A MYSTERY
The boys agreed to Ike's request with delight. They were proud of the
neat little Rambler that had carried them safely and surely over so many
thousands of miles of water. They led him all around showing the clever
contrivances of lockers, the folding bunks, the cozy kitchen, and how
every inch of available space had been arranged for the handy storage of
some article.
"You've got a daisy little craft, and have got her fixed up dandy," Ike
enthusiastically declared, as soon as they were seated. "Where do you
expect to go this summer, and how soon are you going to start?"
"We are going to Alaska up on the Yukon," Alex exclaimed. "We're not
going for fun exactly this time, although we expect to have a lot of
that too. Our main object is to dig a ton or so of gold, fill up the
balance of our cargo with rare and costly furs, and make our way back to
the States before the ice sets."
"There you go, hoodooing the trip before it's started," growled Case
gloomily. "I was in hopes we might sneak back with a few hundred
dollars. But with all the bragging you've begun already, I am doubtful
if we get back with the boat.
"Now, Gloomy Gus"--a name he bestowed on Case during his gloomy
spells--grinned Alex. "Isn't it better a lot to think you are going to
get rich when you start even if you do come back poor? It makes fun in
the going anyway. Ain't I right, Clay?"
"Don't count your chickens before they are hatched," quoted Clay with a
smile.
"If we did not, there would be no chicken raisers," Alex retorted with
spirit. "They always expect a chicken for every egg until the shells
begin to crack."
"I hate to interrupt so much philosophy," said Ike with a smile, "but
I'm just itching to talk a little myself."
"Take the floor," smiled Clay, and his two companions lapsed into
silence.
"What I want to say is just this," began Ike in a brisk, business-like
way. "I want to go up the Yukon with you fellows."
"Hurray," shouted Alex, "four is lots better than three."
"Sure, come along," said Case, cheerfully.
Only Clay did not join in the hearty replies and his two companions eyed
him in wonder.
"It is going to be a very expensive trip," Clay said at last.
"I expect it to be costly," Ike replied, quietly. "But, boys, you know
that little news stand I have been running for so many years has paid
pretty well all the time. It paid the expenses of all of us when mother
and father and baby brother were alive. Since they were all taken by the
white sickness, there has been more money than I could use, you
understand, so I put it in the banks. I can put in $1,000.00 for this
trip and then some more if needed."
"But why do you want to sell such a good paying stand as yours and waste
a lot of money on a trip like this which may not bring in a cent?" Clay
asked.
"I can put in a boy I know well, a good, honest boy, to run the stand
while I am gone. You, Clay, do not understand. Every year you have
vacations and have lots of fun. You come back well and happy and eager
for work. For ten years I stand behind that little stand. Out in the
snow and cold, the slush and rain, the dust and hot sun, and never once
a play day. That is not right, that is not well. It makes a young man
soon old, makes him look on life wrong. Now I can afford it I would like
to have one long play time."
"But there is but little fun we'll have on the Yukon! With a $1,000.00
you could have all kinds of fun at some hunting or fishing resort closer
home," Clay still urged.
"I tell you another reason why I want most to go to the Yukon," replied
Ike, after a second's hesitation. "I got uncle up there several years.
He makes no good at the mining. I got no other relatives now, so I hunt
up uncle and if prices are high we set up fine store. Uncle can sell
goods in the store while I go out and trade for furs with the Indians. I
think we make good money. But it seems you no want me to go with you,
Clay--why?"
"But I do want you to go with us," Clay declared, heartily, his face
lightening. "We all of us want you to go. We start in tomorrow to buy
our supplies and when that's done move your things right down to the
boat and become one of us."
"Sorry, but I can't do that," Ike replied. "I'll have to teach the new
boy the business and settle up a few of my affairs. I am afraid I will
not be able to come aboard until just before you start. But I will do a
fair share of the work as soon as we are off. Call by my stand in the
morning and I will hand you that $1,000.00. Put it into the general fund
and get me an outfit just the same as you do for yourselves."
"But a $1,000.00 apiece is more than we are putting up," said Clay,
honestly. "We have only $1,400.00 in cash altogether."
Ike laughed. "You do not figure it right, my friend. I gets for my money
not only a share in outfit and stores, but I get a trip up and down the
Yukon which is worth much more than $500.00. And now, boys, it is
getting late and I have to be up early in the morning to attend to my
stand."
Clay turned on the prow light to light up the prow and dock and the
three boys followed their friend on deck where they parted with many
good-nights and prophecies for the coming trip.
As soon as he had passed out of sight, the three descended to the cabin
again, and Alex folding his arms, looked at Clay with as much scorn as
his freckled, good-humored face could express. "You're a fine one," he
grunted. "Why, you cross-questioned Ike as though he was a criminal and
you the prosecuting attorney just because he wanted to go on this trip
with us. I was afraid he would get disgusted with your questions and
give up the notion. There's no other boy I know who I had rather have go
on this trip with us. Ike used to be mighty good to me when I was a
little newsie. Ike is all right."
"Yes," Case agreed. "I have seen him many a time stop big boys who were
abusing little ones, and leave his stand to help feeble old men and old
ladies across the street."
"I know him better than either of you," Clay said, quietly, ignoring the
storm that had burst upon him. "I remember the time when his family was
dying of consumption. Why, all the time they were lingering on between
life and death, he was like an angel to them. They had a doctor, a day
nurse and any delicacy they thought they wanted. At night he would take
the day nurse's place. When at last they were dead and buried, there was
little left of Ike but skin and bones, for he had eaten barely enough to
keep him alive, so that the others might have more comforts. The money
he had saved was all gone and there was little left of the news stand
but a few bundles of the best selling newspapers. A boy who acts towards
his folks like that simply can't be a bad boy."
