SOLVING THE MYSTERY
Ike did not return until dinner was nearly over. He wore a brave front,
but his eyes and lids were very red and the boys knew as well as if he
had told them that he had found his uncle's grave and had been grieving
over the gentle old man beneath the mound of stones, but the little lad
bore up under his burden of sorrow with a surface of cheerfulness that
the boys marveled at.
"Well, Mr. Kid," he said, as he took his place at the table. "How did
you leave Mr. and Mrs. Morton and the Bonnie Annie Laurie?"
The red mounted to the Kid's face as he answered enthusiastically: "Fine
and dandy. Those three innocents hit the right idea after all. There was
plenty of eating places in Dawson but they didn't set out the kind of
grub that mother used to make, and that's where the old lady shined.
Then the old gentleman was a pretty shrewd buyer and he laid in his
supplies before prices reached clean up to the sky, although he had to
pay a pretty stiff price at that.
The old lady's cooking, and the reasonable prices, and the very sight of
that little girl tripping in and out amongst the tables, caught the
crowd. The chekakos went pretty nigh broke buying grub that tasted like
home, and many an old sour-dough is in a fair way of getting gout after
all his years of eating just pork and beans. When the scurvy broke out
they had about all the potatoes in town. They could have got anywhere
from $1.00 to $10.00 apiece for them, but the old lady wouldn't listen
to anything like that. 'They only cost us 10c apiece,' she argued, 'and
it ain't Christian-like to ask more in the time of sickness and
suffering, and the poor can have 'em for nothing.' So the old-timers
formed a sort of bread line, as you might call it, and every day every
man, woman and child in Dawson was free to march down that line and get
his or her bit of potato whether they had ten cents or not. I reckon,
pretty near the whole of Dawson would have been wiped out by the scurvy
this winter but for the Mortons--and Dawson knows it. Those old people
will make a fortune if they keep at the business." The Kid paused and
the red again mounted into his face. "I might as well tell you now,
because you little cusses will pry it out of me sooner or later," he
said, in happy embarrassment. "That little girl and I are going to be
married as soon as I make my stake, and I've got a hunch that that time
is not far off."
Clay grinned. "Why, we knew that long ago," he said.
They congratulated the Kid until his face shone with happiness.
"I've got a favor to ask of you," he said, when at last they were
through. "It's comin' on cold tonight or I'm no judge of Alaska weather.
There's no special reason for my getting down to St. Michael's before
the first steamer comes in, and it's a long trail back to Dawson, so, if
you boys don't mind, I'll camp with you until it's time to start for St.
Michael's."
The boys greeted this announcement with shouts of delight, for they
could think of no more welcome visitor than the Yukon Kid.
It was as the Kid had prophesied, the morning showed the thermometer at
70 degrees below zero, where it hung steadily for a full week, before
the end of which time the Kid had difficulty in keeping the now active
invalids indoors. They wanted to be out in the open air after their
long, close confinement, and with their growing strength, came the
desire for activity.
"Don't try it outside yet," he advised. "If you do you'll regret it.
Seventy degrees below zero isn't to be fooled with even by old timers.
With kids weak as you are yet, it would mean death. That degree of cold
would frost your lungs in ten minutes. Why, even the Indians rarely
travel when it gets below 40 degrees. Be patient, boys, this cold
weather is not going to last forever. It will get milder soon. In fact,
boys, it's not going to be long before spring comes. I'll bet you boys
have lost all track of the days."
"I guess we have," agreed Clay. "I can't be sure of what month it is
even. We kept so busy before we were taken sick that we kept no account
of days, and then we have been sick a long, long time."
"Well, it's the middle of March," the Kid enlightened him. The worst of
the winter is over now. Along the last of April the ice should begin to
go out."
"And as soon as it goes out, we will be bound for home," said Alex,
happily.
"And all the fun and excitement of the city," sighed Clay, blissfully.
"And the news stand for me and Abe," Ike declared. "Maybe, when Abe
picks up the business good, I set him up in a little stand for himself."
As for Abe, he had nothing to say. He was content to follow fadder.
Never in his whole young life had he ever been so kindly treated as
since when fadder had bought him from his uncle.
At last the long cold spell broke and they awoke one morning to find the
thermometer at twenty degrees below--warm weather for the Yukon.
With the break of the cold spell, the days flew past with flying
footsteps, for there was always something to pass the time out in the
bracing cold of the gradually lengthening days. There were snow shoe
races and even dog racing, in which the Yukon Kid's team was always
beaten, much to Kid's disgust. But most entertaining of all was the
search for the treasure which the boys all firmly believed in, though
the Kid only smiled at their fruitless efforts. "Go to it," he advised
them. "It keeps you busy and makes the time pass quicker," and go to it
they did with all their youthful ardor. First they cleaned out the snow
heaps in the lonely cabin, but found nothing to reward their search but
a few pitiful battered cooking utensils and a scanty store of food. But
they built a fire in the cabin and with shovels heated over it, dug up
the frozen ground inside in search of concealed riches. In the center of
the shore of the cove, they sank a prospect hole, keeping a fire going
all the time, except when they raked it to one side to remove the
thawed-out earth. In time they reached bed rock and tested thoroughly
the pile of dirt they had accumulated, only to find that not a trace of
color appeared in the pans.
