Frank glanced at the open doorway, then murmured, “Curt says he never sent that basket.”
“He would, wouldn’t he?” Joe responded. “Let’s find out what Jake can tell us about it.”
They went into the main room. Jake was behind the polished oak counter, making a pyramid of condensed milk cans. He looked up and said, “Your call go through all right, boys?”
“Yes, thanks,” Frank replied. “Oh, Jake? Did you send a basket of fruit to Peter yesterday?”
The storekeeper shook his head. “Nope. Curt Stone sent it. All I did was ask Gregg to carry it over. Why?”
“That’s funny,” Joe said. “We saw Curt earlier, and he said he didn’t know anything about that fruit.”
Jake’s face reddened. “He sent it, all right. I found it right here on my counter, with his card and a note saying to send it to Peter.”
Frank asked, “Do you mean that you didn’t speak to him about it, just found the note?” Jake nodded. “Do you still have it?”
“Nope,” Jake said. “Say, what is this? Is Curt up to something? If he is, I bet Lucky’s in it, too, up to his neck.”
“The prospector?” Joe asked. “Why?”
Jake looked down at the counter. “I’m no tattletale,” he said, with a little smile. “But yesterday when I glanced out my window, I saw Curt passing Lucky a wad of bills. He looked as if he didn’t want anybody to see it, either. The way I figure it, Lucky must be doing something to earn that money. Am I right?”
Frank and Joe thanked Jake for his help and left the store. Once on the street Frank said, “We’d better have a talk with Lucky.”
They stopped by the cabin to get directions, then hiked into the hills behind town. Lucky’s mining operation was a twenty-minute walk from Glitter, on a dirt road that looked like a relic from Gold Rush days.
Frank was first to spot the weathered shack beside a frozen stream. “Hello, Lucky?” he called.
No answer. He walked nearer and called again.
From behind him he heard a faint footstep. He started to turn, but an arm caught him around the throat and started to tighten, cutting off his breath.
9 More Dirty Tricks
* * *
Joe was out back, trying to figure out a complicated piece of old machinery he’d spotted. He heard a strangled shout and looked up and recognized Lucky’s dirty green parka and faded red cap. Lucky had his arm in a choke hold around Frank’s neck.
Not for long. As Joe rushed to help his brother, Frank got grips on Lucky’s wrist and elbow, then made a sudden leap to the side. An instant later he had a hammerlock on his astonished attacker.
“Let go, you’re hurting me!” Lucky protested. “I’m an old man!”
“You should have thought of that before you jumped me,” Frank retorted. He released Lucky’s arm and took two quick steps backward, ready to meet any further attack.
Lucky scowled and rubbed the muscle of his upper arm. “You were spying on me, that’s what,” he said. “I can’t stand spies.”
“We just wanted to talk to you,” Joe said. “We didn’t mean to scare you.” The instant he said it, he realized that he had used the wrong word.
“Scare me!” Lucky said. “You think you scared me? Nobody scares me!”
“No, no,” Joe said hastily. “What I meant to say is that we didn’t mean to surprise you.”
Lucky spat on the ground. “You didn’t surprise me neither,” he growled. “You don’t creep up on Lucky Moeller. I saw you coming. I heard you coming. I even smelled you coming!”
“Well,” Frank said. “Now that we’re here, can we talk?”
Lucky peered at them from under his bushy eyebrows. “What about?” he asked, suspicious.
“We were wondering what you think about the ThemeLife plan,” Joe said. “How do you think people in Glitter ought to vote?”
Lucky’s face brightened. “You boys doing a survey? Well, I think everybody ought to vote yes. Why wouldn’t they?”
“What do you think is good about the ThemeLife plan?” asked Frank.
Lucky’s head bobbed up and down as he said, “The money, that’s what. The money! All those tourists coming to town with their pockets stuffed with money. Hundreds of them, thousands of them. And they’ll all come out here to tour my mine. It’ll be the biggest attraction around—the Gold Rush days live again. In a year or two I’ll make enough to retire to Florida.”
