SANDY STEELE ADVENTURES

Black Treasure
Danger at Mormon Crossing
Stormy Voyage
Fire at Red Lake
Secret Mission to Alaska
Troubled Waters

Sandy Steele Adventures
SECRET MISSION
TO
ALASKA

BY ROGER BARLOW

SIMON AND SCHUSTER
New York, 1959

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
INCLUDING THE RIGHT OF REPRODUCTION
IN WHOLE OR IN PART IN ANY FORM
COPYRIGHT © 1959 BY SIMON AND SCHUSTER, INC.
PUBLISHED BY SIMON AND SCHUSTER, INC.
ROCKEFELLER CENTER, 630 FIFTH AVENUE
NEW YORK 20, N. Y.

FIRST PRINTING

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NUMBER: 59-13882
MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
BY H. WOLFF BOOK MFG. CO., INC., NEW YORK

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE 1 [Off to Alaska] 9 2 [A Hint of Trouble] 14 3 [A Mysterious Intruder] 26 4 [Charley Works Out the Huskies] 37 5 [Christmas in the Wilderness] 49 6 [Attack from the Air] 59 7 [The Big Race] 66 8 [Lost in a Blizzard] 80 9 [Trapped in an Icy Tomb] 98 10 [Down the Chilkoot Chute to Victory] 109 11 [Off to Hunt Kodiak Bears] 121 12 [Treed by a Wounded Bear] 135 13 [The Ghost Mine] 156 14 [The Plot Revealed] 167 15 [Final Victory] 185

CHAPTER ONE
Off to Alaska

Sandy Steele twisted his lanky six-foot frame in the cramped airplane seat, stretching his long legs out in the aisle. Yawning, he glanced out of the small, round window beside him. Although it was daylight now, the ground was completely hidden by a layer of dense clouds that stretched away to the horizon on all sides like fluffy marshmallow topping. The sound of the motors was a dull, monotonous throbbing in his ears.

Sandy leaned forward and ruffled the black crew cut that was just visible over the top of the seat ahead of him. “Hey, Jerry, you awake?”

“Yeah,” a voice mumbled sleepily, “I’m awake. Are we going to land yet?”

“I don’t know.” Sandy looked across the aisle at his father, who was just lighting his pipe. “How about it, Dad?”

Dr. John Steele studied his watch thoughtfully. “Oh, I’d say about another half hour.”

The steward, an army corporal, walked back from the forward compartment with a tray of paper cups. “Coffee, anyone?”

The steaming-hot black liquid cleared the cobwebs out of Sandy’s head, and he began to look forward with excited anticipation to their arrival in Canada.

“Will Professor Crowell meet us at the airport?” he asked his father.

Dr. Steele nodded. “Yes. Then we’ll drive back to his place and pick up his dog team.”

Jerry James’s granite-jawed face appeared over the back of the seat as he knelt, facing Sandy. “What’s this about dogs?”

“Berkley Crowell breeds sled dogs as a hobby,” Dr. Steele explained. “Eskimo huskies. He’s taking his prize team up to Alaska to compete in the annual race from Whitehorse to Skagway.”

“Hey, that sounds like fun,” Jerry said.

“As a matter of fact,” the doctor went on, “that will be one of your major jobs on this expedition. You boys will drive the truck with the dogs and help the professor with their care and feeding.”

Dr. Steele turned his attention back to his book as Sandy and Jerry got into a conversation with the young corporal who had served the coffee.

“Both you fellows from California?” the corporal asked. “Whereabouts?”

“Valley View,” Sandy told him. “That’s near San Diego, but more inland.”

“I have a cousin in the Navy,” the corporal said. “He was stationed at San Diego. Nice country.” He grinned. “You guys are going to find the climate of Alaska a lot different than California.”

Jerry shivered. “You’re telling us!”

“You go to school in Valley View?” the corporal asked.

“High school,” Sandy told him. “We’re both juniors.”

“How long are you going to be in Alaska?”

“About three weeks, I guess. It’s the Christmas vacation, and my dad got our principal to let us take an extra week on account of the educational value of this expedition we’re going on.”

The corporal looked interested. “What kind of an expedition is it?”

“My dad is a United States government geologist,” Sandy explained. “This expedition is part of a long-range Canadian-American project to chart glacial movements during the Ice Age. We’ll be collecting soil, rock and ore samples on our way through western Canada and Alaska.”

“Sounds like fun,” the corporal said. “You’ll get a kick out of Alaska. It’s a great place. I’ve flown up there a couple of times.”

“What’s our forty-ninth state like, anyway?” Jerry asked curiously. “We bought it from the Indians for twenty-four dollars, didn’t we?”

Sandy and the corporal laughed. “That was Manhattan Island, you dope!” Sandy said. “We bought Alaska from the Russians for about $7,000,000.”

“It’s twice as big as Texas,” the corporal told them, “but the population is only a little over 200,000. And most of these people have only been there since the end of World War Two.”

“I guess we never would have realized just how valuable Alaska is if the Japanese hadn’t tried to attack us across the Aleutian Islands,” Sandy said.

At that moment, a buzzer sounded and the green light at the front of the cabin began to flash. “Oh-oh,” the corporal said. “Looks like we’re getting ready to land. Fasten your seat belts, folks.” He turned and hurried forward.

Dr. Steele stood up and removed his mackinaw from the overhead rack. As he did so, a big, black, ominous-looking .45 Colt automatic slipped out of one of the pockets and crashed to the floor.

The boys’ eyes widened and Sandy blurted out in shocked surprise, “Where did you get that, Dad?”

Dr. Steele retrieved the gun hastily and stuck it back into his pocket. “Oh—er—something a friend advised me to bring with me. In case we get a chance to do any hunting,” he added.

