The Girl Detective Megapack: 25 Classic Mystery Novels for Girls

by Mildred A. Wirt

  “The ice must be piling close to shore,” said Lucile, “but we must try it. It’s our only chance.”

  After a hasty breakfast of tea and a last remaining bit of cold duck, they piled all their supplies and equipment into the kayak, then, bidding farewell to the humble ice-pan which had given them such a long ride, they began dragging the kayak toward the island.

  This proved a long and tedious task, requiring all the skill and strength they possessed, for the island, though scarcely four miles in length, had appeared to be much closer than it really was. The ice-piles, too, grew rougher and more uneven as they advanced. When they neared the shore, they found themselves in infinite peril, for the ice was piling. Here a huge cake a hundred feet across and eight feet thick glided without a sound, up—up, into mid-air, at last to crumble and fall; and here a mass of small cakes were thrown into convulsions.

  Pick their way as they might with greatest care, they were more than once in danger of being crushed by overhanging ice-pans, or of being plunged into a dark pool of water.

  When, at length, in triumph, they dragged their kayak to a rocky shelf well above the trembling ice, Marian, from sheer exhaustion, threw herself flat upon the rock and lay there motionless for some time. Lucile sat beside her absorbed in thought.

  At last Marian sat up. “Well, we’re here,” she smiled, giving her blistered hands a woeful look.

  “Yes,” smiled Lucile, “we’re here. Now where is ‘here’ and what’s it like?”

  The two girls looked at one another solemnly for a full minute. In their larder was still a little tea, a pint bottle of weak duck soup, a half-can of much frozen condensed milk—and that was all. They were on an island of which as yet they knew nothing. Above them towered great, overhanging cliffs. Before them the giant ice-pans rose, crumbling and creaking in mad turmoil.

  “Life is so strange,” said Lucile, at length; then energetically: “Let’s make some soup of the things we have left. Then, if we can get up there, we’ll explore our island. We’ll have three or four hours of daylight left, and if there’s anything for us to eat anywhere, the sooner we find it out the better.”

  The climb to the top of the island, which they undertook an hour later, was scarcely less dangerous than had been the struggle to cross the tumbling ice-floe, for this island was little more than a gigantic granite boulder rising for a distance of some five hundred feet out of the sea.

  They crept along a narrow shelf where a slip on some pebble might send them crashing to death in the tumbled mass of ice below. They scaled an all but perpendicular wall, to drag their sleeping-bag and the few other belongings, which they had dared attempt to carry, after them by the aid of a skin-rope. Then, after a few minutes’ rest, they would rise to climb again.

  But at last, their efforts rewarded, they found themselves standing on the edge of a snow-capped plateau. “Now,” said Lucile, “if there are any people living on the island, it won’t be on top of it, but in some sheltered cranny down by the shore where they are away from the sweeping winds and where they can hunt and fish.”

  “But think what they may be like!” said Marian. “They may be savages who have never seen a white man. We don’t even know whether we are a hundred miles from Bering Straits or five hundred. And neither of us has ever been on an island in the Arctic Ocean!”

  “That,” said Lucile, “has nothing to do with it. We’re on one now. We can’t very well go back to the ocean ice. We haven’t any food. We couldn’t hide on this little island if we wished to. So the best thing to do is to try to find the people, if there are any, and cast our lot with them. I once heard a great bishop say that ‘humanity is everywhere very much the same.’ We’ve just got to believe that and go ahead.”

  Shouldering the sleeping-bag, and leaving to Marian the remaining seal-oil in the skin-sack, the butcher knife, and the fishing outfit, she marched steadily forward on a course which in time would enable them to make the outer circle of the island.

  “See those piles of stones?” Lucile said fifteen minutes later. “Those did not just happen to be there. They were put there by men. See how carefully they are piled. The piles look tall and slim. I have heard a sea captain say that the natives of this coast, in very early days, when there was warring among tribes, piled stones on high points like this to make those who desired to attack them think they were men, and that there were many warriors in the place.”

