The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Ticket to Adventure, by Roy J. Snell This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org Title: A Ticket to Adventure A Mystery Story for Girls Author: Roy J. Snell Release Date: December 5, 2013 [EBook #44353] Language: English Character set encoding: UTF-8 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A TICKET TO ADVENTURE *** Produced by Stephen Hutcheson, Rod Crawford, Dave Morgan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net A Ticket to Adventure CHAPTER I The Little Man in Black II The Indian Girl’s Warning III Seven Golden Candlesticks IV The Great Stump V Happy Landing VI A Wanderer Returns VII And Then Came Adventure VIII A Secret Is Told IX Help from the Sky X In Search of a Grandfather XI The Fresh-Dough Club XII Her Great Discovery XIII A Bright New Dream XIV “They Are Off” XV The Phantom Leader XVI The Golden Quest XVII The Black Seal’s Tooth XVIII To Be or Not to Be XIX Coasting Up Hill XX Black Waters and Gray Dogs XXI The Secret of the Great Stump [11] A Mystery Story for Girls A TICKET TO ADVENTURE By ROY J. SNELL Author’s Logo The Reilly & Lee Co. Chicago COPYRIGHT 1937 BY THE REILLY & LEE CO. PRINTED IN THE U. S. A. CONTENTS PAGE 11 19 37 59 68 76 87 101 112 121 131 139 149 157 165 178 194 206 216 227 237 A TICKET TO ADVENTURE [12] [13] CHAPTER I THE LITTLE MAN IN BLACK Mary Hughes had walked the entire length of the long dock at Anchorage, Alaska. Now, having rounded a great pile of merchandise, tents, tractors, groceries, hammers, axes, and boxes of chocolate bars she came quite suddenly upon the oddest little man she had ever seen. Even for a girl in her late teens, Mary was short and slender. This man was no larger than she. “A Japanese,” she thought as her surprised eyes took in his tight- fitting black suit, his stiff collar and bright tie. “But no, a Jap wouldn’t look like that.” She was puzzled and curious. At that particular moment, she had nothing to do but indulge her curiosity. Together with hundreds of other “home-seekers”—she smiled as she thought of herself as a home-seeker—she had been dumped into the bleak Arctic morning. Some of the goods that were being hoisted by a long steel crane from the depths of a ship, belonged to Mary, to Mark her brother, and to Florence Huyler her cousin. There was, for the time, nothing they could do about that. So— “I am Mister Il-ay-ok.” To her surprise, she heard the little man addressing her. “Oh,” she breathed. She was thinking, “Now perhaps I am to know about this little man.” She was, but not too much—at least not for some time. “Oh! So you are Mr. Il-ay-ok,” she encouraged. “Is this your home?” “Oh no, no indeed!” He spoke as if he were reading from a book. “My home is quite distant. North,” he pointed away. “Then you—” Mary did not finish. At that instant a loud, harsh-sounding voice broke in upon them. “Mister Il-ay-ok! MISTER! Har! Har! Har! That’s good!” The man who had made his appearance, as if by magic, from the great pile of merchandise, where he had, the girl thought with an inward shudder, been hiding, burst into a roar of hoarse laughter. To say that Mary was surprised and startled would not express it at all. She looked at him in silent alarm. He too was strange. He was a white man with a back so straight you might have run a yard stick up it and made it touch at every point. He had a horse-like nose, very long and straight. There was something about his whole bearing that made Mary want to slap him. She would, too, had she felt that the occasion warranted it. She was little, was Mary, but her snapping black eyes could shoot fire. Those slender brown legs of hers, hidden for the moment by brown slacks, and her steel-spring-like arms were made for action. Mary could, at times, be quite still as well. A cat is like that. Just now she stood quite still and waited. “So you are Mister Il-ay-ok, now, eh, Tony?” The stranger stopped laughing to pucker his brow into a scowl that did not improve his appearance. “Shouldn’t want to meet him in the dark!” the girl thought with another shudder. [14] [15] [16] “Want to know what he is, Miss?” the white man turned to Mary. “He’s an Eskimo.” “Oh, an—” Mary was surprised and pleased. She was not allowed to go on. “Yup, Miss, an Es-ki-mo.” The man filled his voice with suggestions of loathing and utmost contempt. “Just an oil-guzzling, blubber-eating, greasy Eskimo that lives in a hole in the ground. That’s what he is to me. But to you he’s Mister Il-ay-ok. Bah!” The man turned and walked away. For a full moment nothing further was said. At last, in a steady, school-book voice the little man in black said, “Do you know what my people did to the