CHAPTER FOUR

Charley Works Out the Huskies

When Sandy regained consciousness he was lying flat on his back on a cot, surrounded by a ring of anxious faces. He recognized his father, Jerry, Professor Crowell, Lou Mayer, Superintendent MacKensie and several other men from the maintenance gang.

“What—what happened?” Sandy asked weakly.

“It’s all right, Son. You’re fine. Just a nasty bump on the head,” Dr. Steele told him.

“He really clobbered you, Sandy,” Jerry said. “Then he straight-armed me and sent me flying back over a chair. Before I could get up he was gone in the blizzard.”

“There’s no sense trying to follow him in this heavy snow,” MacKensie declared. “His tracks are probably covered already.”

“Did he get away with anything?” Sandy wanted to know.

Dr. Steele and Professor Crowell exchanged significant glances. Then the Canadian geologist said hurriedly, “No, he didn’t steal a thing. Probably some renegade trapper looking for guns and ammunition. They prey on unwary travelers, these chaps. I’ll bet he’s wanted by the Mounties as it is.”

Superintendent MacKensie looked puzzled. “He certainly was a queer one, all right. He really messed things up. But, now, what do you suppose he was after in that stuff?” He pointed to an open valise in the middle of the room.

Sandy propped himself up on one elbow and saw that Professor Crowell’s notebooks and papers were scattered all about the floor.

“He must have thought you had money hidden between the pages,” Lou Mayer said quickly.

Superintendent MacKensie scratched his head. “I dunno. It beats me. We’ve never had anything like this happen before. There have been hijackings on the highway, but no one’s ever had the nerve to break in here.”

“Well, no harm done,” Dr. Steele said. “And Sandy will be as good as new after a night’s sleep. I suggest we clean this mess up and turn in.”

The others agreed, and while Sandy rested on the cot they began to gather up their scattered belongings.

“I wonder if he got at the rest of the stuff we left in the station wagon,” Professor Crowell said.

“I doubt it,” Superintendent MacKensie said. “Your wagon is in the shed with our scout plane and the heavy machinery. We’ve had men working out there all evening.”

After the cabin was in order, MacKensie and his men said good night and went back to the main barracks. As they were undressing before the fire, Dr. Steele questioned Sandy casually but with painstaking thoroughness about his encounter with the intruder.

“Was he a big man?” the doctor asked. “Did you get a look at his face?”

Sandy shook his head. “It was too dark to see much of anything. All I know is that he was big, taller than me, and husky.”

“That goes for me, too,” Jerry agreed. “For all I know it could have been Tagish Charley.”

Professor Crowell dropped the boot he was holding with a loud clatter. “What did you say, boy?” he asked in a tense voice.

Jerry laughed nervously at the professor’s obvious dismay. “I mean he was big like Charley. Of course it wasn’t Charley. Heck, it could have been that big French cook. All I know is that he was big and strong.”

“By the way,” Dr. Steele said suddenly, “where _is_ Charley?”

No one answered for a long moment. Then Sandy said, “I guess he’s still out with the dogs. Or maybe he’s back swapping stories with the old-timers in the barracks.”

Just as Lou Mayer was about to turn down the lamp, after the others were all in bed, the cabin door swung in and Tagish Charley tramped into the room. His hood and parka were encrusted with snow and ice, as were his boots and trousers. He looked as if he had been out in the storm for a long time. In the crook of his left arm he held a rifle.

“Good lord, Charley!” the professor exclaimed, sitting upright on his cot. “Where have you been, man?”

The Indian walked over to the fireplace and shook himself like a great dog. Carefully he leaned the rifle against the wall and shrugged out of his parka. “I drink coffee in kitchen with Frenchy when man run in and say someone break into this cabin. I take rifle and follow him.”

“In this storm!” Sandy said. “You could have gotten lost and frozen to death.”

