The Call of the Beaver Patrol

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"I fired back," replied the detective with a grim smile, "and I guess
they're lying on the floor of the passage!"

Will bent closer over the wounded detective while Tommy and Sandy
started down the gangway on a run, closely followed by Elmer.

"Why did they shoot you?" asked Will.

"I found the money," Ventner replied, "and hid it in a crevice in the
wall, and they found it. When we managed to escape by cutting the ropes
I saw them take the money and disappear in the darkness. I followed on
and accused them of the act and they shot me! Then I shot back, and I
guess it's a pretty bad mess, when you take it altogether!"

"Where is the money?" asked Will.

"They have it in their possession," was the reply, "if they haven't
hidden it again."

Before the wounded detective could continue, George, Jimmie, Dick,
Canfield, Sandy and Tommy came running out of the gangway.

"Where's Elmer?" asked Will.

"We left him back there talking with one of the hold-up men," replied
George. "They're both badly hurt, and won't last long!"

"I'm not sorry!" moaned Ventner.

A moment later, Elmer came out of the passage with a bill-book of good
size in his hand. He lifted the book gaily as he entered the
illumination.

"I'll bet he's got the money!" exclaimed Tommy.

"Sure he has!" replied Will, and Elmer nodded.

The voices of Carson and Buck again came roaring up from below.

"Why don't you lower the cage?" Carson shouted. "I'm going to have every
one of you arrested as soon as I can find an officer! You can't work any
of your gold brick schemes on me!"

"We may as well drop down and take them aboard," Will laughed.

Carson was swelling with rage when he stepped onto the platform of the
list. He shook his fist fiercely under Will's nose, and announced that
he would have him wearing handcuffs before night.

"How much reward was offered for the return of that two hundred thousand
dollars?" asked the boy, without paying any attention to the angry
demonstrations of the banker.

"Twenty thousand dollars!" replied Carson. "But you'll never get a cent
of it. I hired a party of Boy Scouts to come here from Chicago and look
into the case, but they never came near me."

"When you write to Chicago again," Will replied, with a smile as the
elevator stopped at the second level, "just tell Mr. Horton that the
Beaver's didn't succeed in getting the money, but that the Wolves did.
Elmer has the money in his possession right this minute!"

"Impossible!" shouted Carson.

"Hand him the money, Elmer," requested Will.

Carson snatched the bill book as it was held out to him and began
looking through the ten-thousand-dollar banknotes which it contained.

"The next time you get drunk and fall out of your machine, don't accuse
every one you meet of robbing you!" Sandy cut in.

"Are you the boys who came on from Chicago?" demanded Carson.

"Sure!" replied Will.

"I guess I'm an old fool!" admitted Carson. "Here I've been roaming
around about half a day accusing you boys of stealing my money, when all
the time you were planning on returning it to me!"

"Do we get the reward now?" asked Will.

"Twenty thousand and expenses!" replied Carson. "I'll settle with Elmer
and his chums later on!"

"It's a shame to take the money!" declared Sandy, but Will gave him a
sharp punch in the back and he cut off any further remarks which he
might have had in his mind.

The story ends here because the adventure ended with the finding of the
money. The old tool house was deserted that night. The two hold-up men
and the detective recovered after a long illness in a Pittsburgh
hospital. The detective was permitted to go his way after promising to
keep out of crooked detective deals in the future. He never told how or
where he received his information about the lost money. The hold-up men
were given long sentences in prison.

A few weeks later, when the mining company resumed operations at the
Labyrinth, Tunnel Six was walled up. Mr. Carson, the president, declared
that it made what few hairs he had left stand on end to think of the
experiences he had endured there!

However, there are still stories about the breaker, that on dark nights,
when the wind blows, and the rain falls in great sheets, there are
mysterious lights floating about Tunnel Six.

Jimmie and Dick often tell exactly how these lights were made, and how
they enjoyed themselves living down in the bowels of the earth, but the
superstitious miners still claim that the boys were not responsible for
all the lights which burned there!

Dick and Jimmie also have their joke with the Beaver Patrol boys
whenever they meet, declaring that if they had not finally relented and
dropped the string the boys had carried into the mine for their own
protection, they would still be wandering around in the Labyrinth Mine.

"And now," Will said as they settled down in their old room on
Washington boulevard, "we're going to be good boys from this time on and
remain in Chicago and stay at home nights!"

However, in three days, the boys were preparing for another bit of
adventure, the details of which will be found in the next volume of this
series entitled:

"Boy Scouts in Alaska; or, The Camp on the Glacier."