first white man who visit our village?” “No. What?” Mary stared. “Shot him,” the little man’s voice dropped. “Shot him with a whale gun. Very big gun. Shoot big shell. Like this!” He held up a clenched fist. “Very bad man like this one. He talked too big,” the little man scowled. “And would you like to shoot that one?” Mary asked, nodding toward the retreating figure. “Not now. Mebby byum bye. You see,” the little man smiled, “I go to visit your country. I am—” At that moment Florence Huyler, Mary’s big cousin came booming along from behind the pile of goods, to cry: “Ah! There you are! I’ve been looking everywhere for you.” “Florence,” Mary stopped her, “this is Mr. Il-ay-ok. He’s from Alaska, and he wants to kill a white man, but not just now.” She laughed in spite of herself. “But this is Alaska.” Florence, who was big and strong as a man, looked at the little man and smiled as she asked, “Is this your home?” “No—no,” the little man bowed. “Much more north my home. Cape Nome sometimes and sometimes Cape Prince Wales.” “Oh you’ve been in Nome?” Florence’s eyes shone. “My grandfather went there years and years ago. He never came back.” “Name please?” the little man asked. “Tom Kennedy.” “Ah yes,” the little man beamed. “I know him. Big man. Very good man.” “What?” the big girl’s eyes fairly bulged. “You, you know my grandfather? No! No! He is dead. He must have died years ago.” “Not dead please. Tom Kennedy not dead,” the little man appeared puzzled. “No not dead. Let me tell you.” He took a step toward them. “Very big man. Very straight. Always smile. Let me show you.” To their vast surprise the girls saw the little man produce from an inside pocket a small, ivory paper knife. On its blade had been carved the likeness of a man’s face. It may not have been a very accurate picture, there was, however, one touch that could not be wrong, a scar above the left eye. “Tom Kennedy my friend,” the native said simply. “Tom Kennedy, my long-lost grandfather!” Florence stared in [17] [18] [19] unbelief. “He is dead. And yet, he—he must be alive!” She closed her eyes as she tried to think clearly. Often and often as a small child she had heard her mother describe this man, her grandfather. Often too she had seen his picture. Always there had been that scar over the left eye. “Mary!” she exclaimed, her voice rising high. “My grandfather is alive, somewhere away up there!” she faced north. “I’m going.” “Oh, but you couldn’t leave us!” Mary’s tone vibrated with consternation. “You couldn’t leave us, not just now!” “That—that’s right. I couldn’t—not just now.” The big girl’s hands dropped limply to her side. From the distance came the long drawn hoarse hoot of a steamboat whistle. “Excuse please,” the little man who called himself Mr. Il-ay-ok bowed low. “My boat please. I go to visit America. Perhaps please, we meet again.” With the swift, sure movement of one who has followed a dog team over long, long miles or has hunted on the treacherous ice- floes, he was gone. “No,” Florence repeated slowly as if to herself, “I can’t leave you now.” For one full moment she stood staring at the spot from which the little man had vanished. Here indeed was a strange situation. All her life she had believed her grandfather dead. From her mother’s lips she had heard vague stories of how he had gone into the north and never returned. Now here was a little Eskimo saying, “Tom Kennedy my friend. Yes, I know him. He is alive.” “And he proved it too,” the girl whispered to herself. Then, of a sudden, her thoughts came back to the present and to her immediate surroundings. “What a jumble!” she said, looking at the heap of goods that, as moments passed, grew higher and higher. “How will they ever get them sorted out?” Turning to her cousin, bright-eyed, eager Mary, she said: “‘A ticket to adventure,’ that’s what the man back there in San Francisco called it, ‘a ticket to adventure.’ Will it truly be an adventure? I wonder.” “I hope so!” Mary’s eyes shone. Turning, the two girls walked away toward a distant spot on the long dock where a boy, who had barely grown into a young man, was struggling at the task of setting up a small umbrella tent. “See!” the big girl cried, “there’s Mark. He’s setting up our first home in a wilderness.” CHAPTER II THE INDIAN GIRL’S WARNING Hours later Florence stirred uneasily in her sleep, then half-awake [20] [21] [22] murmured dreamily: “A ticket to adventure. That’s what he said, a ticket—” Conscious now that some disturbing sound had come to her in her sleep, she shook herself into further wakefulness. “Strange,” she murmured. “Everything is so strange.” Indeed it was. The bed on which she and Mary slept was hard, a mattress on the dock. About