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BOBBY BLAKE IN THE FROZEN NORTH
OR
THE OLD ESKIMO’S LAST MESSAGE
BY FRANK A. WARNER
Author of “Bobby Blake at Rockledge School,” “Bobby Blake on
the School Nine,” “Bobby Blake on a Plantation,” etc.
ILLUSTRATED BY
WALTER S. ROGERS
PUBLISHERS
BARSE & CO.
NEW YORK, N. Y. NEWARK, N. J.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright, 1923, by Barse & Co.
Bobby Blake in the Frozen North
Made in the U. S. A.
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CONTENTS
I Caught in the Act
II At Close Quarters
III A Modest Hero
IV Whizzing It Over
V The Winning Hit
VI Circus Thrills
VII A Sudden Shock
VIII Against Heavy Odds
IX Shanghaied!
X In the Depths
XI A Gleam of Light
XII The Lure of Gold
XIII Suspicion
XIV The Midnight Conference
XV Stealthy as Shadows
XVI The Secret Token
XVII Great Risks
XVIII Death Takes a Hand
XIX On Angry Waters
XX The Hail from the Shore
XXI In The Eskimo Hut
XXII The Frozen North
XXIII Balked of Their Prey
XXIV A Terrible Enemy
XXV The Blinding Blizzard
XXVI Mooloo, the Guide
XXVII Finding the Treasure
XXVIII In Imminent Danger
XXIX A Clever Expedient
XXX Homeward Bound
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Bobby Blake in the Frozen North
CHAPTER I
CAUGHT IN THE ACT
“Gee whiz, but that was a hot one!” exclaimed Fred Martin, as he wrung
his hands after throwing back the ball with which he and his chum, Bobby
Blake, were having a little pitching practice on the Rockledge School
campus.
“Had pepper on it, did it?” laughed Bobby, as he gripped the ball in
readiness for another throw.
“It fairly smoked,” commented Sparrow Bangs, who was stretched lazily on
the ground near by. “Bobby, you’ve got speed to burn this season.”
“If he pitches that way against Belden it will be all over except the
shouting,” remarked Mouser Pryde, who was the second baseman of the
Rockledge team.
“Bobby’ll need all he’s got when we tackle those fellows, if what I hear
is true,” put in Billy Bassett. “A fellow was telling me the other day
that they have a couple of new batters on their team who can fairly kill
the ball, while the rest are pretty handy with the stick.”
“I’ll back Bobby against the bunch,” said Howell Purdy loyally. “He’s
beaten them before and he can beat them again.”
“Don’t be too sure,” laughed Bobby. “There’s nothing certain in
baseball, and they’re a pretty husky bunch to stack up against. Whenever
we’ve beaten them we’ve known at least that we’ve been in a fight.”
“We sure have,” agreed Perry Wise, a fat boy who had been nicknamed “Pee
Wee” in sarcastic reference to his size.
“We,” repeated Jimmy Ailshine, in derision. “Where do you get that ‘we’
stuff? You never caught a ball or hit one in your life.”
“Haven’t I always rooted for the team to beat the band?” asked Pee Wee,
in an injured tone. “What would the nine do without somebody to root for
it when the pinch comes? As a rooter, I’m a wonder.”
“Sure,” said Mouser soothingly. “And Shiner is wrong when he says you
never caught a ball. I saw you catch one last winter—a snowball, right
on the end of your nose.”
The boys laughed and Pee Wee glared.
“You fellows stop picking on Pee Wee,” said Billy Bassett. “With all
your kidding, there are some things in which he’s away ahead of you
boobs.”
“Name them,” demanded Fred.
“For instance,” remarked Sparrow incredulously.
“Well,” replied Billy, “he’s more polite than any of you, for one
thing.”
Pee Wee began to look interested, though a little puzzled. Although his
manners were fairly good, as boys go, he had never thought that
politeness was one of his outstanding virtues, nor had any one else
called this fact to his attention.