The End.

[Frontispiece]

BOY SCOUTS IN ALASKA

Or, The Camp on the Glacier

CONTENTS

Chapter Page

I--UNDER SEALED ORDERS 7

II--THE PRINT OF A THUMB 14

III--A MESSAGE IN CODE 21

IV--THE LOST PLANS 28

V--FISHING IN ALASKA 35

VI--A MISSING BOY 42

VII--A LOST "BULLDOG" 49

VIII--ON THE GULF OF ALASKA 56

IX--THE CLUES WILL FOUND 63

X--IN LUCK AT LAST 70

XI--MAKING NEW PLANS 76

XII--ANOTHER LOST "BULLDOG" 83

XIII--THE BEGINNING OF THE TRAIL 89

XIV--THE LAD WITH THE "DRAG" 94

XV--A BREAK IN THE GLACIER 100

XVI--GEORGE AND SANDY CAUGHT 107

XVII--THE MORSE CODE 114

XVIII--THE ROCKS TUMBLE DOWN 122

XIX--VICTIMS OF THE QUAKE 130

XX--DOWN IN THE CHASM 137

XXI--EXPLAINING CORDOVA INCIDENTS 142

XXII--THE PLANS AT LAST 148

CHAPTER I

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.

CHAPTER II

THE PRINT OF A THUMB

"The Fox Patrol!" exclaimed George. "I wonder if that means the Fox
Patrol of Chicago? It doesn't seem to me that this kid could have
followed on our heels across the continent!"

Will lifted the torn envelope from the floor and examined it critically.

"That's your name isn't it?" asked Sandy looking over his shoulder.

"It certainly is!" replied Will.

"Well, you've got the address left, anyhow!" said George.

"Say," Tommy suggested, opening his eyes very wide, "some gink followed
the boy here, bumped him on the coco, and stole the communication! I
reckon we're getting into the center of population again. Here we are,
several hundred miles from nowhere, and we've unearthed an innocent
messenger and a bold highwayman already!"

"Have you any idea what the stolen paper contained?" asked George.

"Not the slightest!" replied Will.

"Wasn't it arranged that Mr. Horton should communicate with you after we
reached this point?" asked Sandy.

"Certainly not!" was the reply. "He gave me full instructions before we
left Chicago. If I found a deserted cabin at this point, I was to make
camp here. If I did not, I was to keep along the coast toward Bering
Glacier until I discovered one answering this description."

"But where did this kid come from?" insisted Tommy. "How did he ever get
here all by his lonely? We had two guides to help us in, and it seems
that he came alone, that is, as far as we can see."

"I don't think he came alone!" replied Sandy pointing to the wound on
the boy's head. "He never got a bump like that in a fall!"

"Oh, we'll have to wait until the kid wakes up!" Tommy cut in. "We'd
better be doing something to help him out of his trance, instead of
standing here guessing. He may be badly hurt!"

The limp figure was lifted from the floor and placed on one of the bunks
fastened to the wall of the cabin. The lad groaned slightly as the
change was made, but did not open his eyes.

"I guess he got a bad bump," Will suggested. "And I'm sorry to say that
his wound requires a piece of surgery far beyond my ability to perform.
I'm afraid we'll have to send out for a doctor!"

The boys used every means within their knowledge to bring the lad back
to consciousness, but all their efforts proved unavailing. The lad lay
in a comatose condition long after all their resources had failed.

So busily engaged were the boys in their efforts at resuscitation that
they did not for a moment remember that they, themselves, might be in
danger from the same hand which had struck down the boy.

As they worked over the lad, bathing the wound with hot water and
endeavoring to force stimulating drinks between the set teeth, they did
not observe a bearded face was pressed for a moment against a window
pane. It was an evil face, and was gone on the instant.

After three hours of steady exertion, the boys relaxed their efforts and
sat down to consider the situation. They had searched the boy's
clothing, but had found nothing giving a clue to his name or residence.

"Right out of the air!" exclaimed Sandy. "If we should blunder into a
camp devoid of a mystery, we'd have to move out or die of suffocation!"

"I'd like to know who the boy is, and where he came from," Will said,
after a short pause, "but the principal question now is this: What was
in the paper that was stolen from the envelope?"

"Probably some information directed to you," suggested Tommy.

"Undoubtedly," Will answered.

"And now, instead of coming into your hands," George remarked, "the
warning, or the command, or whatever you may call it, passes over to the
man who attempted murder in order to secure it!"