  “Then,” said Marian, catching her breath at the thought, “there must be people on this island.”

  “Not for sure,” said Lucile. “The people who piled up those rocks might merely have been living here temporarily, using this island as a hunting station; and then, even if they were living here permanently, famine and contagious diseases may have killed all of them off.”

  They trudged on again in silence. Everywhere the rocky rim of the island frowned up at them, offering no suggestion of a path down to the foot, or of a rocky shelf below where a group of hunters might build a village.

  “There’s a place somewhere,” said Lucile stoutly, as she lowered her burden to the snow and paused for a brief rest. “There’s a path down and we must find it, if it’s nothing more than to find a safe spot by the sea where we can fish for smelt, tomcod and flounders.”

  Dusk was falling when, at length, with a little cry of joy, Lucile sprang forward, then began a cautious descent over a winding and apparently well-worn trail which even the snow did not completely conceal.

  With hearts beating wildly, in utter silence they made their way down, down the winding way—to what? That, they could not tell.

  Finally Lucile paused. She caught her breath quickly and clutched at her throat.

  At length, in a calmer moment, she pointed down and to the right of the trail.

  “See that square of white?”

  Marian strained her eyes to peer through the gathering darkness.

  “Yes,” she said at last, “I see it.”

  “That,” said Lucile in a tone that was tense with emotion, “is the roof of a house—a white man’s house!”

  “Wha—what makes you think so?” gasped Marian.

  “There’s nothing as square as that in nature’s panorama. And a native does not build a house like that.”

  “And if it is?”

  “If it is, we must trust ourselves to their care, though I’d almost rather they were natives.” She closed her eyes and saw again the rough, unkempt white men, beach combers, who lived by trading, hunting and whaling with the natives. They were a hard, bad lot, and she knew it.

  “Well,” she sighed, “come on. Let’s go down.”

  Down they went, each turn of the path bringing them closer to the mysterious house.

  “There’s no light,” said Lucile at last.

  “There are no tracks in the snow,” added Marian, a moment later.

  “It’s boarded up,” said Lucile, as they came closer. It would have been hard to judge whether there was more of relief or of disappointment in the tone in which she said this.

  They stood there staring at the house. It was a nice house, a bungalow such as one might desire for a summer home in the mountains or at the seashore.

  “Who do you suppose brought all that fine lumber up here and built that house?” said Lucile.

  “I wonder who,” echoed Marian.

  They took a turn about it. All the windows had been boarded up with rough lumber. There were two doors. These were fastened with padlock and chain. An examination of the locks showed that keys had not been used in them for months.

  Lucile’s eyes were caught by poles and some platforms to the right, along the rocky shore. She walked in that direction.

  “Marian, come here!” she cried presently. Marian came running. “Look! Here’s a whole native village! They’ve built their homes out of rocks. See! It’s like tunneling into the side of the mountain. Must be homes for a hundred people!”

  “And not a soul here! How strange!”

  “Not eve
n a dog!” Lucile’s own voice sounded strangely hollow to her, as if echoed by the walls of a tomb.

  CHAPTER XV

  TWO RED RIDING HOODS

  Before Phi struck out for the unknown land which had so suddenly thrust itself into his line of vision, he paused to ask himself the question whether he had come upon some island or a point on the mainland. Finding himself unable to answer the question, he at once set plans for reaching that land.

  The rifle, now a useless encumbrance, he left leaning against an up-ended cake of ice. That shore, if not lifted high by a mirage, was at least ten miles away. And ten miles to a boy and dog who have appeased their hunger for three days with two small birds, is no mean distance.

  Bravely they struck out. Now they crossed a broad, level pan and now climbed a gigantic pile of boulder-like fragments that rolled and slipped at their every move, threatening to send them crashing to the surface of the ice-pans or to submerge them in the deep, open pool of stinging water that lay at its base.

