it was not a bad one. Some time
after half past nine both boys made out in the far eastern sky a soft
glow.
"I thought it had to be a clear night for the Aurora Borealis," suggested
Roy, conscious that his companion had also seen the same glow. For a time
Norman made no response but he headed the machine directly toward the
peculiar flare and ceased his tacking.
"That's no Aurora," he said at last. "I think the woods are on fire."
For ten minutes, through the thinning wind-tossed snowflakes, the
_Gitchie Manitou_ groaned its way forward.
"I wonder if it ain't a big signal fire for us," suggested Roy at last.
"It's a big blaze of some kind," answered Norman.
Through the obscuring snow, the nervous aviators had located the light
many miles in the distance. Now it began to rise up so suddenly before
them that they knew it had not been very far away. Yet they could not
make up their mind that it was a signal fire. It did not at all resemble
a blaze of that kind.
"Well, don't run into it, whatever it is," shouted Roy a few minutes
later as a tall spire-like shaft of yellow light seemed almost to block
their progress.
But Norman was already banking the machine, and the flying car responded
while the wonder-struck boys gazed open-mouthed.
"It's the camp," Norman yelled just then as a little group of shadowy
buildings seemed to rise up out of the snow.
"They've struck gas!" blurted Roy, as he sprang to his feet. "The men
have struck gas and it's a gusher!"
Even as he yelled these words, the aviators heard a quick fusilade of
shots and as the car darted onward were just able to catch sight of
shadowy forms running about within the glare of the burning gas well. The
sight was enough of a shock to Norman to throw him off his guard and the
snow-weighted car careened wildly toward the earth. Roy attempted to
spring to his companion's assistance and realized almost too late that
this would be fatal. While the perspiration sprang to Roy's chilled face,
Norman's presence of mind returned and he threw the car upward and into
equilibrium again.
Then, straining every nerve, he made a wide detour but while his brain
acted, the muscles of his hands and arms seemed suddenly paralyzed. The
car dropped slowly and safely in the midst of the clearing, and when it
touched the snow the landing chassis caught and the airship stopped as if
in collision with a wall. Both boys lunged forward and when Roy got to
his feet he found Norman curled up among the steering apparatus, cold and
motionless.
It was a good half hour later when the young aviator had been revived.
His first inquiry was about the _Gitchie Manitou_. When he learned that
this was apparently little injured and had already been backed into the
aerodrome, he gave more evidence of his all-day's strain by again
relapsing into unconsciousness on the cot that had been improvised for
him before the fire in the living room.
The more fortunate Roy was able to relate their adventures and hear the
details of the gas gusher's discovery that night. Within the protected
clearing, the storm had been more of a heavy downfall of snow and less of
a blizzard. Anxious to move the derrick before winter was fully upon
them, Colonel Howell and his two men had persisted in working the drill
all day. When the gas vein was unexpectedly tapped late in the afternoon,
the drill pipes had been blown out and the escaping gas, igniting from
the near-by boiler, had consumed the derrick. Fortunately, the tubing and
drills had been forced through the derrick and were saved.
The engine house had also caught fire, but this had been pulled down and
it was thought that the engine and boiler were undamaged. These details
were discussed while Roy ate a late supper and drank with more relish
than ever before his tin of black tea. Norman was so improved by morning
that he was early astir, eager for a view of the still roaring volume of
gas. He found that Colonel Howell had also taken advantage of the first
daylight to inventory the possible damage.
While the twisting yellow flame of the uncapped well was less inspiring
as day broke, the roar of the escaping flame fascinated the young
aviator.
"It's a gusher, and a dandy," explained Colonel Howell as he and Norman
stood close by it in the melting snow. "But I think we're prepared for it
and we'll try to cap it to-day."
All else, the clearing, the camp structures and the banks of the river,
were peaceful and white under the untracked mantle of new-fallen snow.
The wind had died out and the gas camp at Fort McMurray stood on the
verge of the almost Arctic winter.
The excitement attendant upon the wonderful discovery and the attempt
made at once to control the fiery shaft again interfered with Colonel
Howell's real plans of active prospecting. For days the experienced oil
men made futile efforts to extinguish the gusher and to cap the shaft.
When they were of no assistance in this work, Norman and Roy overhauled
the airship and substituted the ski-like runners in place of the
aluminum-cased rubber-tired landing wheels.
It seemed as if every trader, trapper and prospector within fifty miles
visited the camp. A week after the discovery, somewhat to the surprise of
all, although apparently not so much to Ewen and Miller, the long missing
Chandler appeared at the clearing late one evening. If he had any apology
to make to Colonel Howell, the boys did not hear it. But he was sober
enough this time and somewhat emaciated. He had come to settle with his
old employer and explained his long delay in doing this by saying: "I
knew my money was good any time," and that he had been trapping farther
down the river.
He lounged about the camp the greater part of the day and even
volunteered his services in the still unsuccessful attack of the flaming
gas. But Colonel Howell seemed without any interest in his offers. The
man was invited, however, to eat in the camp and spend the night there.
When the boys retired, Colonel Howell, the visitor, and Ewen and Miller
were still smoking before the big fire. The next morning the boys slept
late and when they responded to Philip's persistent call to breakfast,
they found that Chandler had eaten and gone. Colonel Howell was awaiting
the boys, Ewen and Miller being already at work on the blazing well, and
he seemed to have something on his mind.