her, shielding her from the Arctic wind was a tent. “Tomorrow,” she thought, “we start to the Promised Land.” This land was the Matamuska Valley in Alaska. “Not far now, only a short way by rail. And then—” A thrill ran through her being. They were to be pioneers, modern pioneers, she and Mary, Mark and her aunt. What would life in this new land be? She had seen much of life, had Florence, city life, country life, the wild beauty of Isle Royale in Lake Superior, and the finished beauty of France were not new to her. But Alaska! How she had thrilled at thought of it! She was thinking of all this when, of a sudden, she raised herself on one elbow to listen. “What was that sound?” she whispered. It was faint, indistinct, disturbing. Then Mary sleeping at her side, did a strange thing. Sitting bolt upright she said: “Don’t you want to kill him?” For a space of seconds she appeared to listen for an answer. Then, with a sigh, she murmured, “Oh! All right. Some other time.” At that, she sank back in her place to draw the covers closely about her. “Talking in her sleep,” the big girl thought. “Dreaming of the little man in black. She—” There was that sound again, more distinct now. “A child crying in the night.” Florence listened intently. “It’s such a low cry,” she thought wearily, creeping back among the blankets. “It can’t be anything very much. There has been so much crying.” Ah yes, there had been children’s cries that day; rough, unkind words had been said at times to the children. Little wonder, for they had that day—hundreds of men, women and children— disembarked from a ship that carried them far toward their promised land, the Matamuska Valley in Alaska. They had been dumped quite unceremoniously, a whole shipload of people with cows, horses, dogs, cats, canaries, trucks, tractors, tents, lumber, hardware, groceries, shoes, hammers, saws, and clothespins on the dock at Anchorage. Men dashed about searching for tents and baggage. Women sought out lost or strayed pets. Children had cried and above it all had come the hoarse shout of some enthusiast: “On! On! to our new home! Three cheers for Alaska!” Over all this darkness had fallen. After a cold supper, having pitched their tents and spread their blankets, they had stretched out on the rough surface of the dock to sleep, if sleep they could. And now Florence was hearing that distressing moan of a child. “Near at hand,” she thought, raising herself on an elbow to listen once more, this time more closely. “A strange sort of cry. Can’t be a child from our party. I’ve heard them all cry.” Indeed she had. The long journey half way across America, then [23] [24] along the coast to Alaska had been hard on the children. “A ticket to adventure,” she whispered once again. They had come here, their little party of four, to begin life anew, to secure for themselves a home and if possible, a modest fortune. Would they win? With God’s help, could they? And was true adventure to be thrown in for good measure? The girl thrilled at the thought, for, ambitious as she undoubtedly was, she was human as well, and who does not feel his blood race at thought of adventure? However, at this moment something other than adventure called, the cry of a child in the night. Florence dearly loved small children. She could not bear to have them suffer. “I—I’ve just got to get out and hunt her up,” she murmured. With a shudder she dragged her feet from the warmth of the blankets, slipped on knickers and shoes, then crept out into the cheerless night. She did not have far to go. Huddled in a corner, out of the wind, she discovered two blanket-wrapped figures. Girls they were, one small, one large. Indians, she saw as she threw her light upon their dark faces. “What’s the matter?” she asked, striving to keep her teeth from chattering. “Dog bite her,” the older girl spoke in a slow, deep tone. “White man dog. Strange white man dog. Come steamboat this day.” “Yes,” Florence moved closer. “We all came by steamboat. There are many dogs. Too many! Let me see.” The small child thrust a trembling hand from a greasy blanket. “Ah!” Florence breathed. “That’s rather bad. Not very deep, but dog bites are bad. It must be dressed. I’ll be back.” Stepping quickly to the tent she poured warm water from a thermos bottle into a basin, snatched up a first-aid kit, then hurried back. “Here you are,” she said cheerily. “First we wash it. Then we dry it. Then—this will hurt a little, quite a bit, I guess.” She produced a bottle of iodine. “You tell her. Tell her it will hurt.” She spoke to the older girl, who said some words in her own language to the attentive child. When she had finished, Florence received her first reward—nor was it to be the last—for