Chapter 23

UNDER SEALED ORDERS

An August night in Alaska.

To the North, the tangle of the Chugach Mountains; to the East, Bering Glacier; to the South, the purple waters of the Gulf of Alaska; to the West, Prince William Sound. All around, the grandeur of a world in the making--high mountains, rugged summits, deep cut valleys, creeping glaciers.

In a log cabin standing in the center of a small forested moraine four boys of about seventeen were grouped together. The one door and the two windows of the structure were covered with mosquito wire. The hum of insect life came into the room with the monotony of the murmur of the sea. Although it was after ten o'clock in the evening, the sun still rode high above the horizon.

A few hundred feet from the outer edge of the ice-cliff, the forested moraine became a "dead" glacier. When a glacier advances no longer, but draws back year by year, it is said to be "dead." The live glacier is simply a river of ice pouring down precipices and into gorges and fiords.

As a matter of fact, the log cabin was built upon a glacier, for under the luxuriant summer undergrowth, under the flowers, and under the bright green of the hemlocks, lay a great bed of ice which, however, was slowly receding. In times gone by the current of ice had flowed into the Gulf of Alaska, but now, because of drainage in another direction, the glacial ice swept off to the west, in the direction of Copper river.

The four boys in the cabin had just finished supper, the cooking having been done over a gasoline "plate," and they were now discussing the advisability of spending the remaining hour of daylight in the investigation of the strange, wild land in which they now found themselves.

Two days before they had landed at Katalla, and had spent the intervening time in transferring their supplies to the log house on the glacier. They had traveled northward by the inland route, and landed in the vicinity of Controller bay, bringing with them provisions sufficient for a long stay in the wonderful North.

Those who have read the previous volumes of this series will well remember the adventures of Will Smith, Charley (Sandy) Green, George Benton and Tommy Gregory. After startling experiences among the Pictured Rocks of Old Superior, in the mysterious swamps of the Everglades, in the rocky caverns of the Continental Divide, amidst the snows of the Hudson Bay wilderness, and in the coal caverns of the Pennsylvania anthracite region, they had decided to spend a portion of the summer in Alaska. They had reached Controller bay without serious accident, and now found themselves in one of the most picturesque sections of the great territory, with plenty of provisions and ammunition.

The lads were all dressed in the khaki uniform of the Boy Scouts of America, the badges showing membership in the Beaver Patrol of Chicago. Their coat sleeves showed medals proclaiming the fact that they had passed examinations and were well qualified to serve as Stalkers, Seamen, Pioneers, or in the Ambulance squad. The pennant of the Beaver Patrol flew above the door of the cabin.

Tommy Gregory separated himself from, the group about the supper table and walked to the heavily-screened doorway. His face was covered by an Alaska head-net, and he wore a pair of strong leather gloves.

"Why didn't some of you boys tell me that the mosquitos here are as large as robins?" he asked.

"Because they are only half as large," replied Sandy Green with a grin.

"If some one will hand me my gun off the table," Tommy went on, with a wrinkling of his freckled nose, "I'll shoot one, and we can have him for supper! One of the outlaws ought to make a good meal for us four!"

"Better do the killing with a handspike," advised Sandy, "for we haven't any ammunition to throw away. Besides," the boy went on, "I don't believe a thirty-eight would kill one of these wild animals, anyway!"

"Up on the Yukon," George Benton interrupted, "when they sentence a man to death, they don't hang him. They send him down the river in an open canoe, and give the mosquitos a crack at him!"

"You stated that in the way of an exaggeration," Will Smith suggested, "but it is the absolute truth, for all that! Men lost among the nigger-heads have been found later on with their bones picked dry."

"What's a nigger-head?" asked Tommy.

"A nigger-head is a bog," was the reply. "When I say a bog, I don't mean a swampy hole, either. I mean a grassy knoll sticking up out of a swamp full of mud. If you keep on the bogs, or nigger-heads, you are reasonably safe, but if you drop down into the mud, you are likely to go in over your head."

"How far down does this mud go?" demanded Sandy.

"Down to the ice," replied Will. "This entire country," he went on, "is lined with ice! Ten or twelve feet below the foundation of this cabin, the ice is almost as hard as steel. Sometimes the earth-crust over the ice is a foot thick, and sometimes it is ten feet."