“How do you make that out?” asked Howell Purdy.
“Prove it,” challenged Mouser.
“All right,” responded Billy. “Here’s the proof. When any of you are
seated in a crowded car where there are ladies standing, what do you
do?”
“Stand up and let a lady sit down,” replied Mouser, while the rest
nodded approval.
“Exactly,” replied Billy. “You stand up and let a lady sit down. And
that’s where Pee Wee has it all over you in politeness. He stands up and
lets three ladies sit down.”
There was a moment of silence while this sank in, and then the boys
broke into a roar of laughter, while Pee Wee looked around for something
to throw at his tormentor, who adroitly skipped behind a tree.
Just at this moment, Mr. Carrier, one of the teachers, came along. He
greeted the boys pleasantly and they responded heartily, for he was a
prime favorite with all of them. The athletic games of the school came
under his special supervision, and he had the gift of imparting his own
vim and enthusiasm to the players. He had been a star himself both in
football and baseball in his college days, and his thorough knowledge of
both great games made him a first-class coach for the Rockledge boys.
Under his tutelage, winning teams had been turned out in the previous
year, and he was eager that his teams should repeat their triumph this
season.
“Practicing up, I see,” he said, with a smile, as he nodded to Bobby.
“Just enough to keep my arm limber,” Bobby replied. “I want to be in
shape for our next big game.”
“And that comes off in less than two weeks now,” rejoined Mr. Carrier.
“I hear that the Belden nine is going great guns in practice and that
the victory they won over Somerset the other day has given them
confidence. They figure, too, that since we’ve had the championship for
some years the time is just about due for them to have their turn. But
we don’t agree with them, do we?” he added, with a twinkle in his eyes.
“No, sir!” agreed Bobby. “They’re not going to carry off the Monatook
League pennant if we can help it.”
“It does look pretty good on the Rockledge grounds, doesn’t it?”
remarked Mr. Carrier, as he cast his eyes up on the flagstaff where the
beautiful banner fluttered in the breeze. “I’m depending on you boys to
keep it there. Don’t forget the practice game to-morrow between the
first and second nines.”
He passed on, and the boys looked after him with respect and admiration.
“He’s a dandy,” commented Sparrow.
“I’ll tell the world he is,” affirmed Mouser. “He’s more like a pal than
a teacher, though he’s a mighty good teacher, at that.”
“Oh, I say, fellows,” called out Billy, slipping out from behind his
tree, though still keeping a wary eye on Pee Wee, “there was a man
downtown this morning putting up posters for a big circus that’s coming
over to Ridgefield in a week or two. From what it said on the posters,
it’s going to be a humdinger.”
“Trying to get us on a string again?” asked Sparrow suspiciously.
“No, honest I ain’t,” asseverated Billy, forgetting his grammar in his
eagerness. “This is straight goods. It’s going to be in Ridgefield a
week from next Friday. Gee, how I’d like to go!”
“Who wouldn’t?” remarked Fred. “But what good does it do us to have it
in Ridgefield? That’s twenty miles away, and you know the doctor won’t
let us go.”
“Maybe it’ll come to Rockledge, too,” put in Howell hopefully.
“No chance,” declared Billy. “I asked the man who was putting up the
posters, and he said that this town wasn’t on the list.”
“That’s too bad,” said Bobby regretfully. “I haven’t been to a circus
for a long time and I sure would like to see it.”
“Like’s no name for it,” chimed in Shiner. “I’m just crazy to see it.
Just think, fellows, the tightrope walkers and the bareback riders, the
acrobats turning somersaults over the elephants, the fellows swinging on
the trapeze and the horizontal bars—”
“And the clowns,” added Billy, as Shiner paused for breath.
“Billy likes the clowns because he can steal all their old chestnuts and
pass them off on us,” was Pee Wee’s vengeful dig.
“But there’s something new in this,” went on Billy, not deigning to
notice Pee Wee’s fling. “They show a real Eskimo band, headed by a chief
named Takyak who has a trained walrus that can do all kinds of stunts. I
never saw anything like that in any circus I’ve ever been to.”