Lucky reached deep into his pants pocket and brought out a clenched fist. Stretching it out toward Joe and Frank, he said, “See this?”
They looked down at his rough, dirty hand. “What?” Frank asked.
Lucky opened his hand. A gold nugget the size of a bean gleamed in the weak sunlight.
“Wow!” Joe exclaimed.
Lucky smiled, revealing the stub of a front tooth.
“You found that here?” Frank asked.
“Sure I did,” Lucky replied. He turned and walked quickly toward the frozen creek, talking a mile a minute as he went. Frank and Joe had to hurry to stay up with him.
“I found this one thirty years ago,” he said, holding up the fist with the gold nugget. “Found it in the creek. This creek’s evil and cunning, but I’m smarter than it is. For thousands of years now, it’s been washing gold out of the hillsides and carrying it down by here. It means to dump it in the Yukon, so it’s lost forever. But as soon as it gets this far, I take it and I keep it!”
“Do you pan for it?” Frank asked him.
Joe remembered seeing pictures of gold miners, squatting beside streams with large, shallow pans in their hands. They’d fill the pans with gravel and creek water, then slowly swirl the sand and water out. Gold was heavier than rock, so it would sink to the bottom of the pan.
“Panning? Panning’s for fools,” Lucky said scornfully. “I run a placer mine.”
He pointed toward a long wooden trough that ran from farther up the creek to just next to his shack. “See that? Come summer, I dig up the gravel from the streambed and put it in there. The water washes it down the chute, and the gold drops into the box because it’s so heavy. Then I go and collect the dust and specks and nuggets, and stash them away.”
“Do you find a lot of gold that way?” Joe asked.
“I’m not saying,” Lucky replied, giving them a shrewd look. “But I’ll tell you one thing. You want gold these days, you don’t go looking for it in the hills. You got to work too hard for it that way. The real gold is in tourists’ pockets.”
Frank laughed. “You sound like you ought to be on the payroll of the ThemeLife Company,” he said.
“They haven’t asked me,” Lucky replied.
Joe broke in to say, “Haven’t they? We heard that you were working for Curt Stone. Somebody saw him giving you a lot of money.”
Lucky spun around to face him, his fists clenched. “Who said that?” he demanded.
“Jake Ferguson,” Joe told him.
“Jake lies like a dog!” Lucky shouted, swinging his arms around like a windmill. “There’s bad blood between us, and it’s all his doing. From the day he figured out that I’m not going to let him cheat me the way he does everyone else, he’s been after me. As for Curt Stone, he never gave me anything but the time of day, and that’s flat.”
Frank opened his mouth to ask another question, but Lucky went on, “Get off my claim, both of you, and don’t let me see you around here again. I was right to start with. You’re a couple of spies, that’s what you are!”
Joe looked over at Frank and motioned with his head. They weren’t going to get any more information out of Lucky. They turned and started back down the trail to town.
Once they were out of Lucky’s hearing, Frank said, “Well, somebody’s lying. But who? Lucky? Why would he want to keep us from finding out that he’s working for Curt—unless he’s doing more than just talking to people?”
Joe was about to reply when he heard a sound in the distance that made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.
“Frank!” he said. “That was a wolf howl!”
Frank grinned at him. “It sure sounded like it,” he replied. “Unless it was Lucky, trying to make us nervous.”
“Well, if it was, he succeeded,” Joe said glumly. “How far are we from town?”
“Why? Do you think the wolves know that they’re not allowed inside the city limits?” Frank joked.
“Very funny,” Joe said, glancing over his shoulder. In every direction the woods were silent, dark, and deep. The slinking shapes he sensed in the shadows were just his imagination, he hoped.
“Or it could be Jake who’s lying,” Frank said, picking up the thread of the conversation. “He may be out to make trouble for Lucky.”
As the Hardys walked briskly down the last slope before the town, Joe spotted Curt coming out of a cabin on the outskirts of town. “I bet he’s out canvassing for votes,” he said. “One thing you have to say, he’s a hard worker. Let’s ask him about Lucky.”
