CHAPTER XXVII

DIAMONDS AND OTHER THINGS

Joe Marion found that five members of the exploring party had had their feet so badly frozen that they were unable to walk. To carry these over the piled and tumbled ice to the spot where the sleds had been cached was no mean task. At the same time there was every possible need for speed. An unfavorable wind at this time would mean certain death to all of them.

They started out bravely and toiled on for many hours, without food. When they did pause, there was only one kind of food left to them—polar bear meat.

“About the worst kind of meat there is in the world,” sighed the great explorer as he tried to roast a bit of it over a blubber fire. “The only way you can get any real satisfaction out of it is to chew a piece of it till your jaws are tired, then swallow it part way down. When your jaws are rested, cough it up and start chewing all over again. When you have repeated this about four times it may go all the way down and stay down.”

They all laughed at this plan of procedure, but found on trying the meat that it was indeed the toughest proposition they had ever tackled.

“Like a bit off the neck of an old bull,” was Jennings’ comment.

When they had rested for a time they again turned their faces shoreward to resume their march against death.

In the meantime, on shore Curlie had made his way back to the reindeer herd. A careful study of the deer convinced him that certain of them were sled deer.

“Got their antlers half cut off; just stubs left,” he told himself. “Stands to reason that the Eskimo cut them off so they’d travel lighter in harness.”

Making a packing rope into a lasso, he succeeded in catching one of these deer by the stubs of his antlers. The marks of a harness told him he was right about these sled deer.

“I’ll just catch three of them and tie them to old Whitie. Then I’ll lead all four out to meet Joe and the explorers. They’ll be glad enough to have some fresh reindeer meat. We’ll make these three into venison, but not old Whitie! Never! He’s been my pal through too many narrow escapes. He’s going to live to tell the story.”

Some ten hours later, as the exploring party, weakened by lack of proper food, struggled forward over the tumbled ice, they were surprised to see the stubby antlers of a white sled deer appear around an ice pile.

“Reindeer!” someone shouted.

“Reindeer and Curlie Carson!” exclaimed Joe, fairly overcome with joy at meeting his old pal after so long a lapse of time.

Three hours later, having struggled forward to the safe and solid shore-ice, the whole party sat down to a real feast of reindeer steak, while a little distance away, chained to their sled, Major, the old guard, sent out short woof-woofs in the direction of old Whitie, and Pete, the huskie, who was nine-tenths wolf, sawed at his chain and ki-yied his desire to leap at the reindeer’s throat.

When they had finished, and had made such shift as they could for a night’s rest before making the remaining twenty-five miles to the food depot on Flaxman Island, Joe and Curlie sat long upon an overturned sled talking.

“So you think it was the smuggler chief?” said Joe as Curlie finished telling of his adventure at the food depot.

“Must have been. Look at the diamonds.”

“Think we can get them?”

“Believe so.”

“But, say, how about the Whisperer?”

“Didn’t see a sign of any such person. Guess she was just a hoax—never existed at all.”

“I’m not sure about that. I think she must be a real person.”

“Well, when we get back there on Flaxman Island we’ll look around.”

They arrived at the food depot next day. As soon as the exploring party had been made comfortable, Joe and Curlie set out to solve two problems, the problem of the Whisperer and that of saving the rubies and diamonds.

The question of the Whisperer was soon settled, or at least they believed it was, for, leading away from the island, they found a three days’ old sled track. The sled had been drawn by eight powerful dogs. There were no human footprints beside the sled track.

“Saw what happened to the outlaw and skipped,” was Joe’s comment.

“Yes, and if I had had time to look about I might have stopped her,” Curlie lamented.

“Would you have wanted to do that?”

“I don’t know.”

“She seems to be a pretty good sort; never did us anything but good. Though how she came to be traveling with that rascal is more than I can guess.”

“Well, she’s gone. How about our diamonds?”

