CHAPTER XII

HER GREAT DISCOVERY

Of all the girls in the Fresh-Dough Club, Florence liked Alene Bowman best. Alene was quiet and, for a girl of the North, very modest. She was greatly interested in the social events of the season and especially in the annual dog race.

“There’s one thing I’d like to ask you,” Florence said to her, the day after her return from that trip up the coast. “What do you think would happen if a girl entered the race?”

“What?” Alene stared for a space of ten seconds. “Why, nothing, I guess. This is the North, you know. You thinking of going in?”

“No-o,” Florence spoke slowly. “Of course, I wouldn’t go in against Jodie, unless—”

“Unless you felt sure he couldn’t win and that perhaps you could,” Alene suggested.

“Yes—yes, that’s just it!” the large girl exclaimed. “It means a great deal to you young folks, that race.”

“A terrible lot.”

“And if I should go in and win—”

“You’d be the girl of the hour. Then, why, we’d ride you in triumph on our shoulders.”

“Good, broad shoulders,” Florence smiled. “And you don’t think of me as an outsider?”

“Certainly not. Anyone related to Pop Kennedy just couldn’t be an outsider. Besides, you’re a member of the club, aren’t you?”

“Thanks—I—I just sort of wanted to know. I’ll be going.” Florence turned away.

“No. Wait. There’s something father told me last night. You pass it on to Jodie if I don’t see him first. Tell him to keep a good watch on his dogs. There are things they do, you know, dope them or something, that slows them up.”

“But that old-timer rival of his, Smitty, wouldn’t do that?” Florence was shocked.

“No. Not Smitty. He’s a real sport. Win fair or not at all. So are the others going in, Scot Jordan and Sinrock Charlie. They’ll play fair.”

“Then what—?”

“There are some foreigners, quite a lot of them, all through the North, Syrians, Russians, and Japs. They are gamblers by trade. They’re getting up books on the race. They’re gambling heavily on Smitty to win. And father says there’s nothing they won’t do.”

“All right, I’ll tell Jodie.”

“That,” Florence thought, as she made her way home, “is all the more reason why we should have another team in the field. But where is it to come from?” Where indeed? In these days when both passengers and freight are carried by airplanes, really fine dog teams are becoming all too rare in the North. This Florence had learned from Tom Kennedy’s own lips.

Strangely enough, as if an answer to a prayer, in the van of a storm, the very team blew into town that same afternoon. Florence first saw them as they came tumbling over a high snow bank at the outskirts of the city. The sled as well as its driver piled up with the dogs. When Florence had helped them to right themselves, she found herself staring in admiration at a beautiful Eskimo girl, garbed in a handsome fawn skin parka, and at the grandest team of gray Siberian wolfhounds she had ever seen.

“Your dogs?” she managed to ask.

“No—me,” the girl showed all her fine teeth in a smile. “My brother’s dogs. Il-ay-ok my brother.”

“You mean Mr. Il-ay-ok is your brother?” Like a flash Florence saw the little man dressed in white man’s clothes on the dock at Anchorage.

“Il-ay-ok my brother,” the girl nodded.

“And these are his dogs?”

“Yes! Sure! Sure! His dogs. You wan-to ride?”

“Yes—yes, I’d love to.”

When Florence had found what she wanted she was a fast worker. This girl At-a-tak, she learned, had driven in from Cape Prince of Wales. She would stay in Nome with friends until her brother returned by airplane from his journey. Yes, she would be pleased to loan her brother’s dog team to the big white girl until they were needed. How long would that be? She did not know.

Florence had learned from her friends at Nome that Il-ay-ok had gone on an important commission in the interest of his people. She knew, too, that it had to do with reindeer. The Bowmans had told her this much. They had assured her also that, though they were large herders of reindeer, they were entirely in sympathy with Il-ay-ok and his purposes.

“Those men who are trying to edge in on the reindeer business,” Mr. Bowman had said with a gesture of disgust, “are rank outsiders. They know nothing of native problems and care less. They will rob the people of their last reindeer if they can.”