While they had worked a change had slowly been taking place around them.
The air had been growing sensibly warmer and the heat of the sun was
gradually making itself felt. The snow was slowly melting from the
knolls and forming tiny rivulets that trickled their way down to the
river. Spring was at hand.
It was after the failure of the prospect hole they had sunk, that they
all gathered together on the _Rambler's_ deck one noon for a little
after dinner chat.
"Well, I expect we might as well give up looking for the treasure," said
Alex, disconsolately. "We have done all we can."
"Yes," agreed the Yukon Kid, "there's nothing to it but the excitement
of looking and finding nothing. Well, boys, I've spent a good time with
you, but I've got to be going soon. Just step out here and listen." He
led the way out on the ice and motioned for them to be silent. Faintly
there came to their ears the soft murmur of running water under their
feet. "That's Father Yukon waking up from his long sleep," said the Kid,
gravely. "It means that I must be on my way or I will not reach St.
Michael's before the ice breaks up. I guess you'll get there not many
days after me for when the ice goes out in the Yukon it goes out in a
hurry."
"Mr. Kid," said Ike, who had been chosen spokesman for the boys in what
was to follow. "Mr. Kid, you have been very good to us and more than
once you have saved the life, maybe, of some of us, and so we want to
give you a little gift, not to repay you for the good things you have
done for us, you understand, but just a little gift to show that we
don't forget them good deeds. We want you to kindly accept Buck and his
family. We want to feel that we have left Buck with a good, kind master
too. That Buck is a good dog, almost as good as Captain Joe."
The Kid's eyes shone with delight at the thought of being possessor of
such a glorious team, but he protested earnestly. "I have not done
anything to merit such a gift. Maybe I helped you out a mite that first
day at Nome, but it wasn't any trouble to me. Sizes up to me that each
of you has done his part nobly and loyally just like links in a chain.
You or the most of you, would have pulled through all right even if I
hadn't happened to come across you when I did." He hastened a second
before he went on. "It seems to me if there's any link that shows up a
little larger than the rest, it's this little chap here," patting Ike's
shoulder. "He was willing to give himself up to torture that the rest of
you might live. I reckon, though, that any one of you would have done
the same in his place."
Alex was twisting and shuffling in embarrassment over this display of
sentiment.
"There's one thing we must do before we leave," he interrupted. "We must
climb that mountain. We haven't climbed a mountain on this whole trip.
I'll dare the lot of you to climb it clear to the top with me.
Clay looked up at the great mountain wet and slippery from the melting
snows of its summit. "None of it in mine," he said decidedly.
Ike regarded the monster thoughtfully. "I'm a family man," he declared.
"What would become of Abe if he loses his fadder?"
"It's all right to take risks when one has to," growled Case, "but it's
blamed foolishness to do so just on a dare."
"All right, you babies," jeered Alex. "If you're 'fraid to come. I'll
climb up alone."
"I'll go with you," shouted the Yukon Kid, "just wait a minute will
you?" for Alex was already moving for the mountain's base. "He won't get
up fifty feet," he confided to the others. "I will take a rope from the
sled here and try to keep him from a nasty fall."
"He can climb like a monkey," said Clay, doubtfully, "and for all he
acts so reckless sometimes he's got a pretty cool head when he really
gets into a tight place. If you don't want a long climb, don't try to
follow him, for he will not stop at a hundred feet unless that
mountain's so slippery that a fly can't cling to the side of it."
"Then he'll find me right beside him," said the Kid confidently, as he
wound the rope around his waist and hastened after Alex, who was already
at the mountain's base.
Alex was going about his undertaking cautiously, for he knew he would be
subjected to ridicule by his companions if he failed at the very start.
He skirted the mountain's base watching for a likely place to make a
start, but finding only bare, smooth, almost perpendicular walls
extending upward some fifty or seventy-five feet. Up beyond this smooth
base he could see many knobs and little ledges sticking out which
promised fair climbing once the intervening space was overcome. It was
not until he had nearly reached the little cabin in the cove, that he
came upon that for which he was searching, a place where the smooth wall
had crumbled down into the sea, leaving in its wake an incline that
seemed to offer a chance to reach the easier climbing above. Up the
slight incline Alex scrambled like a monkey with the Kid close at his
heels. When about five hundred feet up he stopped and sat down to blow
and rest a bit.
"Say, don't this look like queer mountain climbing to you?" he demanded
of the Kid, resting beside him.
"How so, in what way?" the Kid inquired.
"It's just like going upstairs," explained Alex. "There's holes just in
the very spots where you want to put your hands or feet. Funny, isn't
it?"
The Kid stood up on the ledge and peered up at the holes above him.
"Whew," he whistled. "They haven't just happened there; why, boy, most
of them have been made by a pick axe."
"I know it," said Alex, his face aglow. "Kid, I believe we're on the
trail of that treasure."