“What’s a walrus?” asked Shiner, who was not very strong on the subject
of natural history. “Something like a shark?”
“No, you silly,” returned Billy, who, fresh from his study of the
posters, had the advantage over his mates. “It looks something like a
seal, only it’s bigger and fatter—oh, it’s as fat as Pee Wee—” Here the
latter gave an indignant snort—“and it’s got big tusks and as much
whiskers as those fellows over in Russia—you know the ones I mean, those
Bolsheviks—and it’s sure the kind of thing I wouldn’t like to meet up an
alley on a dark night, and they say it can do anything but talk, and the
Eskimos had a big fight when they captured it, but now they’ve got it so
tame that it eats out of their hands, and it lives on fish, and it’s got
a bellow that you can hear for a mile and—”
“For the love of Pete, somebody stop him,” cried Fred. “He’s getting
black in the face. You’d think he was a barker for the circus.”
But Billy was not to be stopped altogether, though the current of his
eloquence was changed by a thought that had come to him while he was
talking.
“Say, fellows!” he exclaimed eagerly, “what I said about the Russians
reminded me of a joke!”
“What have we done that we should be punished like this!” moaned Shiner.
“Men have been killed for less crimes than Billy’s,” asserted Mouser.
“But this is a good one,” Billy declared. “It made me laugh when I heard
it, and I know a good joke when I hear one.”
“I don’t believe it,” said Sparrow. “If you’ve ever heard a good one
you’ve never passed it on to us.”
“Billy’s jokes are so poor that they wear rags,” proclaimed Howell.
“Or so old that they’ve got false teeth,” added Fred.
But Billy, undaunted by the general chorus, persisted.
“I’ve got a dime in my pocket,” he began.
“I’ll bet it’s plugged,” put in Pee Wee.
“I have a dime in my pocket,” repeated Billy with dignity, “and I’ll
give it to the fellow that can guess my joke before I can count twenty.
That shows how good I think it is.”
As Billy had calculated, this secured the instant attention of the boys,
for it was nearing the end of the term, pocket money was running low,
and a dime—well, a dime was a dime.
“Let’s see it,” said Sparrow cautiously.
Billy promptly produced it.
“There it is,” he said. “Take a good look at it, for that’s the nearest
any of you will ever get to it. You couldn’t guess this joke in twenty
years let alone twenty seconds.”
“All right,” said Fred impatiently. “Go ahead! Shoot!”
Billy leaned forward impressively.
“What’s the quickest change of nationality on record?” he asked.
Shiner scratched his head in perplexity.
“Come again,” he said. “I don’t get you.”
Billy looked at him in patronizing scorn.
“Why, you poor fish,” he explained, “a change of nationality is when a
man stops being a citizen of one country and becomes a citizen of
another. It’s as if a Frenchman went to England and took the oath of
allegiance to the English king. Instead of being any longer a Frenchman
he’d then be an English subject. Or a Swede might come to this country
and be naturalized here. He’d no longer be a Swede but an American. In
other words, he’d have changed his nationality.”
“Cut it short, Billy,” interrupted Fred. “I want that dime.”
“You won’t get it,” retorted Billy. “Now I’ll put it to you again. To
change a man’s nationality usually takes considerable time. What’s the
shortest time it’s ever been done in? Now I’ll start to count.
One—two—three——”
“I know,” shouted Pee Wee.
Billy, in some alarm, hurried on with his counting.
“Four, five, six, seven,” he rushed along.
“It’s this way,” sputtered Pee Wee, also in a hurry. “It was a man
climbing a greased pole. He went up a Pole and he came down a rushin’.”
Billy, who despite his frantic haste had been able to get up only to
seventeen in the count, turned scarlet.
“That’s right,” he admitted reluctantly. “How did you guess it?”