Charley grunted and tapped a finger to his temple. “Indian have thing up here like pigeon. Always find way home. Bad man have sled and dogs waiting in trees. No use follow him. If snow stop in morning, maybe I look around some more.” He kicked off his boots, stepped out of his wet trousers and spread them out over the back of a chair near the fire. Then, like a big animal, he padded across the floor to an empty bunk. Seconds after his head hit the pillow, the rafters shook from his mooselike snores.

Jerry leaned over the side of his top-deck wall bunk and grinned at Sandy in the bunk underneath. “Now I know those guys up in Tibet are all wet. There isn’t any Abominable Snowman. They bumped into Tagish Charley when he was out for one of his evening strolls.”

Sandy grinned back, but it was a weak grin. He was bothered alternately by twinges of suspicion and pangs of guilt. It _couldn’t_ be Charley; he _knew_ it! Yet, anything was possible.

The snow stopped during the night and a high-pressure area moved into the vicinity. Morning brought clear blue skies and bright sun. But the air was still dry and frosty.

“Actually, only about seven inches fell,” Superintendent MacKensie told them at breakfast. “By the time you folks are on your way, the highway will be slick as a whistle. Our patrol plane’s scouting back in the direction of Dawson Creek to see if any motorcars are in trouble. If anyone was on the road when that snow started coming down real hard, they would have had to sit it out overnight.”

“I hope we’re still here when the plane gets back,” Jerry said. “I’d like to see how they land those babies on skis.”

“Actually, it’s smoother than landing on wheels,” Professor Crowell told him. “I know I prefer them.”

“Do you have your own plane, Professor?” Sandy asked.

“Oh, yes. In wild, big country like this, planes are more common than family cars, and far more practical. In the summertime almost every lake you pass on your way north looks something like a supermarket parking field. Private planes, all sizes and shapes and makes.”

Jerry whistled. “Boy, that’s the life. Can you imagine how that would be back in Valley View? I can just hear myself saying to my father, ‘Hey, Pop, I got a heavy date tonight. Can I have the keys to the plane?’”

The men laughed and Professor Crowell said, “That’s not as much of a joke as you think. My daughters are always flying up to Edmonton to shop for their new spring outfits and Easter bonnets.”

Jerry looked wistful. “Gee, it must be more fun being a kid up here than it is in the city.”

Dr. Steele smiled. “It certainly must be more exciting in some ways. Then again, I suspect that youngsters like you and Sandy would miss your malt shops, drive-ins and television.”

“They have television here,” Sandy said.

“Yes,” Superintendent MacKensie admitted, “but it’s pretty limited compared to what you Americans can see.”

The boys were intrigued by the heavy, thick flapjacks that Frenchy the cook served with thick slabs of bacon.

“They taste different than what my maw makes,” Jerry commented. “Sort of sour.” Then, with an apologetic glance at the big, bushy-headed cook, “But I love ’em.”

Superintendent MacKensie’s eyes twinkled. “You may not believe it,” he said, “but the fermented yeast dough that went into these flapjacks is over sixty years old.”

Jerry choked in the middle of a bite and swallowed hard. “Sixty years old! You’re kidding, sir?”

“Not in the least. It was handed down to Frenchy by his father, who was a gold prospector up in the Yukon in the eighteen-nineties.”

“Wow!” Jerry laid down his fork. “Talk about hoarders.”

Dr. Steele laughed. “Sourdough, of course. Those old prospectors got their nickname from it. You boys have heard of sourdoughs, haven’t you?”

“Sure,” Jerry admitted. “I just never knew where the name came from.”

“Sourdough was the prospector’s staff of life on the trail,” Superintendent MacKensie explained. “Once he got the mixture just right, he’d keep it in a tightly closed container and add to it as he used it. But the culture always remained the same.”

“Yeast is like a fungus,” Professor Crowell elaborated for the boys’ benefit. “It’s composed of living, growing cells.”

“Yes,” the superintendent went on. “This particular strain in the flapjacks we’re eating has been kept alive for sixty years by Frenchy’s family.”

“_Oui_,” the cook spoke from the end of the table. “My _papa_ give some of this sourdough to all his sons and daughters when they leave home. I give to my son some day.”