this bit of personal sacrifice, the child fixed upon her a look that registered perfect faith and confidence. Florence applied the severe remedy. Then she watched the child’s face. A single tear crept from the corner of her eye and ran down her cheek. It hurt, that iodine, hurt terribly for the moment. Florence knew that. Yet not a muscle of the child’s face moved. “This,” Florence thought, with a little tightening at the throat, “is the spirit of the North. It is with this spirit that we all must face the trials and dangers that lie before us in this world. If we do this, we shall be real pioneers and we shall win. “We shall win!” she whispered hoarsely, as standing erect, hands clenched tight, she stood for a moment facing the bitter Arctic gale. [25] [26] [27] “Feel better now?” she asked, dropping again to the child’s side. The child nodded. “All right. Now we’ll bind it up tight and it will be fine.” Five minutes later Florence saw the child’s head fall against her older sister’s side. Her pain gone, her cry stilled, she had fallen asleep. That was Florence’s second reward, but not her last. As she once more crept beneath the warm covers in her tent, she felt the slender arms of Mary, her cousin, close about her and heard her murmur with a shudder: “It is so far and so cold!” “She’s talking in her sleep again,” Florence told herself. Then, out of sympathy for the frailer girl, she too shuddered. Yes, it had been a long way and even though it was early June, it was cold. Yet Florence thrilled at thought of it all. That journey, how it had unfolded, first on paper, second in their minds, then in reality! Mark and Mary had lived with their mother in the Copper Country of Michigan. Because she had few relatives and was in need of a home, Florence had joined them there. No copper was being mined, so there was no work and, struggle as they might, they had grown poorer and poorer. Then had come word of what appeared to them a wonderful opportunity. The government was to send two hundred or more families to the rich Matamuska Valley in Alaska. They were to be given land and to be loaned money that they might make a fresh start. “Pioneers! They will be pioneers in a new land!” Florence, who was of true pioneer stock, young, sturdy and strong, had exclaimed. “Why should we not go?” Why, indeed? They had applied, had been accepted, and here they were at the seaport of the railroad that was to bear them on to their new world. “Tomorrow,” she whispered softly to herself. “Tomorrow, to—” At that she fell fast asleep. If the scene of confusion on the dock at Anchorage with the trucks, tractors, tents, and groceries had seemed strange, the picture before Florence, Mary and Mark a few days later might, to a casual observer, have seemed even more strange. Palmer, dream city of the future, lay before them. And such a city! A city of tents. Yet, city of tents as it was, it did not lack signs of excitement. This was the great day. On this day the future home owners of this rich valley, surrounded by its snow-capped mountains, were to draw lots for their tracts of land. Some tracts were close to Palmer, some ten or twelve miles away. A few settlers there were who wished for solitude in the far-off spots. Many hoped for tracts close in, where they might walk into town for their mail and to join in the latest gossip. Florence, Mary, and Mark had sensed the bleak loneliness of distant farms during the long winter. They too hoped for a spot close at hand. “Now,” Florence whispered as, after a long time of waiting in line, Mark approached the drawing stand. “Now it is your turn!” Mark’s hand trembled as it went out. Florence felt her heart pause, then go leaping. It meant so much, so very much, that tiny [28] [29] [30] square of paper with a number on it. Turning away from the curious throng, Mark cupped his hand, then together they all three peered at that magic number. “One hundred and twelve!” Florence whispered tensely. “Here— here is our map. Where is our farm? Here! Here! Let’s look!” One moment of hurried search, then a sigh of disappointment. “Seven miles from town.” Mary dropped limply down upon a stump. “Might have been twelve,” Mark said cheerfully. “Bet there’s a bear or a moose right in the middle of it waiting to be made into hamburger. But then,” he sighed, “we couldn’t kill him. Can’t get a hunting license for a year.” Two hours later Mark and Mary with their mother and Florence close at hand were listening to a tempting offer. Ramsey McGregor, a huge man from the western plains, had drawn a tract of land only a half mile from town. He had no cow. The Hughes family owned a cow, a very good milker. If they would trade tracts of land and throw in the