"Then why didn't you want him to go with us?" demanded Alex, still
unsatisfied.
"I see I have got to tell it all," Clay said wearily. "It isn't so much,
but it has made me a little curious. I was passing Ike's stand one
evening last fall and stopped to get a paper. Ike was at the other end
of the stand talking with two strange-looking men who wore rough clothes
and whose faces were covered with big blotches where they had been frost
bitten. All three were talking friendly but eagerly, and often I could
catch the words, 'Alaska,' 'Yukon,' 'and great wealth,' so I decided
that the two men were miners just in from Alaska. Well, I could not hear
much of what they said, they talked in such low tones. At last I got
tired of waiting and called Ike and gave him the change for the paper
and left. Now you all think it was my idea about this Yukon trip; you
are wrong. It's Ike's plan. Ever since the day I saw him with those two
men he has been trying to enthuse me about this Yukon trip."
"Maybe he had learned something good about the Yukon country and wants
that we should get the benefit of it," Alex suggested.
"I thought that myself," Clay said, sadly, "until this afternoon, when I
passed Ike's stand on my way home. There stood the two miners I had seen
before and they and Ike were having a violent quarrel. In fact, they
were coming to the point of blows. One of the men aimed a blow at Ike
and I started to run to Ike's assistance, yelling for the police. The
yells for the police seemed to scare the two men for they took to their
heels. I asked Ike what all the trouble was about and he said they were
a couple of roughs who had bought a paper and gave him a nickel. When he
gave them their change they had insisted on change for a dollar, which
they claimed was the amount given him."
"Great mystery all that," Alex said scornfully. "Have you any more
evidence to pile up, Mr. Sherlock Holmes?"
"Welt, Ike's story rang rather flat to me," Clay replied. "Neither man
carried a paper or anything else when they took to their heels. I would
not have thought much about these things if Ike had not come down
tonight and wanted to go to Alaska with us. That seemed to string all
those things together. I felt sure Ike was too much of a business chap
to spend $1,000.00 on a pleasure trip to the Yukon. But when he said he
wanted to go to hunt up his uncle, why that made things look better, for
a Jew will go a long ways and do a lot for a relative."
"Well, what are we going to do about it?" Alex demanded.
"I want him to go with us of course," answered Clay. "I know Ike's all
right, but I was in hopes that my questions--about which you have been
roasting me so--would clear up the things that had been puzzling me."
"Ike might as well go as not," Case agreed gloomily. "We always have to
carry a nice fat mystery on each of our trips, and I'd rather Ike
brought it along with him than to have some uninvited stranger smuggle
it aboard."
"You and Clay make me tired," snapped Alex. "One of you is just as bad
as the other. I guess I'll have to call one of you Gloomy Gus 1, the
other Gloomy Gus 2."
"All right, you wait and see," said Case darkly. "It's only a nice
gentle kitten-like mystery we start with on each trip, but before the
trip is ended it grows to be as big as a grizzly bear."
"That reminds me that one of us will have to bring Teddy Bear down to
the boat. He's getting pretty big but we must have him along with us for
one more trip anyway."
Teddy Bear was a grizzly cub the boys had captured on their trip on the
Columbia. On their return from their last trip, they had turned him over
to the zoo man as he had grown so big and had such a thieving appetite
for sugar and other sweet things that they could not trust him in the
_Rambler_ while they were away at their work. Whenever they had a day of
leisure, they would take Captain Joe along with them and go up to see
their pet. They would put him through his tricks and slip him in a
generous amount of sugar. So they kept themselves fresh in his memory.
Teddy and Captain Joe were the greatest comrades and both rejoiced at
these meetings. It was comical to see Captain Joe seated on his
haunches, look up with one eye cocked as though saying, "Well, Old Chap,
how are they treating you down here?" and Teddy Bear would with one eye
wink back as though replying, "Pretty well, Joe, but it isn't anything
like life on the Rambler."
Alex declared that he once heard Teddy tell Joe to sneak him down a pail
of sugar the next time he came and Joe replied with vast scorn that he
would not steal from his masters, but if Teddy had any good meat to
exchange for sugar he'd manage it somehow. Clay, on hearing this story,
had promptly placed Alex's head down in an empty flour barrel until he
confessed that he might have been mistaken.
When Clay spoke of bringing Teddy Bear down next day, Captain Joe arose
in dignity from his corner and wabbled over to his side. Clay patted his
head, "Yes, Joe, we are going to bring Teddy Bear tomorrow. Teddy Bear
is going to stay on the boat now. You want Teddy Bear, Captain Joe?"
Captain Joe cocked his eyes and wagged his stump of a tail vigorously.
He seemed to be saying, "I guess you're talking straight, boss, but I
don't believe that guy's going to leave all the good meat he's getting
if he can help it." Captain Joe then rubbed his nose across Clay's
ankle, rose sedately, and made the rounds of the table rubbing his nose
on each boy's leg.
"He's telling us that it is time to go to bed and stop disturbing his
sleep with our chatter," laughed Alex.
"He's right, too," Case agreed, "but listen, aren't those more
foot-steps on the dock close to the boat?"
Clay reached over and snapped on the prow light. Instantly there was a
scamper of foot-steps up the wharf.
Clay laughed and shut off the light. "We seem to be having our share of
visitors tonight," he remarked, "but I am not anxious to make another
capture tonight. I am going to bed and trust to Captain Joe to wake us
up if any one tries to get in."
The boys were all ready for bed and they were soon all asleep, leaving
Captain Joe on guard.