"Would there be any great danger," he began at once, addressing Norman,
"in making a short flight in your airship in weather like this?"
"This isn't bad," volunteered Roy. "It's only a few degrees below zero.
There's a good fall of snow for our runners and there hasn't been any
wind since the blizzard."
"Well," resumed Colonel Howell, almost meditatively, "it seems a shame
for us to be livin' here in what you might call luxury and folks starving
all around us. Look at this," he went on, and he led the three boys near
one of the windows where a large Department of the Interior map of
northern Alberta was tacked to the wall. "Here's Fort McMurray and our
camp," he began, pointing to a black spot on the almost uncharted white,
where the McMurray River emptied into the Athabasca. Then he ran his
finger northward along the wide blue line indicating the tortuous course
of the Athabasca past Fort McKay and the Indian settlement described as
Pierre au Calumet (marked "abandoned"), past the Muskeg, the Firebag and
the Moose Rivers where they found their way into the giant Athabasca
between innumerable black spots designated as "tar" islands, and at last
stopped suddenly at the words "Pointe aux Tremble."
"That's an Indian town," went on Colonel Howell, "and it's about as far
south as you ever find the Chipewyans. It isn't much over a hundred miles
from here and Chandler says there ain't a man left in the village. Pretty
soon, he thinks, there'll be no women and children left. Maybe he's
making a pretty black picture but he says all the men have gone over
toward the lake hunting. They've been gone over two weeks and the camp
was starving when they left."
The colonel, with a peculiar look on his face, led the way back to the
breakfast table.
"These Indians are nothing to me," he went on at last, "and all Indians
are starving pretty much all the time, but they die just the same. But
somehow, with plenty of pork and flour here and this great invention here
right at hand from which nobody's benefitting, it seems to me we must be
pretty hard-hearted to sit in comfort, stuffing ourselves, while little
babies are dying for scraps that we're throwing in the river. I----"
"Colonel," exclaimed Roy at once, "you've said enough. Get up what you
can spare and we'll have bannocks baking in that settlement before noon."
"I don't want to get you into another blizzard," began the colonel, yet
his satisfaction was apparent.
"Don't you worry about that," broke in Norman. "I think we feel a good
deal the same way about this. Besides, aren't we working for you?"
"Nothing like that!" expostulated the oil prospector. "This isn't an
order."
"I'll help get the stuff ready," began Paul, "for I know that's all I can
do. Is this Chandler trapping near there?" he went on, as he gulped down
the last of his tea.
"Says he's been helping them," explained Colonel Howell, "but he couldn't
have done much, judging by his appearance."
"Is he going back there?" asked Roy curiously.
"He didn't say," answered Colonel Howell slowly. "But he's got his money
now and I imagine he won't go much farther than Fort McMurray. I don't
care for him and I don't like him around the camp. He's too busy talking
when the men ought to be at work."
It was an ideal winter's day, the atmosphere clear and the temperature
just below zero. There was no cause for delay and while Norman made a
tracing and a scale of the route, Paul and Roy drew the _Gitchie Manitou_
into the open. Colonel Howell and the half-breed cook had been busy in
the storehouse, arranging packets of flour and cutting up sides of fat
pork. Small packages of tea were also prepared, together with sugar, salt
and half a case of evaporated fruit. The only bread on hand was the
remainder of Philip's last baking of bannock.
"See how things are," suggested Colonel Howell, when these articles were
passed up to Roy, "and if they're as bad as Chandler says, we'll have to
send Philip out for a moose. These things'll carry 'em along for a few
days at least."
The look on the young Count's face was such that Norman was disturbed.
"Paul, old man," he said, "I know you'd like to go with us and we'd like
to have you. But we've got more than the weight of a third man in all
this food. I hope you don't feel disappointed."
"Well, I do, in a way," answered Paul, with a feeble attempt at a smile,
"but it isn't just from curiosity. I envy you fellows. You're always
helping and I never find anything to do."
"You can help me to-day," laughed Colonel Howell. "I'm going to cap that
gas well or bust it open in a new place. I'll give you a job that may
make both of us sit up and take notice."
"Come on," exclaimed Paul, seeming instantly to forget the mission of the
machine. "I've been wanting a finger in that pie from the start."
"Good luck to you," called out Norman, as he sprang aboard the monoplane,
and the colonel caught Paul laughingly by the arm and held him while
Norman threw the big propeller into sizzling revolution.
The powerful car slid forward for the first time on its wooden snowshoes.
As it caught the impulse of the great propeller, it sprang into the air
and then dropped to the snow again with the wiggling motion of an
inexperienced skater. Then, suddenly responding again to the propeller,
it darted diagonally toward a menacing tree stump; but Norman was too
quick for it. Before harm could result, the planes lifted and the
airship, again in its native element, hurled itself skyward steadily and
true.
It was an exhilarating flight. For the first time the boys got a
bird's-eye view of Fort McMurray and were surprised to find that the main
settlement drifted down to the river in a long-drawn-out group of cabins.
Few people were in sight, however, and all the world spread out beneath
them as if frozen into silence. The big river continued its course
between the same high hills and, as the last cabin disappeared, the boys
headed the _Gitchie Manitou_ directly for the top of the hills, where the
plains began that led onward and onward until the sparse forests finally
disappeared in the broken land of the Barren Grounds. And on these, not
much farther to the North, they knew that caribou and moose roamed in
herds of thousands, and that the musk ox, the king of the Northland big
game, made his Arctic home.