Sandy frowned. “Hunting with an automatic! That’s crazy, Dad. Wouldn’t a rifle have been more practical?”

A thin smile spread the doctor’s lips. “I suppose you’re right. I should have consulted you before I got it.”

“Just where did you get it, Dad?” Sandy asked suspiciously. “The Colt .45 automatic is an official U.S. Army sidearm.”

There was just the faintest trace of irritation in Dr. Steele’s voice when he answered. “All these questions! You’re beginning to sound like your Aunt Vivian.... Look, we had better fasten our safety belts. We’re going to land.”

“Sure, Dad, sure,” Sandy said. There was something uncommonly mysterious about his father’s behavior, and it worried him.

CHAPTER TWO
A Hint of Trouble

The big U.S. army transport touched down at the R.C.A.F. military airstrip at Fort St. John, British Columbia, shortly after dawn on December 23. Dr. Steele and his party were groggy after spending a restless night of fitful slumber on the hard, uncomfortable canvas seats that were slung along the walls of the plane’s huge, drafty cabin. But the first bite of the dry-ice bitter air of the Canadian winter snapped them wide-awake and alert.

“Wow!” Jerry exclaimed, bundled up like a bear in his hooded parka. “It must be at least one thousand degrees below zero.”

Dr. Steele smiled. “You think this is cold? Just wait until we get farther up north.”

Lou Mayer, Dr. Steele’s assistant, groaned. “When does the next plane leave for California?” He broke into a fit of uncontrollable shudders. A dark, mild-mannered young man in his late twenties, Lou had been born in Texas and spent half of his life in Southern California. He consequently had little tolerance for the cold.

Sandy grinned superciliously. “You guys should have been smart like me. I wore my long red flannels.”

“That’s a good point,” Dr. Steele said. “In this country, proper clothing is essential to survival. It’s as vital as sufficient food and drink. You must start conditioning yourselves to think about it.”

Abruptly, they all became aware that Jerry was staring with hypnotic fixity toward the edge of the landing field.

“Hey!” Sandy asked. “What gives with you? What are you looking at?”

Jerry’s eyes were glazed. Dumbly he raised one arm and pointed at the mountains of snow banked at the sides of the field. Finally he managed to mumble, “Snow. That’s snow?”

“Of course it is. You act as if you never saw it before.”

Jerry nodded, wide-eyed. “I never did.”

Sandy and the two men broke out laughing. “Well, this is an occasion,” Dr. Steele said. “I promise you you will have your fill of it before we’re through with this trip.”

Jerry was flabbergasted. “I’ve seen pictures of it, but I just never realized there could be so much of it in one place. Man! That one drift must be twenty feet high. Can you imagine waking up some morning in Valley View and finding that in your front yard, Sandy?”

“Well, I haven’t seen too much of it,” Sandy admitted. “But I’ve been up to the Northwest with Dad a few times.”

At that moment a jeep screeched to a stop nearby, its exhaust spewing out smoke like a chimney. The corporal at the wheel leaned out and yelled to them. “Dr. Steele here?” After the geologist identified himself, the corporal told them to pile into the jeep. “There’s a gent waiting for you at headquarters. A detail will be right out to unload your baggage.”

“How do you keep these runways free of ice?” Dr. Steele shouted to the driver above the loud, rowdy roar of the little jeep motor.

“Sweep ’em with giant vacuum cleaners regularly,” the corporal replied. “When it gets really rough we melt the ice with flame throwers.”

Professor Berkley Crowell was waiting for them close by the glowing steel-drum coal stove that reinforced the electric heaters in the big quonset-hut headquarters. “You can’t beat the old-fashioned way,” he said with a smile, toasting his fingers in the shimmering heat waves that radiated from the top of the steel drum.

The professor was a slight, stooped, very British-looking man in his middle fifties. He had a thin weatherbeaten face, a sharp nose and a close-cropped mustache. His deep-set blue eyes were warm and full of good humor.

“Well,” he said, upon being introduced to Sandy and Jerry, “I understand that you boys will be helping me with my dog team.”

“We’ll do the best we can, sir,” Sandy told him.

“They won’t give you too much trouble,” the professor said. “Titan—that’s my lead dog—he practically runs the whole show himself. Possesses human intelligence, that animal.”

“When do we get to see them?” Jerry asked.

“As soon as we get back to my ranch. I’m situated about ten miles down the Alaska Highway, toward Dawson Creek. That’s the southern terminus of the highway.”

When they had finished the steaming mugs of hot coffee served up by the flying officers’ mess, Professor Crowell and his party climbed aboard the big station wagon parked in the drive and drove away from the air base.

The Alaska Highway was a broad, smooth, gravel-topped road hewed through some of the thickest forests and most rugged terrain on the North American continent. Now the gravel was topped by a thick crust of snow.

“A miracle of our century,” Professor Crowell explained as they drove. “Built in just eight months by your amazing U.S. Army engineers in 1943, when the Japanese forces were threatening the Aleutian Island chain. It was a lifesaving artery to Alaska and a vital chain to our western air bases. Sixteen hundred and seventy-one miles. Just imagine!”

An auto filled with shouting children whizzed past them, traveling in the opposite direction. It was weighted down with valises and bundles strapped to the roof and fenders.

“Where are they going?” Jerry inquired.

“Pioneer settlers for your glorious forty-ninth state,” Professor Crowell answered. “There’s a steady stream of them. Did you know that the population of Alaska has tripled since World War Two?”

“It sort of gives you goose pimples,” Sandy said. “It’s almost as if you turned back the clock a hundred years.”