Curlie led the way to the spot of the tragedy. There had been no snow. The spot was not hard to find. As Curlie had expected, the ice had frozen to a depth of six or eight inches.

“But where are the diamonds?” he exclaimed as he failed to catch any gleam from them.

A thorough search revealed not a single stone.

“Perhaps the Whisperer came back and got them,” suggested Joe.

“Couldn’t. The ice was too thin then.”

Suddenly Joe bent over to examine a hole the size of a lead pencil in the ice. Bending over he chipped away at the ice for a second, then, straightening up, gave out a wild shout.

“Whoopee!”

He held in his hand a splendid solitaire.

“Melted its way into the ice,” he explained.

A careful search revealed other such holes. After two hours the boys had succeeded in securing twenty-eight stones.

When they felt they had rescued the last one, they turned toward camp.

“We’re rich,” laughed Joe. “Twenty thousand dollars worth of cut stones and fifty thousand worth of reindeer.”

“Rich for a day,” Curlie laughed back. “The stones we must turn in to the customs department and the reindeer herd must be restored to its rightful owners. I must get McGregor, the deputy, on the air at once and find out about that.”

Three weeks later the two boys were once more on the Valdez Glacier, just one day’s journey from the port where they might catch a boat for Seattle and the great “Outside.” Their adventures on the Yukon Trail were about at an end.

One question remained unsolved: Who was the Whisperer and where was she? It had been established as a fact that the outlaw was the leader of the band of smugglers. Since he had been deprived of his illegal gains by the loyal action of Munson, the explorer, in breaking up his band, he had planned a cruel revenge—that of destroying his supply station and leaving him with his faithful companions to starve.

Curlie’s prompt action had averted the catastrophe, but where was the driver of that powerful dog team that had left the supply cabin, and where now could she be?

Curlie was seated in the tent, nodding over his radiophone instruments and thinking of this problem and many other things. He remembered the gratitude of the Eskimo upon the return of the stolen reindeer herd, thought too of the frank praise of the explorer, Munson, when he had parted with him on the trail to Dawson. The jewels had gone with Munson to Dawson. So all matters were cleared up and Curlie was ready for some new undertaking.

In the corner of the tent Joe Marion was having a last romp with his “faithful four,” Ginger, Pete, Major and Bones. To-morrow he would return them to the owner from whom they had been hired in Valdez.

“Do you know,” he said, a suspicious huskiness creeping into his voice, “I once heard an old sourdough musher say that of all the things he had in the Arctic, he hated most to part with his dogs. I laughed at him then, but now I know it’s true.”

“Yes, sir,” answered Curlie. “It’s queer, but you—”

He broke off suddenly. His nose began wiggling like that of a rabbit eating clover. He was getting something from the air. That something was a whisper, the whisper of the Whisperer. It said:

“Hello - Curlie - are - you - there? You - didn’t - see - me - there - up - at - the - top - of - the - world - on the shore - of - the Arctic - did you? I thought - you - had - better - not.

“But - Curlie - they - want - you - on the - trail - that - leads - over - the - Great - American - Desert. Big - things - Curlie - I heard - them - calling - you. You may - see - me - there - for - that - is - my - home - and I - am - going - back.”

The whisper ended. Curlie sat staring into space, thinking: “Is the Whisperer a real person or only a ghostly spirit of the air?”

Almost as if in answer to the question came a call from the station at Valdez, a relayed message telling him to report for duty on the American Desert at once.

“Whew!” he breathed as he mopped his brow, “I may solve that mystery yet.”

How he struggled toward its solution and how he continued to be of service to his country and his fellow men by the aid of his radiophone and his wonderful ears, will be told in the next book, entitled: “The Desert Patrol.”

Transcriber’s Notes

--Copyright notice provided as in the original printed text—this e-text is public domain in the country of publication.

--Silently corrected palpable typos; left non-standard spellings and dialect unchanged.

--In the text versions, delimited italics text in _underscores_ (the HTML version reproduces the font form of the printed book.)