cow, they might have his farm close to town. “Think of it!” Mark cried. “Right in town, you might say!” “Y-e-s,” Florence agreed. “But then—” Already she had seen quite enough of the noisy, quarrelsome camp. And besides, there was the cow. Precious possession, old Boss. Cows were dear— milk was hardly to be had at any price. “And yet—” she sighed. Long tramps through the deep snow, with a wild Arctic blizzard beating her back, seemed to haunt her. “You’ll have to decide,” she said slowly. “It’s to be your home. I—I’m only a helper.” Into this crisis there stepped an angel in disguise, an unimportant appearing, dark-faced angel, the older of the two Indian girls Florence had seen and aided back there at the dock in Anchorage. Now the girl, approaching timidly, drew Florence’s head down to the level of her own and whispered, “Don’t trade!” “Why?” Florence whispered back. “Don’t trade,” the Indian girl repeated. “Bye and bye I show you.” She was gone. “What did she say?” Mark asked. Mark was slow, steady, thoughtful, dependable. Florence had no relative she liked so much. “She says not to trade.” There was a look of uncertainty on the big girl’s face. “Greasy little Indian girl,” Ramsey McGregor growled. “What does she know?” “Might know a lot,” Mark wrinkled his brow. “What do you say?” he turned to the others. “No trade?” “No trade, I’d say,” was Florence’s quick response. “Al—alright. No trade.” Mary swallowed hard. She had wanted to be near town. “Whatever you children want,” agreed the meek little mother. Life had pushed her about so long she was quite willing to take the strong arm of her son and to say, “You lead the way.” “It’s a lot like playing a hunch,” Mark laughed uncertainly. “After [31] [32] [33] all, the claim we got is the claim we drew. Looks like God intended it that way. Besides there’s old Boss. We couldn’t—” “No, we couldn’t do without her,” Mary exclaimed. And so the matter was settled. Somewhere out there where the sun set would be their home. Two hours later Florence and Mary were enjoying a strange ride. From some unsuspected source, the Indian girl had secured five shaggy dogs. These were hitched, not to a sled, for there was no snow, but to a narrow three-wheeled cart equipped with auto wheels. Whence had come those auto wheels? Florence did not ask, enough that they eased their way over the bumps along the narrow, uneven trail that might, in time, become a road. The land they were passing over fascinated Mary, who had an eye for the beautiful. Now they passed through groves of sweet- scented, low-growing fir and spruce, now watched the pale green and white of quaking asp, and now went rolling over a low, level, treeless stretch where the early grass turned all to a luscious green, and white flowers stood out like stars. The surprise of their journey came when, after passing through a wide stretch of timber, they arrived quite suddenly upon an open space. “A clearing! A cabin! A lake!” Mary exclaimed. “How beautiful!” It was indeed beautiful. True, the clearing showed signs of neglect, young trees had sprouted where a field had been, the door of the cabin, standing ajar, seemed to say, “Nobody’s home. Nobody’s been home for many a day.” For all that, the gray cabin, built of great, seasoned logs, the clearing sloping down to a small, deep lake, where a flock of wild ducks swam all unafraid, made a picture one would not soon forget. “Come,” said the Indian girl. A moment later they stepped in awed silence across the threshold of the cabin. The large room they entered was almost bare. A rustic table, two home-made chairs, a great sheet-iron barrel, fashioned into a stove, a few dishes in the corner, a rusted frying pan and a kettle, that was about all. Yet, strangely enough, as Florence tiptoed across the threshold she found herself listening for the slow tick- tock, tick-tock, of an old-fashioned clock. With all its desolation there was somehow about the place an air of “home.” “Oh!” Mary breathed deeply. Then again, “Oh!” A stout ladder led to a tall loft where a bed might, for all they could tell, be waiting. At the back was a door opening into the small kitchen. “Home,” Florence breathed again. “Home,” Mary echoed. Then together they tiptoed out into the sunlight. Quite unexpectedly, the Indian girl spoke. “This,” she said, spreading her arms wide to take in the cabin, the clearing and the lake beyond, “this is it.” “Thi—this is what?” Mary stammered. “This,” replied the girl, “is your land.” “No!” Florence exclaimed. “It can’t be.” [34] [35] “But yes, it is your farm.” The girl smiled a happy smile. “This is the number you drew.” “Ours!” Florence whispered hoarsely. “An abandoned cabin, a clearing, a lake! All