“The last frontier of the United States,” Dr. Steele remarked. “On this planet, at least.”

“When will we be leaving, Professor Crowell?” Lou Mayer asked.

The professor glanced down at his wrist watch. “It’s eight o’clock now. I estimate we’ll be on our way shortly after noon. I want you fellows to get a hot meal into you first. Then we’ll load the truck and station wagon.” He looked around at Dr. Steele. “We’ll pick up your equipment at Fort St. John on the way back.”

Jerry was fascinated by the high banks of snow on the shoulders of the road. “Boy, I wonder how they keep this thing open. Back in the States we’re always reading about whole towns being cut off by a measly two feet of snow.”

“Even big cities like New York,” Sandy chimed in.

The professor smiled. “That’s because cities like New York aren’t prepared for heavy snowfalls. Up here, we expect it. Why, I bet a little village like Dawson Creek has more snow equipment than most big cities on the eastern seaboard of the United States. Along the Alaska Highway, for instance, there are one hundred and twenty-five weather stations alone, and almost as many maintenance stations. No, you stand a better chance of getting marooned on the Pennsylvania Turnpike than you do on this road.”

Professor Crowell’s ranch house was located on a cutoff about a quarter of a mile from the main highway. It was a sprawling frame building with a large barn at the back of the property and completely surrounded by a thick spruce forest.

The professor, a widower, had twin daughters, Judy and Jill, who kept house for him. Their domestic efficiency made them seem older than their seventeen years. The girls were blond and blue-eyed and very pretty, and Jerry couldn’t look at them without stammering and blushing. It was obvious he was smitten with the twins.

The Crowell household also included a middle-aged French couple, the Duprés; Henri took care of the livestock and his wife, Marie, did the cooking. Then there was Tagish Charley, who took care of the kennels.

Tagish Charley was a full-blooded Indian. He stood 6′ 4″ tall, weighed 230 pounds and was as lithe as a panther. His hair was the flat black color of charcoal, and his skin was the texture of ancient parchment. Charley could have been any age, from 40 to 400. He spoke English well enough, when he spoke, which was very seldom; and he said what he had to say in as few words as possible.

“Charley is economical with his money and his speech,” Professor Crowell said when he introduced him to his guests. “He’s as stoic as a cigar-store Indian.”

Sandy and Jerry hit it off with Charley from the start. While the geologists went over the last-minute details of their trip in the professor’s study, Charley took the boys out to the kennel at one side of the barn. A dozen husky dogs were frolicking in the snow inside a wire enclosure. As soon as they saw Charley they all rushed over to the gate and piled up in a seething mass of yelping, snarling, twisting fur, leaping up against the chain link fence and falling back on top of each other. It was a wild melee.

“Wow!” Jerry exclaimed. “They look as if they’d eat you alive.”

The Indian grunted. “No hurt. They want to play.”

Jerry looked dubious. “I bet they play rough.”

The Eskimo dogs were handsome animals. In reality they weren’t particularly large; probably they weighed about 75 to 80 pounds and stood 18 inches high at the shoulder; but with their broad chests, thick necks and massive heads they looked enormous. Their great thick coats varied in color from black-and-white to slate-gray, solidly and in combinations of all three. They had powerful wolflike muzzles, sharp ears and slanting eyes.

Tagish Charley opened the gate and motioned the boys to follow him into the pen. The dogs barked and leaped around the Indian, nipping his trousers and mittens playfully. They ignored the boys. There was one exception. Standing off to one side was a big, solid-black husky with a white mask across his eyes and upper muzzle. By far the largest dog of the lot—Sandy estimated his weight to be at least 100 pounds—he seemed to regard the antics of his fellows with regal aloofness. Finally his eyes turned solemnly on the boys and he started toward them.

“Charley!” Jerry yelled, grabbing Sandy’s arm nervously. “He’s charging us.”

Sandy laughed. “Go on, you sissy. His tail is wagging. That means he wants to be friends.”

“You know that, and I know that,” said Jerry, edging backward, “but does he know that?”

“That Black Titan,” Charley said. “Lead dog. Best husky in all the North.”

As the big dog nuzzled against his leg, Sandy leaned down and stroked his broad, glossy head. “Nice feller. Good boy.... Hey, where did you get that lump on your skull, Titan?”

“He save professor’s life,” Charley declared without emotion. “Bad man hit him on head with club.”

“Bad man! When?” the boys exclaimed in a chorus.

“Five, six nights back. Titan hear prowler. Jump over fence. Man open window, climb into professor’s room, choke professor. Titan jump through window, save him.”

“What happened to the burglar? Did they catch him?” Sandy asked excitedly.

“No. He club Titan, dive through window into snow. Get away with dog team.”

“Gee,” Jerry said. “Even up here they got characters like that. Only instead of a getaway car, they use dog sleds.”

“Did he get away with anything valuable?” Sandy asked.

The Indian’s brown face seemed to grow even darker. “He no come to rob money.”

“What do you mean?” Sandy asked.

Charley shrugged. “Many strange things happen here this year. Professor sleep with gun under his pillow.”

Sandy and Jerry exchanged wondering looks. “Now who’d be out to get a nice old geezer like the professor?” Jerry wanted to know.

Sandy was thoughtful. “I don’t know, Jerry. I don’t know. But I have a feeling we’re going to find a lot more excitement on this trip than we bargained for.”

“I agree with you,” a terse female voice said from behind them.

Surprised, Sandy whirled around to find Judy Crowell standing in the open gateway. Bundled up in ski pants, mackinaw and high boots, she might have been a boy, except for the mass of golden hair sticking out in tufts from beneath her wool cap.

