HER GREAT DISCOVERY
Of all the girls in the Fresh-Dough Club, Florence liked Alene Bowman
best. Alene was quiet and, for a girl of the North, very modest. She was
greatly interested in the social events of the season and especially in
the annual dog race.
“There’s one thing I’d like to ask you,” Florence said to her, the day
after her return from that trip up the coast. “What do you think would
happen if a girl entered the race?”
“What?” Alene stared for a space of ten seconds. “Why, nothing, I guess.
This is the North, you know. You thinking of going in?”
“No-o,” Florence spoke slowly. “Of course, I wouldn’t go in against
Jodie, unless—”
“Unless you felt sure he couldn’t win and that perhaps you could,” Alene
suggested.
“Yes—yes, that’s just it!” the large girl exclaimed. “It means a great
deal to you young folks, that race.”
“A terrible lot.”
“And if I should go in and win—”
“You’d be the girl of the hour. Then, why, we’d ride you in triumph on
our shoulders.”
“Good, broad shoulders,” Florence smiled. “And you don’t think of me as
an outsider?”
“Certainly not. Anyone related to Pop Kennedy just couldn’t be an
outsider. Besides, you’re a member of the club, aren’t you?”
“Thanks—I—I just sort of wanted to know. I’ll be going.” Florence turned
away.
“No. Wait. There’s something father told me last night. You pass it on to
Jodie if I don’t see him first. Tell him to keep a good watch on his
dogs. There are things they do, you know, dope them or something, that
slows them up.”
“But that old-timer rival of his, Smitty, wouldn’t do that?” Florence was
shocked.
“No. Not Smitty. He’s a real sport. Win fair or not at all. So are the
others going in, Scot Jordan and Sinrock Charlie. They’ll play fair.”
“Then what—?”
“There are some foreigners, quite a lot of them, all through the North,
Syrians, Russians, and Japs. They are gamblers by trade. They’re getting
up books on the race. They’re gambling heavily on Smitty to win. And
father says there’s nothing they won’t do.”
“All right, I’ll tell Jodie.”
“That,” Florence thought, as she made her way home, “is all the more
reason why we should have another team in the field. But where is it to
come from?” Where indeed? In these days when both passengers and freight
are carried by airplanes, really fine dog teams are becoming all too rare
in the North. This Florence had learned from Tom Kennedy’s own lips.
Strangely enough, as if an answer to a prayer, in the van of a storm, the
very team blew into town that same afternoon. Florence first saw them as
they came tumbling over a high snow bank at the outskirts of the city.
The sled as well as its driver piled up with the dogs. When Florence had
helped them to right themselves, she found herself staring in admiration
at a beautiful Eskimo girl, garbed in a handsome fawn skin parka, and at
the grandest team of gray Siberian wolfhounds she had ever seen.
“Your dogs?” she managed to ask.
“No—me,” the girl showed all her fine teeth in a smile. “My brother’s
dogs. Il-ay-ok my brother.”
“You mean Mr. Il-ay-ok is your brother?” Like a flash Florence saw the
little man dressed in white man’s clothes on the dock at Anchorage.
“Il-ay-ok my brother,” the girl nodded.
“And these are his dogs?”
“Yes! Sure! Sure! His dogs. You wan-to ride?”
“Yes—yes, I’d love to.”
When Florence had found what she wanted she was a fast worker. This girl
At-a-tak, she learned, had driven in from Cape Prince of Wales. She would
stay in Nome with friends until her brother returned by airplane from his
journey. Yes, she would be pleased to loan her brother’s dog team to the
big white girl until they were needed. How long would that be? She did
not know.
Florence had learned from her friends at Nome that Il-ay-ok had gone on
an important commission in the interest of his people. She knew, too,
that it had to do with reindeer. The Bowmans had told her this much. They
had assured her also that, though they were large herders of reindeer,
they were entirely in sympathy with Il-ay-ok and his purposes.
“Those men who are trying to edge in on the reindeer business,” Mr.
Bowman had said with a gesture of disgust, “are rank outsiders. They know
nothing of native problems and care less. They will rob the people of
their last reindeer if they can.”