"That's just the size of it!" Tommy agreed.

"It strikes me," George suggested, "that we'd better set a guard through
the rest of the night. The fellow who struck this blow may be waiting to
strike another!"

"How long were we gone from the cabin?" asked Will.

"Less than an hour," replied Sandy.

"Then, if we had at once set up a search for the assassin," Will went
on, "we might have discovered him."

"Not in a thousand years, in this wild country!" exclaimed Tommy.

Will went to the door and looked out toward the east.

"It will be daylight directly," he said, "and then we will see what can
be accomplished in the way of finding clues."

"Nix on the clue!" argued Tommy. "The gink who bumped our friend on the
cupola came after the paper. He got the paper and ducked, and that's all
there is to it! If there were any secret communications concerning our
mission in the paper, the robber got them!"

"And where does that leave us?" asked Sandy.

"Up in the air!" grumbled Tommy.

"So far as I can see," Will stated, "you boys have the situation sized
up correctly! The boy was sent here to convey certain information to me.
He made his way to the cabin before being attacked. Then he was struck
down and the important paper abstracted from the envelope."

"I've got an idea!" cried Tommy springing to his feet and walking up and
down the cabin floor. "I've got a bully idea!"

"Pass it around," advised Sandy.

"This lad wasn't followed in at all!" Tommy went on. "The man who
attacked him and stole the paper was waiting for him at this cabin! The
lad was mistaken for the boy whose name appears on the envelope, and so
he got what was meant for some one else!"

"But look here," George argued, "if the assassin was waiting here for
the boy to come, why didn't he jump us as soon as we made our
appearance?"

"That's another question I can't answer," Tommy admitted. "I might say
that the man reached the cabin and found this boy sitting here alone,
but that would be only guess work."

Will arose and walked over to the bunk where the wounded boy lay.

"Half a dozen words from his lips would settle the whole question," he
said, "but it appears to me that it will be a long time before he will
be able to speak a word. All our Boy Scout learning in the matter of
wounds is ineffective here!"

"There's one thing clear to me," George argued, "and that is that some
one in this wild region now knows more about our mission here than we do
ourselves. Of course, Will may know quite a lot regarding it," he added,
with a wink, "but, if he does, he hasn't yet confided the story to us."

"That's a hint that you get busy and tell us what we're here for,"
suggested Tommy with another wink.

"I'll tell you what I know about the matter," Will answered, "but in the
face of the fact that a more recent reading of the case is known to
exist, the chances are that any explanations I may make may prove to be
worthless."

"Can you answer a straight question?" asked Tommy.

"I think so," answered Will.

"Will you answer a straight question?" persisted the boy.

"Certainly!"

"Then answer it. What are we here for?"

"We are here," replied Will, "to secure the print of a thumb!"

"Has the shock of this incident turned your head?" asked Tommy.

"I answered the question correctly!" replied Will. "We came all the way
from Chicago to find the print of a man's right thumb!"

"Where do you expect to find it?" demanded Sandy.

"Somewhere among the mountains and glaciers," smiled Will.

"I can get all the thumb prints I want on South Clark street!" declared
Tommy. "Of course, it's fun to come out here, under any pretext
whatever, but I think Mr. Horton might have given us a more sensible
errand than that. This is worse than the trip to the coal mine!"

"Now tell us the excuse Mr. Horton gave for wanting this print of a
man's right thumb," smiled Sandy.

Will arose and went to the door. The sun was lifting through a narrow
pass in the mountains, and the creatures of the thickets and the air
were astir. A flock of water fowl was winging swiftly to the north, and
what seemed to be the keen eyes of a wolf looked out from the shelter of
the undergrowth. The air was clear and invigorating.

"Why don't you answer my question?" asked Sandy.

"Did you hear footsteps outside?" asked Will.

Sandy shook his head, but the two boys, after drawing on their
head-nets, stepped out into the glorious morning.

"There is no reason," Will decided, "why the person who attacked the boy
and stole the paper should find it necessary to leave this section
without trying to find out something more. I have an idea that whoever
injured the lad is still in this vicinity--that he will remain in this
vicinity as long as there is a prospect of his securing additional
information."

"The mosquitos will eat him up if he remains around here without proper
shelter!" Sandy suggested.

"That is one way of fighting off mosquitos," Will said, catching the boy
by the arm and pointing off to the east, where a faint line of smoke was
making its way through the still air.

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