“Oh, I heard that ages ago,” returned Pee Wee airily. “That joke was old
when Noah went into the Ark. He used to tell it to Ham and Shem and
Japhet when he wanted to put them to sleep.”
Billy was crestfallen, but he was game and brought out the dime, which
Pee Wee promptly stowed away in his pocket.
“Gee,” murmured Shiner, “I don’t see why climbing a pole and coming down
in a hurry makes a man change his nationality.”
At this a roar of laughter went up. Finally it was Pee Wee, elated with
his victory, who explained.
“You silly,” he said, “the man went up a Pole—you know what a Pole
is—and came down a capital R-u-s-s-i-a-n, Russian. Now do you see?”
“Oh,” answered Shiner, crestfallen.
“Got any more jokes, Billy?” Pee Wee asked politely. “If you have, bring
them out and I’ll guess them at the same price.”
Billy tried to think of a suitable retort, but the financial calamity
that had come upon him had paralyzed, for the moment, his gift of
repartee.
“Never mind, Billy,” laughed Bobby, clapping him on the shoulder. “You
can’t always put it over. And, anyway, Pee Wee’s going to spend that
dime to treat the bunch and you’ll have your share of the doughnuts.”
“Sure thing,” said Pee Wee generously. “I can get ten doughnuts for a
dime, and I can’t eat more than eight of them. The other two you fellows
can divide up among yourselves.”
“Don’t give things away so recklessly, or I can see where you’ll be
going to the poorhouse in your old age,” chaffed Fred.
“He’ll never live to be old,” put in Shiner. “He’ll die early from
enlargement of the heart.”
“Maybe he’ll strain a point and give us three,” suggested Mouser
hopefully. “But, anyway, let’s go down to the store and get them now
while Pee Wee still has the dime.”
“It’s a pretty long walk,” objected Pee Wee. “And what with that stone
bruise on my foot and the way I’ve been working—”
“That’s right!” observed Sparrow. “We forgot all about that stone
bruise. It isn’t fair to make poor Pee Wee go all that way. He can give
us the dime and we’ll go down and get the doughnuts and bring him back
his share.”
This appealed to all but Pee Wee, who had well-grounded fears that they
would bring back his share inside of them.
“I guess I can make it,” he said, getting heavily to his feet. “But
let’s take our time. There’s no use going at it as if we were running a
Marathon.”
He led the way with the air of a monarch followed by his retainers, and
not one of them stayed behind, for the lure of the doughnut was too
strong to be resisted.
“Let’s take the short cut down the school lane,” suggested Fred, and as
this met with general approval they turned off into a lane that led down
past the private orchard of Dr. Raymond, the head of the school.
They had not gone more than a hundred yards when Bobby gave an
exclamation.
“Look at that big touring car at the side of the road,” he ejaculated,
indicating a powerful looking automobile that was standing under the
shadow of some trees close to the fence that skirted the orchard.
“What’s it doing there, I wonder,” remarked Fred. “This isn’t a public
road, and I never before saw an automobile in it, except the doctor’s
own car.”
“Maybe it belongs to some friends who have come to call upon him,”
hazarded Shiner.
“Or somebody who switched off into the lane by mistake,” guessed
Sparrow.
As the chums drew nearer they could see that the car was empty with the
exception of the driver. He was a rough-looking fellow with a coarse,
mottled face, shifty eyes and generally uncouth appearance. His cap was
drawn down over his low forehead and a half-smoked cigarette dangled
loosely from his lips.
“Looks like a tough customer, doesn’t he?” murmured Fred, in a low voice
to Mouser, who was next to him.
“He sure does,” returned the latter. “No friends of the doctor would
have a fellow like that to drive for them.”
Bobby had given one quick glance at the driver and then his eyes roved
over to the orchard. What he saw gave him a start.
“Look, fellows!” he cried. “Those fellows are robbing the doctor’s
orchard! And they’ve tackled that prize thousand-dollar tree with the
early apples!”
He made a rush for the fence with his comrades close behind him.