“Amazing,” said Lou Mayer.

Frenchy stood up and swung a big, empty platter up on one hand. “I go make some more, no?” He looked down at Jerry. “You eat five or six more, hey, boy? They very small.”

Jerry attacked the last flapjack on his plate with renewed relish. “A couple more anyway, Frenchy. And maybe another slab of that bacon.” He winked as Sandy began to groan. “Who knows, we may get stranded for days in a blizzard without food. I’m storing up energy.”

After breakfast, Sandy and Jerry went outside and watched Tagish Charley work out the huskies on the landing strip off to one side of the road station. The dog sled was about ten feet long with a welded aluminum frame and polished steel runners. Extending halfway down both sides, were guard rails to which baggage could be strapped. There was a small footrest at the rear, where the sled driver could ride standing erect, and a rubber-coated handrail for him to grip.

The dogs milled about excitedly as Charley harnessed them to the sled. They were hitched up in staggered formation, one dog’s head abreast of the haunches of the dog in front of him. Black Titan led the pack, and the driving reins were attached only to his harness.

“Lead dog, he have to be very smart,” Charley told them, ruffling up the thick fur collar around Titan’s throat. “He boss of team. Not driver. Other dogs do bad job, he scold them. Sometimes he have to fight a bad dog who make trouble.”

“Do you think Professor Crowell’s team has a chance to win the race from Whitehorse to Skagway?” Sandy asked him.

“We win,” Charley said matter-of-factly. “Best team, best lead dog.” He patted Titan’s head. “Black Titan pull sled all alone if he have to.”

“Is the professor going to drive himself, Charley?” Jerry inquired curiously.

The Indian shrugged his shoulders. “Better he not drive in race. Professor fine dog driver, but safer if he not drive this race. On trail easy for bad men to get him. Better for Charley to drive team.”

“Charley,” Sandy asked worriedly, “do you have any idea why the bad men are after Professor Crowell? Why would anyone want to harm a nice man like him?”

Anger tightened Charley’s features. “Professor got something they want very bad. They kill him if they have to.”

“But _what_ do they want? What is it the professor has that’s so valuable to them? Money? Jewels?”

Charley shook his head. “Professor no have money or jewels. Maybe something he have in here.” He tapped his finger against his forehead wisely.

Sandy looked at Jerry. “You know, he could have something there. I think I’m going to have a man-to-man talk with my dad first chance I get.”

The two boys rode on the sled as ballast while Charley put the powerful team through its paces, whizzing back and forth on the hard-packed surface of the landing strip and churning through high drifts in the virgin snow around the fringes.

“Great!” Jerry yelled in Sandy’s ear, clutching the guard rail with one hand and, with his other hand, protecting his face from the spray of snow flung back by the dogs’ flying feet. “This is better than the roller coaster at Disneyland.”

Sandy nodded vigorously. “That Titan is fantastic, isn’t he? He acts almost human.”

Seemingly aware of his admiring audience, Black Titan put on an impressive display. Setting a pace for his teammates that kept their tongues lolling from their black-roofed mouths, he guided them smoothly into sharp turns and sudden twists and broke trail through muzzle-high snow with his broad chest as if it were light as dust—all the time responsive to the slightest tug at the reins.

“He’s a marvel, all right,” Sandy told Charley later when the dogs were resting after their work-out.

“Boy, would I ever like to get into that big race. You don’t need any passengers, do you, Charley?” Jerry asked.

“Okay for you boys to come along. Need five hundred pounds on sled anyway.”

Sandy was overjoyed. “You mean it, Charley? Really? Jerry and I can ride ballast on the sled?”

“Sure. You ask professor.”

At that minute, Dr. Steele came walking across the landing strip toward them. “You fellows about ready to leave? It’s nine-thirty. Superintendent MacKensie has had our vehicles warming up for almost half an hour now.”

Sandy spoke to Jerry in a low voice. “You help Charley get the dogs in the truck. I want to talk to my dad—in private.”