Knowing all this, Florence, whose sympathy went out freely to all simple, kindly people, wished Mr. Il-ay-ok a successful conclusion of his mission and a speedy journey home. For all that, she could not help hoping that he might not arrive until after the race was over, for now, with this wonderful team at her command, she was resolved to spend many hours each day on the trail and, if occasion seemed to warrant it, to venture in where no girl had dared venture before.

Two hours later she was again at Alene Bowman’s door. “Don’t tell a soul!” she implored, after she had told how she had come into possession of the gray team. “Not a single soul.”

“Not a single soul,” Alene echoed. “Cross my heart and hope to die.” And Alene could keep a secret.

Every day after that Florence, behind her superb team, went for a “ride.” Each time she purposely drove through a well-populated section of the city. Always she wore a heavy deer skin parka and remained as far as eyes could see her seated on her sled with her team trotting along at a leisurely pace.

All was changed when at last a hill had hidden her from view. Leaping from her sled, she threw off the heavy parka, drew on a thin calico one and a squirrel skin cap and, seizing the handles of the sled, screamed:

“Mush! You mush!” This shout acted on the dog team like an electric shock. They shot away with the speed of the wind.

They were wise, were these dogs. Not four days had passed when her shout was no longer needed. Once the last house had disappeared from sight, Gray Chief, her dog leader, began cocking his ears. The instant her costume change was complete, without a word from the young driver, he was away.

“We’ll win,” she hissed more than once through tight-shut teeth. “Win it we must.”

At times she found Jodie looking at her in a strange way. Did he suspect her purpose? Did he imagine she would enter the race against him if his chances were good? She was very fond of Jodie. Not for all the world would she offend him. But she would not tell him of her plans, at least not for the present.

“Grandfather,” she said once when the two were alone, “is there a time limit for entering the race?”

“Entries must be in at noon of the day before the race,” he replied.

“Good!” the word escaped unbidden from her lips. He gave her a strange look, but said never a word.

That same day he told her the story of his lost mine, told how he and his partner had worked their way back, back, back into the mountains, how, having found traces of gold, they had built a cabin and how they had worked day after day until the strike came, when they found nuggets as large as marbles, a very few nuggets but promise of many more.

“That very night,” his voice dropped, “Joe was taken sick. It was serious. I made a sled and hauled him out. That was a battle. I froze, starved, and fought my way and,” his voice dropped, “and lost. Partner died. Never found the mine again.”

“Perhaps someone else found it,” she suggested.

“Nope,” there was a suggestion of mystery in his voice. “We hid it. Joe and I hid that mine.”

After that day, more than ever before, the girl wanted to go in search of that mine. Go where? Ah! that was the question.

The answer came two days later and in a rather strange manner. A young scientist, a member of the Geological Survey, showed her a series of enlarged photographs taken from the air.

“They cover hundreds of square miles back there in the great unknown,” he explained. “See! Rivers, lakes, tundra, mountains, everything.”

“Everything!” the girl had been struck with an idea. “Loan them to me for an hour.”

“Right,” the young man agreed. “Two hours if you like.”

Fifteen minutes later she tore into Tom Kennedy’s cabin acting like a mad person. Pushing a table into the kitchen, throwing chairs on the bed in the small back room, she at last cleared the living room floor. Then, while her grandfather stared she thumb-tacked sheet after sheet of paper to the floor until there was no longer room to stand.

“There,” she panted. “There it all is, mountains, lakes, rivers, tundra, everything. Here is Nome,” she pointed. “There is Sawtooth Mountain. Now, where was your mine?”

For a full quarter hour, as the tin clock in the corner ticked the minutes away, the gray-haired prospector’s eyes moved back and forth across that map, then, with a sudden gasp, he exclaimed:

“There it is! Right there. Well up on the middle fork of that river. I’d swear to it if it was the last word I ever said. Girl, you’re a wonder!” Suddenly he threw his long arms about her and kissed her on the cheek.

“Soon as that race is over we’re off,” he shouted, fairly beside himself with joy.

“Yes,” she agreed, “the race and then the long, long trail. Mountains, rivers, sunshine, storms, camp beneath a rocky ledge or in the midst of dark spruce trees. On and on, and then—”

“The mine,” he murmured. There was new fire in his fine old eyes.