ours! And to think, we nearly missed it!” Then, quite wild with joy, she surprised the shy Indian girl by catching her up in her arms and kissing her on the cheek. At that very moment, as if it were part of some strange drama, there sounded from the edge of the clearing a loud: “Get up! Go ’long there!” and a traveling rig as strange as their own burst from the edge of the timber. A moment later, a little man on a high-wheeled, wobbly cart, shouted, “Whoa, January!” to his shaggy horse, then sat for a full moment staring at the three girls. “You’re some of them new settlers?” he said at last. Florence nodded. She was too much surprised to do more. The man, whose whiskers had grown for months all untrimmed and whose hair fell to his shoulders, looked as if he might have stepped from an illustration of Rip Van Winkle. “This your place?” he asked. Again the girl nodded. “Well,” his eyes swept the horizon, “you’re lucky maybe—and then again maybe not. There’s the clearin’ an’ the cabin, but maybe the cabin’s haunted. “No—no, not by ghosts!” he held up a hand. “By people who once lived here. It’s a notion of mine, this business of houses being haunted by living folks. “But then,” his voice dropped. “Mebby they’re dead. Some sort of foreigners they was, the ones that lived in this cabin. Came here durin’ the war. Lot of queer ones in the valley them days. Deserters, some of ’em. Some dodgin’ the draft. Some foreign spies. “Big man, that one,” he nodded toward the cabin. “Big woman. Hard workers. Not much to say for themselves. “One day they’d gone. Where? Why? No one knows. Spies, maybe. Government boat at Anchorage just at that time. Shot ’em, like as not, for spies.” Florence shuddered. “Maybe not,” the man went on. “Might come back—Chicaski was the name. Russians.” “If—if they come back, can they claim the cabin?” Florence was thrown into sudden consternation. “No-o. I guess not. Didn’t have no legal claim on it like as not. There’s other deserted cabins in the valley, lots of ’em. Folks got discouraged and quit. Raise plenty of things to eat. Can’t sell a thing. No market. Trap fox and mink, that’s all you can sell. Folks want things that don’t grow on land. “Got to git along,” he exclaimed, clucking to his horse. “Live back there five miles, I do. I’ll be seein’ you. “Git up! Go ’long there!” The strange little man gave his shaggy horse a light tap with the rein and the odd outfit went rattling away. “Peter Piper,” said the Indian girl, nodding after the man. [36] [37] [38] “You mean that’s his name?” Florence asked in surprise. The girl nodded. “Oh!” Mary exclaimed. “And did he pick a peck of prickly pears?” The Indian girl stared at her until they all burst into fits of laughter. For all that, it was a sober Florence who journeyed back to Palmer. Strange words were passing through her mind. “Maybe it’s haunted. Raise anything. Can’t sell anything. No market—you want things that don’t grow on the ground.” Her world seemed to have taken on a whirling motion that, like clouds blown by the wind, showed first a bright, then a darker side. What was to come of it all? “A ticket to adventure,” she thought at last. “Perhaps that man was more right than he knew.” CHAPTER III SEVEN GOLDEN CANDLESTICKS Three days later Florence found herself seated on the shore of the little lake that lay at the edge of their claim. She was alone. “How still it is,” she whispered. Not a leaf moved. The dark surface of the lake lay before her like black glass. “The land of great silence,” she thought. She shuddered and knew not why. This was to her a strange world. All her life she had known excitement. The rattle of elevated trains, the honk of auto horns, the drum of airplane motors, all these seemed still to sound in her ears. “Rivers,” she whispered thoughtfully, “have eddies. There the water that has been rushing madly on comes to rest. Do lives have eddies? Has my life moved into an eddy?” She did not enjoy the thought. Adventure, thrills, suspense, mystery, these were her favorite words. How could one find them here? And yet, there was the cabin that lay just up the rise. Their cabin now, it had belonged to others. Russians probably, spies perhaps. “What if they come back?” Mary had whispered during their return journey from that first visit. “What if they demand the cabin?” “We’ll throw them out,” Florence had said, making a savage gesture. “I wonder if we would?” had been Mary’s reply. Florence wondered about that now. She wondered about many things. Why had she come to this place at all? Because of her love for the little family, her relatives, Mary, Mark, and their mother. Could love make people do things? She wondered. Could it make them do slow, hard, drudging, everyday