Knowing all this, Florence, whose sympathy went out freely to all simple,
kindly people, wished Mr. Il-ay-ok a successful conclusion of his mission
and a speedy journey home. For all that, she could not help hoping that
he might not arrive until after the race was over, for now, with this
wonderful team at her command, she was resolved to spend many hours each
day on the trail and, if occasion seemed to warrant it, to venture in
where no girl had dared venture before.
Two hours later she was again at Alene Bowman’s door. “Don’t tell a
soul!” she implored, after she had told how she had come into possession
of the gray team. “Not a single soul.”
“Not a single soul,” Alene echoed. “Cross my heart and hope to die.” And
Alene could keep a secret.
Every day after that Florence, behind her superb team, went for a “ride.”
Each time she purposely drove through a well-populated section of the
city. Always she wore a heavy deer skin parka and remained as far as eyes
could see her seated on her sled with her team trotting along at a
leisurely pace.
All was changed when at last a hill had hidden her from view. Leaping
from her sled, she threw off the heavy parka, drew on a thin calico one
and a squirrel skin cap and, seizing the handles of the sled, screamed:
“Mush! You mush!” This shout acted on the dog team like an electric
shock. They shot away with the speed of the wind.
They were wise, were these dogs. Not four days had passed when her shout
was no longer needed. Once the last house had disappeared from sight,
Gray Chief, her dog leader, began cocking his ears. The instant her
costume change was complete, without a word from the young driver, he was
away.
“We’ll win,” she hissed more than once through tight-shut teeth. “Win it
we must.”
At times she found Jodie looking at her in a strange way. Did he suspect
her purpose? Did he imagine she would enter the race against him if his
chances were good? She was very fond of Jodie. Not for all the world
would she offend him. But she would not tell him of her plans, at least
not for the present.
“Grandfather,” she said once when the two were alone, “is there a time
limit for entering the race?”
“Entries must be in at noon of the day before the race,” he replied.
“Good!” the word escaped unbidden from her lips. He gave her a strange
look, but said never a word.
That same day he told her the story of his lost mine, told how he and his
partner had worked their way back, back, back into the mountains, how,
having found traces of gold, they had built a cabin and how they had
worked day after day until the strike came, when they found nuggets as
large as marbles, a very few nuggets but promise of many more.
“That very night,” his voice dropped, “Joe was taken sick. It was
serious. I made a sled and hauled him out. That was a battle. I froze,
starved, and fought my way and,” his voice dropped, “and lost. Partner
died. Never found the mine again.”
“Perhaps someone else found it,” she suggested.
“Nope,” there was a suggestion of mystery in his voice. “We hid it. Joe
and I hid that mine.”
After that day, more than ever before, the girl wanted to go in search of
that mine. Go where? Ah! that was the question.
The answer came two days later and in a rather strange manner. A young
scientist, a member of the Geological Survey, showed her a series of
enlarged photographs taken from the air.
“They cover hundreds of square miles back there in the great unknown,” he
explained. “See! Rivers, lakes, tundra, mountains, everything.”
“Everything!” the girl had been struck with an idea. “Loan them to me for
an hour.”
“Right,” the young man agreed. “Two hours if you like.”
Fifteen minutes later she tore into Tom Kennedy’s cabin acting like a mad
person. Pushing a table into the kitchen, throwing chairs on the bed in
the small back room, she at last cleared the living room floor. Then,
while her grandfather stared she thumb-tacked sheet after sheet of paper
to the floor until there was no longer room to stand.
“There,” she panted. “There it all is, mountains, lakes, rivers, tundra,
everything. Here is Nome,” she pointed. “There is Sawtooth Mountain. Now,
where was your mine?”
For a full quarter hour, as the tin clock in the corner ticked the
minutes away, the gray-haired prospector’s eyes moved back and forth
across that map, then, with a sudden gasp, he exclaimed:
“There it is! Right there. Well up on the middle fork of that river. I’d
swear to it if it was the last word I ever said. Girl, you’re a wonder!”
Suddenly he threw his long arms about her and kissed her on the cheek.
“Soon as that race is over we’re off,” he shouted, fairly beside himself
with joy.
“Yes,” she agreed, “the race and then the long, long trail. Mountains,
rivers, sunshine, storms, camp beneath a rocky ledge or in the midst of
dark spruce trees. On and on, and then—”
“The mine,” he murmured. There was new fire in his fine old eyes.