  Exercising every precaution, the boy made his way slowly forward. More than once he paused to wait for the dog, time after time lifting him over a dangerous crevice or assisting him in climbing a particularly difficult barrier.

  “I know you’d help me if you could,” he said with a smile as he moistened his cracked lips, “so if we go down, we go together.”

  Time after time, dizzy-headed and faint, he sat down to rest, only to rise after a moment and struggle on again. At times, too, he was obliged to shake himself free from the spells of drowsiness which the chill wind and brisk Arctic air threw over him.

  “We—we’ll make it, old boy. We—we’ll make it,” he repeated over and over.

  Little by little the landscape broadened before them. The bit of rugged shore line which lay there like a vision might be a point of land on the continent of North America or of Asia. Then again it might be the side of an island. Phi thought of this in a vague sort of way. His chief desire to put foot once more on something that did not drift with wind and tide, he bent every effort to making the goal.

  At last, after what seemed days of struggle, he stood within a quarter of a mile of the shore.

  The ice was piling on that shore, a scene of disordered grandeur beyond description. It was as if the streets of a city, six or eight feet in thickness and solid as marble, should suddenly begin to rise, to buckle, to glide length upon length in wild confusion. For some time the boy and the dog stood upon the last broad pan that did not pile and, lost in speechless wonder, viewed that marvel of nature with the eyes of unconcerned spectators.

  At last the boy shook himself free from the charm. “Rover,” there was awe in his tone, “do you know what we must do? We must cross that and reach that shore before the wind shifts or we are lost.”

  As if understanding his meaning, the dog lifted his nose in air and song, the dismal song known only to the sled dog of the Arctic.

  “Well—here goes!”

  Phi scrambled to the surface of a gliding cake, then, having raced across its surface, leaped a narrow chasm, to race on again. Such an obstacle race had never before been entered into by a boy and a dog. Rover, seeming to have regained some of the spirit of his younger days, followed well. Once, with a dismal howl, he fell into a crevice, but before an ice-pan could rear up and crush him, a strong arm dragged him free.

  They had made two-thirds of the distance when, on a broad pan that shuddered as if torn by an earthquake, Phi paused. One glance at the rocky coast brought a sharp exclamation to his lips.

  “It’s like the wall of a prison,” he muttered; “straight up.

  “No,” he whispered a moment later, “there’s a bare chance—that rocky shelf. But it’s fifteen feet above the ice, and how’s one to reach it? There may be a way. One can but try.”

  They were off again. Each fresh escape brought them face to face with new and more startling dangers. Here they were lifted in air, to leap away just in time from a crash. Here they crossed a pile of crushed and slivered fragments only to face a dark and yawning pool of salt water waiting to sting them into insensibility. But always there was a way out. Each moment brought them closer to the frowning wall.

  A last, close-up survey told the boy that there was no path, no slanting incline, no rugged steps to the shelf above. But from the shelf upward there appeared to be a possible ascent.

  At that moment he saw something that made him catch his breath hard. A gigantic ice-pan, measuring hundreds of feet from side to side, had begun to glide upward over a mass of broken fragments toward that cliff.

  “It will go as high as the shelf if it hasn’t too many seams,” he said aloud. “It may go up. And it may crash. But it’s our only chance.”

  He looked at the dog. That the old fellow could make this perilous trip, could mount himself on the very edge of a giant, tilting cake of ice and ride up—up—up, inch by inch and foot by foot, to pause there a breathless distance in mid-air and then at the one critical second, leap to safety on the rocky shelf, the boy did not dream for a moment. Yet he had no thought of leaving Rover behind.

  “Come on,” he said quietly, “we’ll make it somehow, or we’ll go down together.”

  Mounting the tilting monster, they stationed themselves at its very edge and stood there motionless, a boy and a dog in the very midst of one of nature’s most stupendous demonstrations of power.