things? If it could, how long would that last? The thoughts that came to her there were neither sad nor bitter. They were such dreamy thoughts as come after a long day of toil. They had worked, all of them; oh! how they had worked getting settled! [39] [40] [41] “I—I’d like to go back, back to the city to the wild romance of many people!” she cried to the empty air of night. Then, of a sudden, she realized that she did not wish to go back, but rather to go on, on, on, on into the North. For, as she sat there she seemed to see again the little man, Mr. Il-ay-ok, and to hear him say, “Tom Kennedy, yes, I know him,” and Tom Kennedy was her long-lost grandfather. “Yes,” she exclaimed, “and I shall go!” Springing to her feet, she spread her arms wide. Seeking out the north star, she faced the land over which it hung. “Yes, Tom Kennedy, my grandfather, I am coming. “But not now—not now,” she murmured. “One thing at a time. I have given my word. I am to help these others win a home. Adventure, thrills, mystery, romance,” she repeated slowly, “can they be here?” Then as if in answer to her query, there came a faint sound. It grew louder, came closer, the night call of wild geese. “How—how perfect!” she breathed. “The lake, the damp night air, the silence, then a call from the sky.” She waited. She listened. The speeding flock came closer. At last they were circling. They would land. She caught the rush of wings directly over her head, then heard the faintest of splashes. “Happy landing!” But not for long. She was creeping silently away. They were pioneers. Pioneers lived off the land. Here was promise of roast goose for tomorrow dinner. Too bad to spoil romance, but life must go on. Slipping up to the cabin, she took Mark’s gun from its place beside the door. With her heart beating a tattoo against her ribs, she crept back. Closer and closer she crept until at last she lay, quite still, among the tall grass that skirted the pond. “Where are they?” she whispered to herself. No answer, save the distant flapping of wings. How was one to shoot a wild goose he could not see? “Ah, well,” she thought. “I can wait. There will be a moon.” Wait she did. Once again the strangely silent night, like some great, friendly ghost, seemed to enfold her in its arms. Far away loomed the mountains, close at hand spread the plains, and over all silence. Only now and again this silence was broken by the flapping of wings, a sudden challenging scream, the call that told her a rich dinner still awaited her. At last the moon crept over the white crested mountains. It turned the lake into a sheet of silver. Dark spots moved across that sheet. They came closer and closer. Thirty yards they were from shore, now twenty yards, and now ten yards. The girl caught one long sighing breath. Then, bang! Bang! Both barrels spoke. A moment later, waist deep, the girl waded for the shore. In each hand she carried a dead bird, two big, fat geese. Tomorrow there would be a feast. Romance? Adventure? Well, perhaps, a little. But much more was to come. She felt sure of that now. Her heart leaped as she hurried forward to meet Mark and Mary, who were racing toward her demanding what all the shooting was about. [42] [43] [44] “A feast!” Mary cried joyously. “A real pioneer feast. Thanksgiving in June! The Pilgrim Fathers have nothing on us.” Such a feast as it was! Roast wild goose with dressing, great brown baked potatoes, slashed and filled with sweet home-made butter, all this topped with cottage pudding smothered in maple sauce. “Who says pioneering is a hard life?” Mark drawled when the meal was over. “It couldn’t be with such a glorious cook,” Florence smiled at her aunt. When, at last, she crept up to her bed in the loft that night, she was conscious of an unusual stiffness in her joints. Little wonder this, for all day long she had wielded a grubbing hoe, tearing out the roots of stubborn young trees. They were preparing their land for the plow. They would raise a crop if no one else among the new settlers did. What crops? That had not been fully decided. As Florence lay staring at the shadowy rafters she fell to musing about what life might be like if one remained in this valley year after year. “A farm of your own,” she thought, “cows, chickens, pigs, a husband, children.” Laughing softly, she turned on her side and fell asleep. Five days later their first real visitor arrived. She was Mrs. Swenson, a short, plump farm mother and old-time settler of the valley. She had lived here for fifteen years. Florence, who was churning while Mary and her mother were away in the town, gave her an enthusiastic welcome. The handle of the old-fashioned dasher churn went swish-swash. “Just keep