“Charley’s right,” she said. “A lot of strange things have been happening around here during the last few months. Ever since Dad spent a week in Ottawa this fall, he’s been a different man. He’s lost weight. He can’t sleep or eat. And—” she shivered—“he always carries a pistol with him. He’s afraid of something—or someone. But when Jill and I ask him, he just laughs and says we’ve been seeing too many American motion pictures.”

Sandy felt cold prickles creep up his back. “It’s funny. My dad brought along a gun with him too.”

Jerry whistled. “What’s it all mean, Sandy?”

“I don’t know, pal. But I don’t like it.”

Still surrounded by his ring of canine admirers, Tagish Charley addressed Judy Crowell. “You no worry about your papa, Miss Judy. Charley take good care of him. Bad fellers come around, me break ’em up like firewood.” He made a twisting motion in the air with his two huge fists.

For some reason Sandy felt relieved. “I didn’t know you were coming with us, Charley.”

Charley’s serious, expressionless face altered for a fleeting instant in a suggestion of a smile. “I just decide now.”

CHAPTER THREE
A Mysterious Intruder

The little caravan headed north on the Alaska Highway about 12:20 P.M. Professor Crowell, Dr. Steele and Lou Mayer led the way in the big station wagon, which was loaded down with scientific equipment and supplies. Sandy, Jerry and Tagish Charley followed in a surplus U.S. Army six-by-six truck. The boys and the Indian all rode in the roomy cab, with Sandy at the wheel. The back of the truck, roofed with a heavy canvas top, had been converted into a comfortable compartment for the professor’s seven prize huskies. Here, also, were the big dog sled, a pyramidal tent, sleeping bags, cooking utensils and a Coleman stove.

As Professor Crowell pointed out, there were tourist camps and aid stations all along the highway, but sometimes it was more convenient to set up one’s own camp at the side of the road. Particularly in winter, travelers had to be prepared for emergencies.

Both vehicles were equipped with heavy-duty tire chains on all wheels, plus oversized snow tires, and they rode smoothly and firmly across the hard-packed snow surface of the highway.

As the afternoon deepened into an early dusk, the temperature plummeted, and the chill penetrated the cab of the truck, even though the heater was going full blast. Sandy doubled up his hands into fists inside his mittens and wriggled his feet inside his fur-lined boots to stimulate his circulation.

“I’m warm as toast except for my fingers and toes,” he said.

Jerry fingered his nose gingerly. “My old schnozzola is getting numb.”

Tagish Charley, who was taking his turn at the wheel, patted his stomach. “Belly say soon time to stop and eat.”

Jerry yawned and looked at the dashboard clock. “Three-thirty,” he announced. “We’ve been on the road for about three hours. How far have we come?”

Sandy studied the speedometer. “A little over one hundred and ten miles.”

“That’s pretty good,” Jerry said. “We’re averaging almost forty per.”

A little while later they passed a river, and now Charley turned the headlights on. Out of nowhere, it seemed, thousands of tiny snowflakes swirled suddenly into the yellow cones of light.

“It’s snowing!” Jerry exclaimed.

Sandy surveyed the wilderness on both sides anxiously. “I’d hate to spend the night out here in a blizzard.”

“We stop soon,” Charley assured him.

The words were scarcely out of his mouth when they rounded a curve and came upon a little settlement set back in a clearing in a pine grove. It consisted of two large quonset huts and three small log cabins. The warm glow of lights in the small windows of the buildings gave Sandy a feeling of well-being. The station wagon slowed down, tooted twice with its horn and swerved off the highway into the circular drive that had been plowed up to the entrance of the main building. As the truck’s headlights swept across the front of the other larger quonset hut, they could see that it had big sliding doors that allowed one entire wall to open up like an airplane hangar. And as the lights probed the interior of the hut, they could make out a neat two-engine plane mounted on skis. The brief glimpse also revealed a big bulldozer plow and other snow-fighting machinery.

“Road crew,” Charley told the boys. “They good fellers. We eat good, drink good and sleep good.”

“You were so right, Charley,” Jerry said later, as he pushed himself away from the big plank table after sharing a hearty meal of roast lamb, fried potatoes, home-made rolls and apple pie with Superintendent MacKensie and his maintenance gang. “I never ate so good.” He polished off a pint mug of milk that was half cream and sighed. “Or drank so good either.”

Superintendent MacKensie, a big florid-faced man, tugged at one side of his blond handlebar mustache. “Here now, you’re not finished, are you?” he asked.

Jerry patted the round swell of his stomach. “If I ate another mouthful, I’d burst, sir.”

“That’s a shame,” MacKensie said solemnly. “Now Cooky’s feelings will be hurt and he’ll make you wash the dishes.”

A swarthy giant of a man at the far end of the table pounded the planks with hamlike fists. “By gar, I weel!” he roared in mock anger. “You no like Frenchy’s cooking?”

Everyone laughed as Jerry looked around uncertainly.

Dr. Steele patted his mouth with a napkin. “As Jerry so aptly put it, Frenchy, ‘We never ate so good.’”

“We’re happy you enjoyed it, Doctor,” Superintendent MacKensie said. “Now if you’d like to go into the other room and toast your feet by the hearth, I’ll have one of the lads stir up that fire in your cabin.”

“An excellent suggestion,” Professor Crowell agreed.

With the exception of a half dozen men of the road crew who had some tasks to attend to, they all retired to the large, comfortably furnished recreation room where an enormous stone fireplace almost covered one wall. Sandy, Jerry and Lou Mayer sat cross-legged directly in front of the blazing logs, on a thick bearskin robe that was spread-eagled on the floor.

“Man!” Jerry whispered in an awed voice, lifting the huge head and inspecting the gleaming fangs that were still frightening even in death. “I think if I ever ran into one of these babies I’d just roll over and die before he laid a paw on me.”

Lou Mayer poked one of the clawed forepaws with his toe. “Well, it’s a sure bet you’d die if he ever did lay one of those paws on you. They’re as big as dinner plates.”

Superintendent MacKensie, slouched in an old-fashioned rocker, sucked his pipe gravely. “I’ve seen them kill a horse with one swipe.”

“You’ve seen them?” Sandy asked.

MacKensie smiled reminiscently. “As a matter of fact that fellow did kill my horse. I was hunting with a party up on Kodiak Island. I blundered around a rock right into the beggar. He rose up on his hind legs, caught my horse with one blow in the choppers and that was it. I managed to jump free. Then I pumped five shots into him. They might as well have been darts. He would have got me for sure if the guide hadn’t dropped him with a brain shot.”

“Powerful beasts,” Professor Crowell acknowledged. “The Roman Emperor Nero used to pit bears against lions in the arena. And frequently they killed the lions.”

“It’s a lucky thing we did bring all those guns along—” Jerry began, than caught himself as Sandy and Lou Mayer stiffened visibly. “Well, it’s a good idea with mankillers like this running loose,” he finished lamely.

Superintendent MacKensie laughed. “So you expect to do some hunting while you’re up north, do you?” he said to Professor Crowell. He turned to Dr. Steele. “Of course, the customs officials plugged up the barrels of your weapons, didn’t they?”

“Yes, they did,” Dr. Steele said emphatically. Speaking directly to Sandy and Jerry, he explained. “You see, the Canadians don’t want visitors to shoot up their game preserves, and quite rightly so. When we cross the border into Alaska, the officials will remove the seals from the barrels. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir,” Sandy mumbled, looking quickly away into the embers. He was stunned. Those automatics weren’t plugged up. He had never heard his father deliberately tell a lie before.

Unaware of the tension that had mushroomed up, MacKensie stretched. “I’d better be getting back to the radio shack and see what’s come in from the weather stations on this storm. If she looks bad, I’ll have to keep a crew on alert. Any time you gentlemen feel like sacking in, go to it. Your cabin should be warm now. It’s small, but cozy. There are six bunk beds, so it won’t be too crowded.”

“Where’s Charley?” Sandy asked, suddenly aware that the Indian was not in the room.

“Right after supper he went outside to get your dogs bedded down,” one of the crewmen told him.

Professor Crowell smiled. “He treats them like children, and they love it. Actually, though, all those huskies need for a bed is a soft snowdrift.”

“They like to sleep in snow?” Jerry asked incredulously. “Don’t they freeze?”

“No, once they tuck in their paws and stick their noses under their tails, they’re ready for anything. Have you noticed their coats? Double thick. Underneath that heavy outside fur there’s a short woolly undercoat. The fact is they’re probably more comfortable sleeping outside than next to a roaring fire.”

Lou Mayer held his hands up to the flames. “We have nothing in common.”

After MacKensie left, the other maintenance men began to drift off to bed. The snow was coming down very hard, and they faced the prospect of a long, hard day battling the drifts.

About nine o’clock, Sandy yawned and stretched. “What do you say we turn in, pal?” he said to Jerry.

“I’m with you,” Jerry replied promptly.

The boys looked inquiringly at the older men. “You two run along,” Dr. Steele told them. “We’ll finish our pipes first.”

Sandy and Jerry dug their mackinaws and mittens out of a heap of clothing on the long table in the vestibule and slipped on their boots.

“It’s only a hundred-yard walk,” Sandy admitted, “but at thirty below zero it’s worth the trouble.”

“Amen,” Jerry agreed, wrapping his wool muffler around his lantern jaw.

The boys stepped out the back door of the big hut and followed the path leading back to the cabins. Ten feet away from the building, the wind-whipped grains of ice and snow closed in on them like a white curtain, blotting out their vision. If it had not been for the clearly defined path, they would have been helpless.

“You could get lost in your own back yard in this stuff,” Jerry gasped. “Yipes!” he shouted as he blundered off the path into a snowdrift. “Where’s the St. Bernards?”

Sandy took his arm and guided him back on the path. Finally, a dark outline with a faint square of light in the center of it loomed up before them.

“Here we are,” Sandy shouted above the wind. “Home at last.”

“If only the boys back at Valley View High could see us now,” Jerry yelled in his ear. “Wouldn’t it be something to drop that Pepper March out here some night? Boy! Or better yet, let’s drop him into a den of those Kodiak bears.”

Sandy laughed. “I don’t know which of the two is more ornery. He might scare them off.”

They reached the cabin door, and Sandy leaned against it and pushed it open. They staggered inside and slammed it shut behind them. The interior of the one-room shack was dark, except for the logs burning low and evenly on the open hearth.

Sandy blinked to accustom his eyes to the dimness. “I could have sworn there was a light in the window as we came along the path.”

“Probably the reflection of the flames on the panes,” Jerry suggested.

“Yeah. Well, let’s light a lamp.” Sandy took several steps toward a table silhouetted against the firelight, then stopped suddenly. “Hey!” he said in a startled voice, nudging an object on the floor with his boot. “What’s this junk spread all over the floor? Looks like somebody was breaking up house. I wonder—” He broke off as a dark shape materialized from the shadows in the far corner of the cabin and seemed to glide toward him. At the same time, he heard Jerry’s excited shout in his ear.

“Sandy! There’s somebody in here. Hey, look out!”

Sandy Steele, without even a consciousness of what he was facing, reacted with his athlete’s instinct and reflexes. Crouching low, he braced himself solidly, and as the figure loomed up before him, he threw a hard body block at the middle of it. His shoulder hit a solid form and he heard a soft grunt of pain and anger. As his arms grappled with the intruder, he realized for the first time that it was a man. His fingers brushed rough wool, and then he felt the steel fingers at his throat.

“Get help, Jerry!” he bellowed, just before the wind was pinched off in his throat. Then he took a hard, numbing blow at the back of his neck and felt himself falling ... falling ... falling ... into blackness.

CHAPTER FOUR
Charley Works Out the Huskies

When Sandy regained consciousness he was lying flat on his back on a cot, surrounded by a ring of anxious faces. He recognized his father, Jerry, Professor Crowell, Lou Mayer, Superintendent MacKensie and several other men from the maintenance gang.

“What—what happened?” Sandy asked weakly.

“It’s all right, Son. You’re fine. Just a nasty bump on the head,” Dr. Steele told him.

“He really clobbered you, Sandy,” Jerry said. “Then he straight-armed me and sent me flying back over a chair. Before I could get up he was gone in the blizzard.”

“There’s no sense trying to follow him in this heavy snow,” MacKensie declared. “His tracks are probably covered already.”

“Did he get away with anything?” Sandy wanted to know.

Dr. Steele and Professor Crowell exchanged significant glances. Then the Canadian geologist said hurriedly, “No, he didn’t steal a thing. Probably some renegade trapper looking for guns and ammunition. They prey on unwary travelers, these chaps. I’ll bet he’s wanted by the Mounties as it is.”

Superintendent MacKensie looked puzzled. “He certainly was a queer one, all right. He really messed things up. But, now, what do you suppose he was after in that stuff?” He pointed to an open valise in the middle of the room.

Sandy propped himself up on one elbow and saw that Professor Crowell’s notebooks and papers were scattered all about the floor.

“He must have thought you had money hidden between the pages,” Lou Mayer said quickly.

Superintendent MacKensie scratched his head. “I dunno. It beats me. We’ve never had anything like this happen before. There have been hijackings on the highway, but no one’s ever had the nerve to break in here.”

“Well, no harm done,” Dr. Steele said. “And Sandy will be as good as new after a night’s sleep. I suggest we clean this mess up and turn in.”

The others agreed, and while Sandy rested on the cot they began to gather up their scattered belongings.

“I wonder if he got at the rest of the stuff we left in the station wagon,” Professor Crowell said.

“I doubt it,” Superintendent MacKensie said. “Your wagon is in the shed with our scout plane and the heavy machinery. We’ve had men working out there all evening.”

After the cabin was in order, MacKensie and his men said good night and went back to the main barracks. As they were undressing before the fire, Dr. Steele questioned Sandy casually but with painstaking thoroughness about his encounter with the intruder.

“Was he a big man?” the doctor asked. “Did you get a look at his face?”

Sandy shook his head. “It was too dark to see much of anything. All I know is that he was big, taller than me, and husky.”

“That goes for me, too,” Jerry agreed. “For all I know it could have been Tagish Charley.”

Professor Crowell dropped the boot he was holding with a loud clatter. “What did you say, boy?” he asked in a tense voice.

Jerry laughed nervously at the professor’s obvious dismay. “I mean he was big like Charley. Of course it wasn’t Charley. Heck, it could have been that big French cook. All I know is that he was big and strong.”

“By the way,” Dr. Steele said suddenly, “where is Charley?”

No one answered for a long moment. Then Sandy said, “I guess he’s still out with the dogs. Or maybe he’s back swapping stories with the old-timers in the barracks.”

Just as Lou Mayer was about to turn down the lamp, after the others were all in bed, the cabin door swung in and Tagish Charley tramped into the room. His hood and parka were encrusted with snow and ice, as were his boots and trousers. He looked as if he had been out in the storm for a long time. In the crook of his left arm he held a rifle.

“Good lord, Charley!” the professor exclaimed, sitting upright on his cot. “Where have you been, man?”

The Indian walked over to the fireplace and shook himself like a great dog. Carefully he leaned the rifle against the wall and shrugged out of his parka. “I drink coffee in kitchen with Frenchy when man run in and say someone break into this cabin. I take rifle and follow him.”

“In this storm!” Sandy said. “You could have gotten lost and frozen to death.”

Charley grunted and tapped a finger to his temple. “Indian have thing up here like pigeon. Always find way home. Bad man have sled and dogs waiting in trees. No use follow him. If snow stop in morning, maybe I look around some more.” He kicked off his boots, stepped out of his wet trousers and spread them out over the back of a chair near the fire. Then, like a big animal, he padded across the floor to an empty bunk. Seconds after his head hit the pillow, the rafters shook from his mooselike snores.

Jerry leaned over the side of his top-deck wall bunk and grinned at Sandy in the bunk underneath. “Now I know those guys up in Tibet are all wet. There isn’t any Abominable Snowman. They bumped into Tagish Charley when he was out for one of his evening strolls.”

Sandy grinned back, but it was a weak grin. He was bothered alternately by twinges of suspicion and pangs of guilt. It couldn’t be Charley; he knew it! Yet, anything was possible.

The snow stopped during the night and a high-pressure area moved into the vicinity. Morning brought clear blue skies and bright sun. But the air was still dry and frosty.

“Actually, only about seven inches fell,” Superintendent MacKensie told them at breakfast. “By the time you folks are on your way, the highway will be slick as a whistle. Our patrol plane’s scouting back in the direction of Dawson Creek to see if any motorcars are in trouble. If anyone was on the road when that snow started coming down real hard, they would have had to sit it out overnight.”

“I hope we’re still here when the plane gets back,” Jerry said. “I’d like to see how they land those babies on skis.”

“Actually, it’s smoother than landing on wheels,” Professor Crowell told him. “I know I prefer them.”

“Do you have your own plane, Professor?” Sandy asked.

“Oh, yes. In wild, big country like this, planes are more common than family cars, and far more practical. In the summertime almost every lake you pass on your way north looks something like a supermarket parking field. Private planes, all sizes and shapes and makes.”

Jerry whistled. “Boy, that’s the life. Can you imagine how that would be back in Valley View? I can just hear myself saying to my father, ‘Hey, Pop, I got a heavy date tonight. Can I have the keys to the plane?’”

The men laughed and Professor Crowell said, “That’s not as much of a joke as you think. My daughters are always flying up to Edmonton to shop for their new spring outfits and Easter bonnets.”

Jerry looked wistful. “Gee, it must be more fun being a kid up here than it is in the city.”

Dr. Steele smiled. “It certainly must be more exciting in some ways. Then again, I suspect that youngsters like you and Sandy would miss your malt shops, drive-ins and television.”

“They have television here,” Sandy said.

“Yes,” Superintendent MacKensie admitted, “but it’s pretty limited compared to what you Americans can see.”

The boys were intrigued by the heavy, thick flapjacks that Frenchy the cook served with thick slabs of bacon.

“They taste different than what my maw makes,” Jerry commented. “Sort of sour.” Then, with an apologetic glance at the big, bushy-headed cook, “But I love ’em.”

Superintendent MacKensie’s eyes twinkled. “You may not believe it,” he said, “but the fermented yeast dough that went into these flapjacks is over sixty years old.”

Jerry choked in the middle of a bite and swallowed hard. “Sixty years old! You’re kidding, sir?”

“Not in the least. It was handed down to Frenchy by his father, who was a gold prospector up in the Yukon in the eighteen-nineties.”

“Wow!” Jerry laid down his fork. “Talk about hoarders.”

Dr. Steele laughed. “Sourdough, of course. Those old prospectors got their nickname from it. You boys have heard of sourdoughs, haven’t you?”

“Sure,” Jerry admitted. “I just never knew where the name came from.”

“Sourdough was the prospector’s staff of life on the trail,” Superintendent MacKensie explained. “Once he got the mixture just right, he’d keep it in a tightly closed container and add to it as he used it. But the culture always remained the same.”

“Yeast is like a fungus,” Professor Crowell elaborated for the boys’ benefit. “It’s composed of living, growing cells.”

“Yes,” the superintendent went on. “This particular strain in the flapjacks we’re eating has been kept alive for sixty years by Frenchy’s family.”

“Oui,” the cook spoke from the end of the table. “My papa give some of this sourdough to all his sons and daughters when they leave home. I give to my son some day.”

“Amazing,” said Lou Mayer.

Frenchy stood up and swung a big, empty platter up on one hand. “I go make some more, no?” He looked down at Jerry. “You eat five or six more, hey, boy? They very small.”

Jerry attacked the last flapjack on his plate with renewed relish. “A couple more anyway, Frenchy. And maybe another slab of that bacon.” He winked as Sandy began to groan. “Who knows, we may get stranded for days in a blizzard without food. I’m storing up energy.”

After breakfast, Sandy and Jerry went outside and watched Tagish Charley work out the huskies on the landing strip off to one side of the road station. The dog sled was about ten feet long with a welded aluminum frame and polished steel runners. Extending halfway down both sides, were guard rails to which baggage could be strapped. There was a small footrest at the rear, where the sled driver could ride standing erect, and a rubber-coated handrail for him to grip.

The dogs milled about excitedly as Charley harnessed them to the sled. They were hitched up in staggered formation, one dog’s head abreast of the haunches of the dog in front of him. Black Titan led the pack, and the driving reins were attached only to his harness.

“Lead dog, he have to be very smart,” Charley told them, ruffling up the thick fur collar around Titan’s throat. “He boss of team. Not driver. Other dogs do bad job, he scold them. Sometimes he have to fight a bad dog who make trouble.”

“Do you think Professor Crowell’s team has a chance to win the race from Whitehorse to Skagway?” Sandy asked him.

“We win,” Charley said matter-of-factly. “Best team, best lead dog.” He patted Titan’s head. “Black Titan pull sled all alone if he have to.”

“Is the professor going to drive himself, Charley?” Jerry inquired curiously.

The Indian shrugged his shoulders. “Better he not drive in race. Professor fine dog driver, but safer if he not drive this race. On trail easy for bad men to get him. Better for Charley to drive team.”

“Charley,” Sandy asked worriedly, “do you have any idea why the bad men are after Professor Crowell? Why would anyone want to harm a nice man like him?”

Anger tightened Charley’s features. “Professor got something they want very bad. They kill him if they have to.”

“But what do they want? What is it the professor has that’s so valuable to them? Money? Jewels?”

Charley shook his head. “Professor no have money or jewels. Maybe something he have in here.” He tapped his finger against his forehead wisely.

Sandy looked at Jerry. “You know, he could have something there. I think I’m going to have a man-to-man talk with my dad first chance I get.”

The two boys rode on the sled as ballast while Charley put the powerful team through its paces, whizzing back and forth on the hard-packed surface of the landing strip and churning through high drifts in the virgin snow around the fringes.

“Great!” Jerry yelled in Sandy’s ear, clutching the guard rail with one hand and, with his other hand, protecting his face from the spray of snow flung back by the dogs’ flying feet. “This is better than the roller coaster at Disneyland.”

Sandy nodded vigorously. “That Titan is fantastic, isn’t he? He acts almost human.”