  A long minute passed—two—three. They were now ten feet in air; the shelf, a yawning distance still before them, appeared to frown down upon them. To the right of them an ice-pan half the size of the one on which they rode, having come within some ten feet of the wall, broke and crumpled down with a crash.

  Still their cake glided on. Now they were fifteen feet from the shelf, now ten. A running jump for the boy would land him safely on the ledge. But there was the dog. There came a creaking grind, a snapping, crashing sound, then silence. The pan had broken in two. Half of it had broken off under the strain. The part on which they rode still stood firm. They were now twenty feet in air. A dark pool of water lay beneath them. The boy gave one glance at the blue heavens and the blinking stars; then, stooping, he picked up the dog and held him in his arms. He stood there like a statue, a magnificent symbol of calm in the midst of all this confusion.

  With the ice still gliding upward, holding his breath, as if in fear that the very force of it might send the hundreds of tons crashing to the abyss below. Phi waited the closing of the gap.

  Eight feet, seven, six, five, four.

  “Now!” he breathed.

  His right foot lifted, his left stiffened, his body shot forward.

  The next moment there was a sickening crash—the ice-pan had broken in a thousand pieces. But the boy and the dog, saved by a timely leap, lay prone upon the surface of the rocky cliff.

  For some time the boy lay sprawled upon the rocky ledge motionless. This last supreme effort had drawn out his last reserve of nervous energy. Amid the shrill scream of grinding ice rising from the tossing mass below, he lay as one whose ears are closed forever to sound.

  The dog, with ears dropping, eyes intent, lay watching him. At last his tail wagged gently to and fro—there had been a flutter of motion in the boy’s right hand. Meekly the dog crawled forward to lick the glove that covered that hand with his rough tongue. At that the boy raised himself to a sitting position, and, rubbing his eyes, stared about him.

  “Rover, old boy,” he drawled at last, “that was what you might call a close squeak.”

  The dog rose and wagged his tail.

  “Rover,” the boy said solemnly, “I took a long chance for you just then. Why did I do it? If you’d been the leader of my team for several winters before old age overtook you; if you’d maybe pulled me out of some blizzard where I’d have frozen to death if it hadn’t been for your keen sense of smell, which enabled you to follow the trail, there’d have been some sense to it. But you weren’t and you didn’t; you’re only a poor, old, heroic specimen someone has played traitor
to and deserted in old age. Well, that’s enough of that; we’re on land now. What land is it? What are the people like? When do we eat? That last question is most important for the moment. What say we try scaling the cliff and then look about a bit?”

  The dog barked his approval. Together they began scaling the cliff, which at times appeared to confront them as an insurmountable barrier and at others offered a gently rising slope of shale and rock.

  * * * *

  When Lucile and Marian had made sure that there were no people in the deserted native village, they returned to the mysterious bungalow.

  “We’ve got to get in there,” said Marian, “don’t matter whose it is.”

  Searching about, she found a stout pole. With this she pried off a board from a window, then another and another.

  “Give me a lift,” she said, raising one foot from the ground.

  Once boosted up she found that the window was not locked. The sash went up with a surprising bang, and the next instant she was inside and assisting Lucile to enter.

  The place had a hollow sound. “Like an old, empty church,” said Marian.

  Lucile scratched a match. They were in a large room which was absolutely empty. A hasty exploration of the three remaining rooms, which were much smaller, revealed the same state of affairs.

  “Now what,” said Lucile, knitting her brows in deep thought, “do you think of that?”

  “Anyway, it’s dry, and not too cold,” said Marian.

  “But it’s empty, and I’m hungry. Say!” she exclaimed quickly, “you bring in our things; I’ll be back.”

  She bounded out of the window and hurried away toward the native village, which lay silent in the moonlight.

  Marian had succeeded in dragging their sleeping-bag and other belongings through the window and was there waiting when Lucile called from outside: