The Girl Detective Megapack: 25 Classic Mystery Novels for Girls

by Mildred A. Wirt

  “That’s over,” she breathed. “How thankful I am that we did not attempt to make it with the sleds, or with our treasure on the backs of the deer. There would not have been left a fragment of our dishes as big as a dime. As for the sleds, well it simply couldn’t be done.”

  “No-me,” sighed Attatak.

  “I wonder how he could have brought them by the rapids?” Marian mused as she examined the sleds. There were flakes of ice frozen to the runners. She could only guess at the method he had used, only dimly picture the struggle it must have taken. Even as she attempted to picture the night battle, a great wave of admiration and trust swept over her.

  “The treasure is safer in his hands than in ours,” she told herself.

  “But, after it has left his hands?” questioned her doubting self.

  “Oh well,” she sighed at last, “what must be, will be. The important thing after all is to reach the station before the Agent has started on his way.”

  Again her brow clouded. What if there was no one to go back with her?

  To dispel this doubt, she hastened to hitch her deer to her sled. Soon they were racing away over the trail, causing the last miles of their long journey to melt away like ice in the river before a spring thaw.

  In the meantime a third startling revelation had come to Patsy. First she had discovered that at least one of the persons connected with the strange purple flame was a girl. Next she had found the red trail of blood that apparently was made by one of Marian’s slain deer, and which led to the door of their tent. The third discovery had nothing to do with the first two, nor with the purple flame. It was of a totally different nature, and was most encouraging.

  “If only Marian were here!” she said to herself as she paced the floor after receiving the important message.

  This message came to her over the radiophone. It was not meant particularly for her, nor for Marian. It was just news; not much more than a rumor, at that. Yet such news as it was, if only it were true!

  Faint and far away, it came drifting in upon the air from some powerful sending station. Perhaps that station was Fairbanks, Dawson or Nome. She missed that part of the message.

  Only this much came to her that night as she sat at their compact, powerful receiving set, beguiling the lonesome hours by catching snatches of messages from near and far:

  “Rumor has it that the Canadian Government plans the purchase of reindeer to be given to her Eskimo people on the north coast of the Arctic. Five or six hundred will be purchased as an experiment, if the plan carries. It seems probable that the deer purchased will be procured in Alaska. It is thought possible to drive herds across the intervening space and over the line from Alaska, and that in this way they may be purchased by the Canadian Agent on Canadian soil. A call for such herds may be issued later over the radio, as it is well known that many owners of herds have their camps equipped with radio-phones.”

  There the message ended. It had left Patsy in a fever of excitement. Marian and her father wished to sell the herd. It was absolutely necessary to sell it if Marian’s hopes of continuing her education were not to be blasted. There was no market now for a herd in Alaska. In the future, as pastures grew scarcer, and as herds increased in numbers, there would be still less opportunity for a sale.

  “What a wonderful opportunity!” Patsy exclaimed. “To sell the whole herd to a Government that would pay fair prices and cash! And what a glorious adventure! To drive a reindeer herd over hundreds of miles of rivers, forests, tundra, hills and mountains; to camp each night in some spot where perhaps no man has been before; surely that would be wonderful! Wonderful!”

  Just at that moment there entered her mind a startling thought. Scarberry’s camp, too, was equipped with a radio-phone. Probably he, too, at this very moment, was smiling at the prospect of selling six hundred of his deer. He wanted to sell. Of course he did. Everyone did. He would make the drive. Certainly he would.

  “And then,” she breathed, pressing her hands to her fluttering heart, “then it will be a race; a race between two reindeer herd; a race over hundreds of miles of wilderness for a grand prize. What a glorious adventure!”

  “If only Marian were here,” she sighed again. “The message announcing the plans may come while she is gone. Then—”

  She sat in a study for a long time. Finally she whispered to herself:

  “If the message comes while she is gone; if the opportunity is sure to be lost unless the herd starts as soon as the message comes, I wonder if I’d dare to start on the race with the herd, with Terogloona and without Marian and Attatak. I wonder if I would?”

  For a long time she sat staring at the fire. Perhaps she was attempting to read the answer in the flames.

  At last, with cheeks a trifle flushed, she sprang to her feet, did three or four leaps across the floor, and throwing off her clothing, crept between the deer-skins in the strange little sleeping compartment.

  CHAPTER XXI

  FADING HOPES

  Just at dawn of a wonderfully crisp morning, Marian found herself following her reindeer over a trail that had recently been travelled by a dog team. She was just approaching the Trading Station where the questions that haunted her tired brain would be answered.

  Since leaving the cabin in the forest above the rapids, she and Attatak had travelled almost day and night. A half hour for a hasty lunch here and there, an hour or two for sleep and for permitting the deer to feed; that was all they had allowed themselves.

  An hour earlier, Marian had felt that she could not travel another mile. Then they had come upon the trail of the dog team, and realizing that they were nearing their goal, her blood had quickened like a marathon racer’s at the end of his long race. No longer feeling fatigue, she urged her weary reindeer forward. Contrary to her usually cautious nature, she even cast discretion to the winds and drove her deer straight toward the settlement. That there were dogs which might attack her deer she knew right well. That they were not of the species that attacked deer, or that they were chained, was her hope.

  So, with her heart throbbing, she rounded a sudden turn to find herself within sight of a group of low-lying cabins that at one time had been a small town.

  Now, as her aged host had said, it was a town in name only. She knew this at a glance. One look at the chimneys told her the place was all but deserted.

  “No smoke,” she murmured.

  “Yes, one smoke,” Attatak said, pointing.

  It was true. From one long cabin there curled a white wreath of smoke.

  For a moment Marian hesitated. No dogs had come out to bark, yet they might be there.

  “You stay with the deer,” she said to Attatak. “Tether them strongly to the sleds. If dogs come, beat them off.”

  She was away like an arrow. Straight to that cabin of the one smoke she hurried. She caught her breath as she saw a splendid team of dogs standing at the door. Someone was going on a trip. The sled was loaded for the journey. Was it the Agent’s sled? Had she arrived in time?

  She did not have long to wait before knowing. She had come within ten feet of the cabin when a tall, deep-chested man opened the door and stepped out. She caught her breath. Instantly she knew him. It was the Agent.

  He, in turn, recognized her, and with cap in hand and astonishment showing in his eyes, he advanced to meet her.

  “You here!” he exclaimed. “Why Marian Norton, you belong in Nome.”

  “Once I did,” she smiled, “but now I belong on the tundra with our herd. It is the herd that has brought me here. May I speak to you about it?”

  “Certainly you may. But you look tired and hungry. The Trader has a piping Mulligan stew on the stove. It will do you good. Come inside.”

  An Indian boy, who made his home with the Trader, was dispatched to relieve Attatak of her watch, and Marian sat down to enjoy a delicious repast.

  There are some disappointments that come to us so gradually that, though the matters they effect are of the utmost importance, we are no
t greatly shocked when at last their full meaning is unfolded to us. It was so with Marian. She had dared and endured much to reach this spot. She had arrived at the critical moment. An hour later the Agent would have been gone. The Agent was her friend. Ready to do anything he could to help her, he would gladly have gone back with her to assist in defending her rights. But duty called him over another trail. He had no one, absolutely no one to send from this post to execute his orders.

  “Of course,” he said after hearing her story, “I can give you a note to that outlaw, Scarberry, but he’d pay no attention to it.”

  “He’d tear it up and throw it in my face,” asserted Marian stoutly.

  “I’ll tell you what I’ll do,” said the Agent, rising and walking the floor. “There is Ben Neighbor over at the foot of Sugar Loaf Mountain. His cabin is only three days travel from your camp. He’s a good man, and a brave one. He is a Deputy Marshal. If I give you a note to him, he will serve you as well as I could.”

  “Would we need take a different trail home?”

  “Why? Which way did you come?”

  Marian described their course. The Agent whistled. “It’s a wonder you didn’t perish!”

  “Here,” he said, “is a rough map of the country. I will mark out the course to Ben’s cabin. You’ll find it a much safer way.”

  “Oh, all right,” she said slowly. “Thanks. That’s surely the best way.”

  She was thinking of the treasure left at the cabin. She had hoped to return by that route and claim it. Now that hope was gone.

  CHAPTER XXII

  A FRUITLESS JOURNEY

  It was night; such a night as only the Arctic knows. Cold stars, gleaming like bits of burnished silver in the sky, shone down upon vast stretches of glistening snow. Out of that whiteness one object loomed, black as ink against the whiteness of its background.

  Weary with five days of constant travel, Marian found herself approaching this black bulk. She pushed doggedly forward, expecting at every moment to catch a lightning-like zigzag flash of purple flame shooting up the side of it.

  The black bulk was the old dredge in Sinrock River. She had passed that way twice before. Each time she had hoped to find there a haven of rest, and each time she had been frightened away by the flash of the purple flame. Those mysterious people had left this spot at one time. Had they returned? Was the dredge now a place of danger, or a haven for weary travelers? The answer to this question was only to be found by marching boldly up to the dredge.

  This called for courage. Born with a brave soul, Marian was equal to any emergency. Sheer weariness and lack of sleep added to this a touch of daring.

  Without pausing, she drove straight up to the door. Reassured by the snow banked up against it, she hastily scooped away the bank with her snow-shoe, and having shoved the door open, boldly entered.

  It was a cheerless place, black and empty. The wind whistled through the cracks where the planks had rotted away. Yet it was a shelter. Passing through another door, she found herself in an inner room that housed the boiler of the engine that had furnished power to the dredge. The boiler, a great red drum of rust, stood directly in front of her.

  “Here’s where we camp,” she said to Attatak. “We can build a fire in the fire-box of the boiler and broil some steak. That will be splendid!”

  “Eh-eh,” grinned Attatak.

  “And Attatak, bring the deer through the outer door, then close it. They were fed two hours ago. That will do until morning.”

  She lighted a candle, gathered up some bits of wood that lay strewn about the narrow room, and began to kindle a fire while Attatak went out after the deer.

  For the moment, being alone, she began to think of the herd. How was the herd faring? What had happened to Patsy during those many days of her absence? Were Bill Scarberry’s deer rapidly destroying her herd ground.

  “Well, if they are, we are powerless to prevent it,” she told herself with a sigh.

  As she looked back upon it now, she felt that her whole journey had been a colossal failure. They had discovered the mountain cave treasure, only to be obliged to leave the treasure behind. They had reached the Station in time to talk with the Government Agent, but he had not been able to come with her. Only twenty-four hours before they had reached the cabin of Ben Neighbor, only to find it dark and deserted. He had gone somewhere, as people in the Arctic have a way of doing; and where that might be she could not even hazard a guess. At last, in despair, she had headed her deer toward her own camp. In thirty-six hours she would be there.

  “Well, at any rate,” she sighed, “it will be a pleasure to see Patsy and to sleep the clock round in our own sweet little deerskin bedroom.”

  She was indeed to see Patsy, but the privilege of sleeping the clock round was not to be hers for many a day. She was destined to find the immediate future far too stirring for that.

  Twenty-four hours later saw Marian well on her way home. Ten hours more, she felt sure, would bring her to camp. And then what? She could not even guess. Had she been able to even so much as suspect what was going on at camp, she would have urged her reindeer to do their utmost.

  Patsy was right in the middle of a peck of trouble. Because of the fact that for the last few days she had been living in a realm of exciting dreams, the troubles that had come down upon her seemed all the more grievous. Since that most welcome radio message regarding the proposed purchase of reindeer by the Canadian Government had come drifting in over the air, she had, during every available moment, hovered over the radio-phone in the momentary expectation of receiving the confirmation of that rumor which might send the herd over mountains and tundra in a wild race for a prize, a prize worth thousands of dollars to her uncle and cousin—the sale of the herd.

  Perhaps it was because of her too close application to the radio-phone that she failed to note the approach of Scarberry’s herd as it returned to ravish their feeding ground. Certain it was that the first of the deer, with the entire herd close upon their heels, were already over the hills before she knew of their coming.

  It was night when Terogloona brought this bit of disquieting news.

  “And this time,” Patsy wailed, “we have not so much as one hungry Eskimo with his dog to send against them.”

  As if in answer to the complaint, the aged herder plucked at her sleeve, then led her out beneath the open sky.

  With an impressive gesture, he waved his arm toward the distant hills that lay in the opposite direction of Scarberry’s herd. To her great surprise and mystification, she saw gleaming there the lights of twenty or more campfires.

  “U-bogok,” (see there) he said.

  “What—what does it mean?” Patsy stammered, grasping at her dry throat.

  “It is that I fear,” said Terogloona. “They come. Tomorrow they are here. You gave food for a week for a few; flour, sugar, bacon. They like him. Now come whole village of Sitne-zok. Want food. You gave them food. What you think? No food for herders, no herders. No herders, no herd. What you think?”

  Patsy did not know what to think. Gone was all her little burst of pride over the way she had handled the other situation that had confronted her. Now she felt that she was but a girl, a very small girl, and very, very much alone. She wished Marian would come. Oh, how she did wish that she would come!

  “In the morning we will see what can be done,” was all she could say to the faithful old herder as she turned to re-enter the igloo.

  That night she did not undress. She sat up for hours, trying to think of some way out. She sat long with the radio head-set over her ears. She entertained some wild notion of fleeing with the herd toward the Canadian border, providing the message confirming the offer for the deer came. But the message did not come.

  At last, in utter exhaustion, she threw herself among the deerskins and fell into a troubled sleep.

  She was roused from this sleep by a loud: “Hello there!” followed by a cheery: “Where are you? Are you asleep?”

  It was M
arian. The next moment poor, tired, worried Patsy threw herself sobbing into her cousin’s strong arms.

  “There now,” said Marian, soothingly, as Patsy’s sobbing ceased, “sit down and tell me all about it. You’re safe; that’s something. Your experiences can’t have been worse than ours.”

  “The Eskimo! Bill Scarberry’s herd!” burst out Patsy, “They’re here. All of them!”

  “Tell me all about it,” encouraged Marian.

  “Wait till I get my head-set on,” said Patsy, more hopefully. “It’s been due for days; may come at any time.”

  “What’s due?” asked Marian, mystified.

  “Wait! I’ll tell you. One thing at a time. Let’s get it all straight.”

  She began at the beginning and recited all that had transpired since Marian had left camp. When she came to tell of her discovery that one of the mysterious occupants of the tent of the purple flame was a girl, Marian’s astonishment knew no bounds. When told of the bloody trail, Marian was up in arms. The camp of the purple flame must be raided at once. They would put a stop to that sort of thing. They would take their armed herders and raid that camp this very night.

  “But wait!” Patsy held up a warning finger, “I am not half through yet. There is more. Too much more!”

  She was in the midst of recounting her experiences with the band of wandering Eskimo and Scarberry’s herd, when suddenly she clapped the radio receiver tightly to her ears and stopped talking. Then she murmured:

  “It’s coming! At last, it is coming!”

  “For goodness sake!” exclaimed Marian, out of all patience, “Will you kindly tell me what is coming?”

  But Patsy only held the receiver to her ears and listened the more intently as she whispered:

  “Shush! Wait!”

  CHAPTER XXIII

  PLANNING THE LONG DRIVE

  The message that was holding Patsy’s attention was one from the Canadian Government. It was a bona fide offer from that Government to purchase the first herd of from four to six hundred reindeer that should reach Fort Jarvis.