right on churnin’,” Mrs. Swenson insisted. “You don’t dare stop or the butter won’t come. “It’s the strangest thing!” her eyes roved about the large room. “The Chicaskis—that was the name of the people who built this cabin—they disappeared, you might say, overnight.” “Oh! Did you know them?” the swish-swash stopped for a space of seconds. “Well, yes and no,” Mrs. Swenson smiled an odd smile. “No one got to know them very well. They left on foot,” she leaned forward in her chair. “They’d had a horse. They sold that to Tim Huston. So away they went, each of them with satchels in both hands. That’s all they took. It’s the strangest thing.” She paused. The churn went swish-swash. The little tin clock in the corner went tick-tick-tick. Florence’s lips parted. Then her visitor spoke again: “They had other things. Wonderful things. A huge copper kettle and,” her voice dropped to a whisper, “seven golden candlesticks. Leastwise, I always thought they was gold. She always had ’em up there above the fireplace, and how they did shine! Gold! I’m sure of it. “They might have took them. Maybe they did, the candlesticks, I mean. But that huge copper kettle. They never took that, not in a satchel. “I don’t mind admitting,” Mrs. Swenson’s tone became confidential, “that those of us who’ve lived around here ever since have done a lot of snoopin’ about this old place, lookin’ for that copper kettle and—and other things. [45] [46] [47] “There are those who say they hid gold, lots of Russian, or maybe German gold, around here somewhere. But, of course, you can’t believe all you hear. And no one has ever found anything, not even the big copper kettle. So,” she settled back in her chair, “perhaps there’s nothing to it after all. Mighty nice cabin, though,” her tone changed. “Make you a snug home in winter. Not like these cabins the other settlers are building out of green logs. Them logs are goin’ to warp something terrible when they dry. Then,” she threw back her head and laughed, “then the children will be crawlin’ through the cracks, and with the temperature at thirty below— think what that will be like!” Florence did think. She shuddered at the very mention of it, and whispered a silent prayer of thanksgiving to the good God who had guided them to their snug cabin at the edge of the clearing beside that gem of a lake. At thought of it all, she gave herself an imaginary hug. From without came the steady pop-pop-pop of a gasoline motor. Mark was driving a small tractor, plowing their clearing. They were to have a crop this first year, for it was still June. Few settlers would have crops. They were lucky. She looked at her torn and blistered hand, then heaved a sigh of content. Those small trees had been stubborn, some had been thorny. It had been a heartbreaking job, but now all that was over. The tractor chugging merrily outside was music to her weary soul. The tractor? That, too, had been a streak of luck. Or was it luck? Mark had always loved fine machinery. Because of this he had made it his business for years to learn all about trucks, tractors, mine hoists, motor-boats, and all else that came within his narrow horizon. When he had asked down at Palmer about the use of a tractor the man in charge had said: “Over yonder they are. Not assembled yet. Put one up and you can use it.” “Sure. I’ll do that,” Mark grinned. And he did. Then they had wanted him to stay and set up others. He had turned his back on this promising position with good pay. He had come to this land to make a home for his family, and he was determined not to turn back. So here was the clearing, ten acres nearly plowed. A short task the harrowing would be. And then what should they plant? “I’ll ask Mrs. Swenson about that after a while,” Florence promised herself. Mrs. Swenson had come a long way and was to stay for dinner. Florence had raised biscuits and a large salmon baking in the oven of the stove they had brought up from Palmer. They were to have one more royal feast. Three other guests were to arrive soon. She smiled as she opened the oven door, releasing a wave of heat and delightful odors of cooking things. “Mr. McQueen’s an old dear,” she thought. “He’ll be the godfather of our little settlement. I’m sure of that.” Yes, the newly arrived settler whose land joined theirs at the back was an interesting old man. Gray haired and sixty, he stood straight as a ramrod, six feet four in his stockings. Strong, brave, wise with the wisdom that comes only with years, he would indeed prove a grand counsellor. And there was Dave, his son, just turned twenty. “Slow, silent, steady going, hard working, dependable,” had been Florence’s instant snap-shot of his character; nor was she likely to be wrong.