Curt saw them coming and waited for them to catch up. “Out taking a tour of the area?” he asked.
“We went up to see Lucky Moeller’s placer mine,” Frank told him.
“Good for you,” Curt said with a smile. “It’s one of the real landmarks of the area. Of course, you probably had some trouble figuring out exactly what goes on there. It’s not set up for visitors yet. But once it is, I guarantee it’ll be a high point of Historic Glitter, Gold Rush Town.”
Joe said, “Lucky seemed pretty enthusiastic about your project.”
Curt nodded. “He should be. It’ll make him a star. You’re not going to find a more typical old-time prospector, even in Hollywood. I wouldn’t be surprised if he ends up with the biggest salary on the ThemeLife payroll. Bigger even than the project director.”
“I thought he was already on the ThemeLife payroll,” Frank said in a casual voice.
Curt gave him a sharp look. “Where’d you hear that?” he demanded.
“I don’t know—around,” Frank said with a shrug. “Why? Isn’t he?”
“I’m the only full-time employee of the ThemeLife Company in Glitter,” Curt said. “Anyone who says different doesn’t know what he’s talking about. I’d better run along. There are still a few people who don’t understand all the advantages our project will bring to their town.”
He turned and hurried away.
“Interesting,” Frank said. “Did you notice? He said he’s the only full-time ThemeLife employee here. He could still be paying Lucky to help talk people around. . . . ”
“Or to play dirty tricks on them if they won’t be talked around,” Joe said. “We’d better keep a close eye on Mr. Curt Stone.”
David’s kennel was around the next bend of the trail. The huskies were barking and straining at their tethers.
“Do you suppose they’re saying hello to us?” Joe wondered aloud. He called, “Hi, doggies!”
“Joe, look,” Frank said. “One of them got away!”
The short end of a rope dangled limply from one of the sturdy stakes that kept the huskies near their houses. “Must have chewed through the rope,” Joe said.
David came running up the path. When he saw the dangling rope, his face turned pale. “Big Foot, gone?” He groaned. “Oh, no!”
He went from one dog to the next, speaking softly and calming them down. Joe and Frank followed his lead. Once the team was quiet, David said, “This is terrible. Big Foot is Ironheart’s backup. He’s the second most important member of the team. I should have come out right away, the minute I heard that wolf pack howling.”
“We heard them, too,” Joe said.
“They’re trying to lure my huskies away to join their pack,” David explained. “It’s like The Call of the Wild.” He went around to the dogs again, speaking softly to each one.
Frank went over to Big Foot’s stake and picked up the rope. Then he looked over at Joe and gestured with his head.
Joe looked at the rope. “Hey,” he said in a low voice, “the fibers are smooth and even.”
“You’ve got it,” Frank said. “Someone cut the rope almost all the way through. One good pull from Big Foot, and it snapped.”
At the sound of another distant howl, David’s team erupted into barking again. “Easy, easy,” David said.
“You calm them down,” Frank said. “Joe and I’ll go look for Big Foot.”
“Wait,” David called, but Joe and Frank were already following Big Foot’s pawprints into the woods.
“Now I know why he’s called Big Foot,” Joe said. “Good thing the snow isn’t too hard.”
“Or too deep,” Frank replied. “Am I right that David’s dogs started barking just before we got there?”
Joe thought for a moment. “I think so.”
“Then there’s a good chance that was when Big Foot broke his rope and headed for the tall timber,” Frank said. “If so, he probably hasn’t gone far.”
Frank and Joe followed Big Foot’s trail across a clearing into the woods.
Another long series of slow, high-pitched howls came floating through the woods. Frank and Joe paused in midstride and looked at each other.
“That sounds a lot closer,” Joe said, lowering his voice.
Frank cleared his throat and said, “Good. Maybe Big Foot’s close, too.”
The tracks led to a small clearing. When they stepped out from the trees, the howls stopped.
Frank and Joe froze. The sudden stillness was eerie.
A gray-brown wolf the size of a large dog padded out from under the trees and stopped. Then three more appeared. Tails twitching, the four wolves stood side by side and calmly looked across the clearing at Joe and Frank.
10 A Circle of Wolves
* * *
The four wolves stood like statues, tongues lolling from the sides of their mouths. Frank found himself wondering if they were laughing at the expressions on the faces of their prey. The only other movement was a slight twitching of their tails.
“Any ideas, Frank?” Joe muttered out of the side of his mouth.
“Tell them we come in peace and ask them to take us to their leader,” Frank muttered back.
“Thanks a bunch,” Joe said. “Any good ideas?”
Frank shrugged. “No sudden moves. We don’t want them to get the idea that we’re about to attack them. Or that we’re afraid of them.”
“I’ll try to keep that in mind,” Joe retorted.
“Let’s see what happens if we back off,” Frank suggested. “Slowly.”
Together, the two brothers took a cautious step backward, then another. As if they’d been choreographed, the wolves began to move in the same instant. Two peeled off to the left and two to the right.
“Are they giving up?” Joe asked.
“In your dreams,” Frank said. “They’re starting to circle us. That means they’ve gone over to wolf pack attack mode.”
“Oh,” said Joe. “I’m so glad you have a name for it.”
Even though he was aware of the peril of their situation, Frank had room left over to study the wolves. They were a little bigger than huskies, and it was clear they were related to them. But the wolves were skinny, almost gaunt. Frank found himself remembering a line from the Shakespeare play Julius Caesar about somebody with a “lean and hungry look.” The wolves had that, all right.
Where had he heard that the jaws of a wolf were twice as powerful as those of a German shepherd? Some nature show on public TV, probably. That was one fact he’d rather take on faith than put to the test.
“I don’t believe it,” Joe said. “You’re right. They’re trying to trap us with a pincer movement!” He took a step back.
“We can’t let that happen,” Frank said.
“Yeah, but how do we stop it?” Joe asked.
They were nearly out of the clearing now. Would they be safer in the woods? Or in worse trouble? Whichever it was, Frank knew that they had no choice. They had to try to reach the safety of town. Their only hope was help from other people
.
Or was it?
“Joe, look!” Frank exclaimed, and grabbed his brother’s arm.
From the woods to their right, a sturdy husky came trotting out into the clearing.
“That must be Big Foot,” said Frank.
“I can’t see his feet,” Joe said, “and I don’t care who it is. I hope he’s on our side.”
The dog stopped, faced the four circling wolves, and let out a low, menacing growl. The wolves stopped where they were and turned to look over the new actor in the show.
“Now’s our chance,” Frank said hastily. “Keep backing up. The second we’re under the trees, run for your life!”
A few moments later their boots were shattering the crust of the snow as they ran. With each breath he took, Frank felt as if Old Man Winter were stabbing him in the chest with an icicle. He’d heard stories of people freezing their lungs by breathing too deeply in weather like this. He’d worry about that later, once they were safe from the wolf pack.
The woods thinned out, and the Hardys found themselves on a well-traveled trail. They turned in the direction of town and kept running. Then, over a rise a few dozen yards ahead, David and his team came speeding into view. As if on signal, Frank and Joe dropped into a heap by the side of the trail and tried to catch their breaths.
David brought the dogsled to a stop and ran over to them. “Are you all right?” he asked anxiously. “What happened?”
Frank took a deep breath, swallowed, and said, “Wolves—four of them.”
“They started to circle,” Joe added. “But Big Foot saved us.”
“He faced them down,” Frank explained. “And we ran. I wish we hadn’t left him there like that.”
“That’s what he wanted you to do,” David said. “He was giving you that chance. Can you get back to town on your own? I’d better go after him. Now that the wolves know he won’t join them, they may decide to attack him.”
“We’ll be fine. Do you think you’ll be able to get him back?” Frank asked.
David looked grim. “I hope so,” he said. “He’s a good dog, strong and loyal. I need him for the race, in case anything happens to Ironheart.”
The Alaskan Adventure Page 6
