CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Final Victory

“They’ve caught the entire gang!” Dr. Steele reported excitedly as he burst into the boys’ hotel room at Cordova a little after eight the next morning.

Sandy sat up and massaged the sleep from his eyes. “No kidding, Dad. When?”

“Army Intelligence moved in on Strak, Parker and the other two at dawn. They gave up without a fight. Seems they put in a pretty rough night. Strak was in bad shape, thanks to Charley, but he’ll live to stand trial for espionage.”

“What about the rest of the gang?”

“The local police arrested them as they were trying to board a freighter at Valdez. It’s a clean sweep.”

“Wow!” Jerry was awake now, his eyes as big and shiny as tin plates. “That’s what I call action.” Grinning, he added, “We sure could have used a little bit of that kind of action yesterday. Where were all the cops and G-men then?”

“In an operation like this one,” Dr. Steele explained, “they had to stay way out on the fringes until the last moment. That was a risk we knew we’d have to take from the start if we hoped to spring a trap on this gang of ruthless saboteurs. If we had an army of bodyguards dogging our footsteps, they never would have been lured in.”

“Lured in?” Sandy was perplexed. “You mean we were sort of decoys for the spies?”

“In a way,” Dr. Steele admitted. “I couldn’t tell you that, even yesterday. But now it’s officially okay to let you in on it.”

“But what about the rocket fuel Professor Crowell was working on? I thought we came up to look for some rare element.”

“That of course was our primary reason for coming to Alaska. And of course we’ll continue to search for Element X. But when the enemy agents began to hound us so persistently, we saw an opportunity to make a double killing.”

Jerry stretched. “Only we came awful close to being the ones who were killed.”

“We had a narrow scrape,” Dr. Steele agreed. “It was ingenious of them to take back the plane to Cordova after they ambushed us at the mine. Our people were holding back, of course, and it really threw them off the trail. As far as they knew, we had checked back into the city and then disappeared into thin air. With a bit more luck the gang might have smuggled us out of the country.”

Jerry laughed. “Hey, Sandy, can you see us going to school in Siberia?”

“Frankly, no,” Sandy told him. “You have enough trouble with English.”

Dr. Steele broke in with “That reminds me. We have to think of getting you boys back to Valley View. You don’t want to miss too much more school.”

“Speak for yourself, Doctor,” Jerry crowed. “How can you expect us to go back and associate with little school kids after battling Yukon blizzards, Kodiak bears and spies? It’s positively undignified.”

Dr. Steele smiled tolerantly. “Don’t feel that way, Jerry. Remember, adventure and excitement may be just around the corner, whether you’re in Alaska or California.”

“Yeah, that’s right,” Jerry said thoughtfully. Then he added, with a gleam in his eye, “Besides, it’ll be great to come up with our story when Pepper March starts spouting about that cruise he was supposed to take. Boy, will _his_ eyes pop! And you know what? We might even be able to stump Quiz Taylor. Wouldn’t that be something? Okay, Valley View, here we come! How about it, Sandy?”

Sandy stretched blissfully. “I’m ready. In fact, I’m way ahead of you. How about next summer?”

SANDY STEELE ADVENTURES

1. BLACK TREASURE

Sandy Steele and Quiz spend an action-filled summer in the oil fields of the Southwest. In their search for oil and uranium, they unmask a dangerous masquerader.

2. DANGER AT MORMON CROSSING

On a hunting trip in the Lost River section of Idaho, Sandy and Mike ride the rapids, bag a mountain lion, and stumble onto the answer to a hundred-year-old mystery.

3. STORMY VOYAGE

Sandy and Jerry James ship as deck hands on one of the “long boats” of the Great Lakes. They are plunged into a series of adventures and find themselves involved in a treacherous plot.

4. FIRE AT RED LAKE

Sandy and his friends pitch in to fight a forest fire in Minnesota. Only they and Sandy’s uncle know that there is an unexploded A-bomb in the area to add to the danger.

5. SECRET MISSION TO ALASKA

A pleasant Christmas trip turns into a startling adventure. Sandy and Jerry participate in a perilous dog-sled race, encounter a wounded bear, and are taken as hostages by a ruthless enemy.

6. TROUBLED WATERS

When Sandy and Jerry mistakenly sail off in a stranger’s sloop instead of their own, they land in a sea of trouble. Their attempts to outmaneuver a desperate crew are intertwined with fascinating sailing lore.

PUBLISHED BY SIMON AND SCHUSTER

Transcriber’s Notes

--Copyright notice provided as in the original—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.)

End of Project Gutenberg's Secret Mission to Alaska, by Roger Barlow