"Are those brilliant flowers growing over a glacier?" asked Tommy, pointing to a group of violets growing not far away.

"Sure!" replied Will. "If it wasn't for the ice, there wouldn't be any violets here. The glacier supplies water as well as soil."

"What'd you say about going up to the end of the moraine?" asked Sandy, joining Tommy at the screened door of the cabin.

"Isn't it quite a climb?" asked Will.

"It isn't so very steep," replied Tommy, "but the way seems to be rather rocky. I'd like to know where all these round stones come from!"

"They are brought down by the glacier ice and rounded into shape by the same force which discharges the ice stream into the gulf. There is always a line of moraine at each side of a glacier, and usually several ridges in the middle of it. Those at the edge are called lateral moraines, those in the middle, medial moraines, and those at the end, terminal moraines. And that's about all I know of Alaska," Will added, with a smile.

The lads passed up the moraine for some distance, until, in fact, they came to a point where vegetation became thinner, and hemlocks of smaller growth. Then they turned toward the west and stood for a long time watching the yellow glory of the sunset.

But the heat of day passes swiftly in Alaska when the direct rays of the sun fail, and so the boys were soon glad to return to their cabin, which they had found standing unoccupied.

"I'd like to know the history of this old shack," Sandy said, as they paused in the gathering darkness at the doorway.

"There's no knowing how long it has stood here, waiting for us to come and gladden its dirty old walls with our presence and our scrubbing brushes!" laughed Tommy. "I've seen a good many cleaner cabins in my life!"

"And there is no knowing how many tragedies have been enacted here, either!" exclaimed George. "It must have witnessed many a queer sight!"

"It must have been built within a year or two," Will observed, "for the logs do not yet show decay."

"What I can't get through my noodle," George said, with a puzzled look, "is why any one should construct such a habitable little cabin in this out of the way spot, and then go away and leave it. We must be at least twelve or fifteen miles from the nearest neighbor."

"We're farther than that," observed Sandy, "judging from the time it took us to row our supplies over from the floating dock where we landed. I hope we'll be ready to go out by the time our provisions run short."

"Look here, Will," Tommy questioned, "did Mr. Horton direct you to this exact spot, or did he only tell you to locate somewhere in this vicinity? You never told us what he said."

"He told me," was the guarded reply, "that I might be able to find a deserted cabin on this moraine."

"And he told you right where to find the moraine?" asked Sandy.

"Of course he did!"

"And you said nothing to us about that, either," complained Tommy. "You're always holding something back from us!"

"Well, now that we're here," George suggested, "perhaps Will can be coaxed into telling us exactly what we're here for."

"I should say so!" exclaimed Tommy. "We don't, know at the present moment whether we're here to trap brown bears, or to box and ship Northern Lights to the eastern markets."

"Don't get sarcastic, boys!" replied Will. "I was instructed by Mr. Horton to communicate to you all the information in my possession on our first night in camp, and I'm ready right now to obey orders. Shall we go inside? The bugs are pretty thick out here!"

"I should say so!" shouted Tommy. "I'm pretty well hedged in from the blooming insects," he went on, "but it makes me nervous to hear them blowing their dinner horns every minute."

"Gee!" exclaimed Sandy. "Whenever I get into this anti-mosquito rig, I feel like an armored train!"

Twilight lay heavy over the landscape now, and so the boys were confronted by a dark interior as they stepped into the cabin.

"Who's got a searchlight handy?" asked Will.

Tommy replied that he would have a light on in a second, but before the finger of light from the electric shot into the room, Will half fell over a yielding figure which lay on the floor not for away from the table.

Then the circle of light, thrown hastily down, rested upon the white, drawn face of a boy not far from sixteen years of age. There was a little showing of blood on the floor, and his eyes were tightly closed, indicating that he had been rendered unconscious by a wound.

The lad was dressed in the khaki uniform of the Boy Scouts of America, and the badge on his hat showed that he was Leader of the Fox Patrol.

A long envelope torn open at one end and bearing the name of Will Smith, lay empty by the lad's side.

"Where did he come from?" cried Tommy, "and who is he?"

"Must have dropped out of the sky!" declared Sandy.