CHAPTER XXIII

WHITHER AWAY?

What had caused the plane that had struck Johnny Thompson to swerve in its course? Some secret device for changing its course? An unevenness on the surface of the frozen lake? Johnny will never know. Some things, however, he did learn soon after he came to. One of these was that for some unknown reason he had been made a prisoner. He found himself in the narrow confines of an airplane cabin. And in the cabin, quite close to him, was a boy some two or three years his junior. The boy was dressed in a parka of caribou skins, coarse trousers and moccasins.

“Something,” Johnny told himself, “is terribly wrong.” In an effort to sit up, he attempted to move his feet. He found it impossible to move them separately. They were bound together.

“Say!” he whispered hoarsely. “What’s the idea? And who are you?”

“My name,” the other replied quietly, “is D’Arcy Arden. What’s the idea, do you ask? You may answer that. My feet are bound together the same as yours. Looks like we were in the same boat, or perhaps you might say, same plane.” In spite of his predicament, the boy managed a chuckle. In this he was joined by Johnny who immediately felt better in spite of his aching head.

“D’Arcy Arden,” he repeated half aloud. “Where have I heard that name?” He had heard that name; seen it, too. He shut his eyes and at once the image of a square of white cloth with D’Arcy Arden written upon it appeared.

“Your name on a handkerchief,” he said to the other boy.

“My handkerchief!” The boy’s eager blue eyes fairly shone. He tossed his blonde hair back to stare at Johnny. “Did some one really find it? And will he rescue me?”

“Some one found it,” Johnny replied slowly. “Curlie Carson, an aviator. Afraid it won’t do you much good, though. He was down in a storm when you passed. Couldn’t follow, of course. Lost all track of this ‘Gray Streak,’ as he calls it. Where is he now? Hundreds of miles away, I suppose.”

Little he knew about that.

“But tell me,” Johnny commanded in an awed whisper. “What sort of outlaws are these that they come into a country without a mark on their plane, burning the gas of honest people without so much as a by-your-leave, and carrying off everyone who comes near them?”

The young boy’s face broadened into a grin. “Again I must, what would you Americans say? ‘Pass the buck.’ I don’t know, at least not much. You have seen them?”

“No.”

“No?”

“Only their plane. They bowled me over as they landed, then apparently picked me up and chucked me in here.”

“They were kind to you in one way,” said D’Arcy. “They gave you your feather robe. Mind sharing it? I’ve been frozen stiff for days.”

Johnny had been too greatly concerned about the troubles he had suddenly fallen heir to to think about comfort. But another’s comfort; that was different. At once his hands were busy untying the thong that bound his eight-foot-square robe into a roll.

Ten minutes of tugging, twisting, tucking in, and they were lying side by side rejoicing in the warmth that comes even in the Arctic wilds.

“Now,” said Johnny, “tell me what you know. Are they bank robbers from the States?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Rich men’s sons on what they’d call a lark?”

“Oh, my no!”

“Foreigners who are trying to enter this country or the United States without passports?”

“Perhaps. They are foreigners; great husky fellows with tall fur hats and great bearskin coats. They speak hardly a word of English. But if all they wish is to enter a country, why all this secret wandering in the air? Why not enter and have it over with?”

“But you?” Johnny asked.

“My father’s a buffalo ranger down on the preserve. You know we have woods-buffalo in a preserve south of Great Slave Lake, just as you have them in Yellowstone Park. I was looking for some strays when they landed on the river. And they nabbed me.”

“But why?”

“Who knows? ’Fraid I’d get some one on their trail perhaps. I think they’ll use me for ransom, or a decoy sometime, maybe. Who could tell that? All I know is I’m here. Very little to eat. Freezing at night. Flying here, there, everywhere.”

“Have—have they a base?”

“I don’t know. Never been out of this cabin. They—”

“Listen!” Johnny laid a hand on his arm. “Some one climbing into the cockpit.”

At once the motors thundered. “Warming up.” D’Arcy formed the words with his lips, then made the motion of soaring with his hand. Johnny understood. They were leaving.

A glance out of the narrow window told him the weather had cleared.

“Took gas here,” he told himself. “Warmed themselves by my fire, ate my dinner; now we are away.” His heart was filled with impotent rage. “Probably leave my dogs to starve, or wander into the wilds!”

In this last he was wrong. Five minutes later the door was thrown open and a dog tumbled in. He was followed by four others. Then the door was slammed shut.

In their joy at finding him again the dogs nearly ate Johnny up.

“Good dogs!” The boy’s tone was husky. “Lie down, that’s a good fellow! Lie down.”

He watched eagerly until the last dog came tumbling in and the door slammed shut. Then his face fell.

“Ginger,” he murmured dejectedly. “They must have done him in. He was my pal. They’d never get him alive. Poor old Ginger!”

“Was he your leader?” There was true understanding in the other boy’s tone. Born and bred in the North, he knew what a good dog leader meant.

“He was more than a leader,” Johnny said huskily. “For two years, ever since I was in Alaska, he was my companion and pal. But now—”

“Don’t be so sure they killed him,” said D’Arcy. “I haven’t heard a howl from any dog. Plenty of barking, though. He may have slipped his collar.”

“And gone back over the trail!” Johnny exclaimed. “There’s hope in that. If he makes his way back to our camp, then Sandy will know that something has happened to me. And he’ll never rest until he finds me. In his younger days Sandy was a Mountie. You know what they’re like!”

“They get their man.”

“Yes, and Sandy will get his.”

“Who’s Sandy?”

“He’s the man I’m with. We’re looking for pitchblende with radium in it.”

“Pitchblende? Radium?”

“Tell you more later. Look! We’re off!”

They were indeed gliding over the ice. Faster and faster they went until with a graceful swoop they rose above the scrub forest and were away.

“It’s a shame!” Johnny exclaimed. “It’s a shame that a thing so marvelous as an airplane should fall into the hands of such black rascals!”

“Whither away?” he murmured as their speed increased. He could form no answer.