Seemingly aware of his admiring audience, Black Titan put on an impressive display. Setting a pace for his teammates that kept their tongues lolling from their black-roofed mouths, he guided them smoothly into sharp turns and sudden twists and broke trail through muzzle-high snow with his broad chest as if it were light as dust—all the time responsive to the slightest tug at the reins.

“He’s a marvel, all right,” Sandy told Charley later when the dogs were resting after their work-out.

“Boy, would I ever like to get into that big race. You don’t need any passengers, do you, Charley?” Jerry asked.

“Okay for you boys to come along. Need five hundred pounds on sled anyway.”

Sandy was overjoyed. “You mean it, Charley? Really? Jerry and I can ride ballast on the sled?”

“Sure. You ask professor.”

At that minute, Dr. Steele came walking across the landing strip toward them. “You fellows about ready to leave? It’s nine-thirty. Superintendent MacKensie has had our vehicles warming up for almost half an hour now.”

Sandy spoke to Jerry in a low voice. “You help Charley get the dogs in the truck. I want to talk to my dad—in private.”

CHAPTER FIVE
Christmas in the Wilderness

“Dad,” Sandy began haltingly as they walked slowly back to the barracks, “Professor Crowell is in some kind of trouble, isn’t he?”

Dr. Steele was evasive. “You mean because of that man who broke into our cabin? What makes you think that had anything to do with the professor?”

Sandy looked earnestly into his father’s eyes. “That was no ordinary thief, Dad. He was after something in Professor Crowell’s notes and papers.” His face became even graver. “Maybe they’re after you, too.”

Dr. Steele tried to laugh it off, but his mirth was hollow. “Aren’t you becoming a little melodramatic, Son?”

“You don’t fool me for a minute, Dad. I know that whatever’s going on is probably top-secret government business and you can’t tell me what it’s all about. But I do think it’s only fair to tell me whether or not you or the professor or Lou Mayer are in any danger.”

Dr. Steele appeared to think it over very carefully. Finally, he sighed. “Yes, I guess you’re right. I brought you boys along, so I don’t suppose I have any right to keep you completely in the dark. The fact is we are in danger—all of us. I had no right to expose you boys—especially Jerry—to this kind of thing, but I thought at first we could deceive them into believing that this was just a routine geological survey. I was wrong. They’re far too clever.” His mouth tightened. “Maybe the best thing to do would be to send you and Jerry back home.”

“Dad!” Sandy looked hurt. “Not on your life. If you’re in any kind of trouble, I’m sticking with you until you’re out of it.”

Dr. Steele frowned. “I wish I could tell you more about this, Sandy, but I’m bound by an oath of secrecy. You’ll just have to trust me.”

“I trust you, Dad.”

“As for Jerry James, I think it’s only fair for you to tell him what I’ve told you and let him decide whether he wants to continue on with us.”

“I’ll ask him,” Sandy agreed. “But I know what he’s going to say right now.”

They were almost at the front door of the barracks now. “One more thing, Dad,” Sandy said. “Tagish Charley. I like him an awful lot. You don’t think that he—”

“That he’s the one who ransacked our cabin last night?” the doctor finished for him. “The same thought flashed through my mind, too. I just can’t believe it, though. Charley’s been with the professor for years; he’s like one of the family. Still—” his face went grim—“we don’t really know—and we can’t afford to take chances.”

Superintendent MacKensie greeted them as they entered the building. “Your wagons are all set to roll,” he announced.

Sandy took his friend aside just before they left the station and repeated what his father had said, offering Jerry the choice of going back to Valley View.

“I ought to slug you,” the husky, dark-haired boy roared, his black eyes flashing, his square jaw jutting out defiantly, “for even thinking I’d back out on you when you were in trouble! What kind of a guy do you think I am?”

“Take it easy, Buster.” Sandy threw his arm around his friend’s shoulders. “I told Dad that’s exactly what you would say.”

They made good time all that morning, and a little after one o’clock they reached Fort Nelson. Here they ate lunch with the Game Commissioner, an old friend of Professor Crowell’s. Later, while the station wagon and truck were being refueled, the boys accompanied Tagish Charley down to the Indian village on the banks of the frozen Nelson River. Charley went straight to the house of the headman in the village, and they talked earnestly and excitedly in an Indian dialect for some time.

On the way back to the truck, he told the boys: “That man know everything go on in province. He say many strangers pass this way. They say they French trappers, but they speak strange tongue and never sell any furs.”

“Did he say how many?” Sandy asked.

“Maybe six.”

Jerry clapped his mittened hands together. “And there are five of us. Those aren’t bad odds.”

“In a fair fight,” Sandy corrected him. “But from what I’ve heard and seen of these guys, they probably have no idea of fighting fair.”

The sun went down early, but this night was clear and the sky was full of stars, so they drove on for quite a while after dark. At five-thirty they came to a weather station near Lake Muncho. It was a small place, manned by three technicians, and although the five guests really crowded their quarters, the weathermen were very hospitable.

“You chaps are lucky,” the man in charge told them. “This high-pressure area should be with us for the rest of the week. You’ll have fine weather all the way to Alaska.”

“Gosh,” said Jerry, when he saw the small pine tree trimmed with tinsel and colored balls and lights that stood in one corner of the shack’s main room. “I almost forgot—this is Christmas Eve.”

“It doesn’t seem like it, somehow,” Sandy said, feeling a slight twinge of homesickness. “Not without Mom’s turkey dinner and presents and Christmas carols.”

“Christmas isn’t turkey and presents and chimes,” Professor Crowell observed. “It’s what you feel in the heart.”

“You’re right, sir,” Sandy admitted. Then he grinned. “I guess Jerry and I are still kids at heart.”