Chapter 7 AND THEN CAME ADVENTURE

When you buy a house, or even a cabin in the wilderness, how much of it do you really buy? All of it or only part? The walls, the roof, the floor, surely all these are yours. But all those other things, the little cupboard in the corner, all carved out from logs with crude tools, but done so well for someone who has been loved-do you buy this too? And all the other delicate touches that made a house a home, can you buy these or do you only try to buy these and fail? It was thus that Florence thought as she sat dreaming in the sun outside the cabin.

From within came the sound of voices. Her aunt and Madam Chicaski were talking. Already her aunt had come to love the company of this huge Russian woman who had first made this cabin into a home.

A week had passed and still the woman lingered. How long would she stay? No one knew nor seemed to care overmuch. She insisted on working, this stout old woman. And how she did work! When Mark began going to the forest cutting dead trees and dragging them in with the tractor for the winter's supply of wood, she shouldered an axe and went along. Then how the trees came crashing down! Even Mark was no match for her. In five days a great pile of wood loomed up beside the cabin. High time, too, for the first flurry of snow had arrived.

That Madam Chicaski had a gentler side they learned as she talked beside the fire in the long evenings. She told of her own adventure on this very spot when the valley was all but unknown and life for her was new. Many things she told, tales that brought forth smiles and tears.

One subject she never touched upon, nor was she asked to tell, what had become of the great copper kettle, the seven golden candlesticks and all else that had been left behind. "If she stays long enough, in time I shall know," Florence assured herself.

There were other things she did not tell. Why had she left the valley and how? Where was her husband now? This much was certain, she was not now in want. Florence had come upon her one afternoon unobserved. She was thumbing a large roll of bills. At the slightest sound she concealed them under her ample dress.

At times she acted strangely. She would go to the back of the yard and stand, for a quarter hour or more, contemplating the great stump. Over this, during the summer, morning-glories had bloomed in profusion. At that moment it was covered only by dry and rustling vines. At such times as this on the Russian woman's face was a look of devotion. "Like one saying her prayers," Florence thought.

There came a day when, for a time at least, all thoughts of the mysterious Madam Chicaski were banished from the little family's thoughts. Mystery was replaced by thrilling adventure.

Once again the air was filled with sound. A large, gray hydroplane came zooming in from the west. They were waiting at the water's edge, the Hughes family and Madam, when the pilot taxied his plane close in to shore. Florence was not there. She was away on a visit to Palmer.

"How would you like to paddle out and get me?" the pilot invited as he climbed out upon the fuselage.

Mark rowed out in their small home-made skiff.

"I'm on an errand of mercy," the man explained at once, "and I'm going to need some help. Just received a message by short-wave radio that some men are in trouble up in the mountains."

"Hunters?" Mark suggested.

"Yes."

"In a blue and gray plane?" Mary's dark eyes widened. How about Bill, she was thinking. Despite his shortcomings, Bill held a large place in slender Mary's heart.

"Any-any one hurt?" she asked.

"One of the hunters has been badly handled by a bear," the man went on. "Something's gone wrong with their motor, too. They can't bring him out."

"Bear?" said Mark. "That's sure to be Bill. He'd march right up and shoot a bear in the eye."

"Yes-yes, it must be Bill," Mary exclaimed, striving in vain to control her emotions. "We must do something to help him. What can we do?" Months shut away from the outside world had drawn their little company close together. Bound by bonds of friendship and mutual understanding, despite the faults of some, they were very close to one another.

"You can help a great deal," said the pilot, "that is," he hesitated, "if you're willing to take a chance."

"A-a chance?" Mary stammered.

"Sure," the man smiled, "you look like a good nurse. Your brother, here, I am told, is a fine motor mechanic. Climb in the plane and come along with me-both of you."

"A ticket to adventure!" The words so often repeated now echoed in Mary's ears.

"What do you say?" Mark turned to her.

"There-there's still work to be done," she stammered.

"The work can wait. This appears a plain call of duty." Mark's voice trembled ever so slightly.

"All right. We'll go." Mary felt a thrill course up her spine. At the same instant she caught the eye of Dave Kennedy. In those fine eyes she read something quite wonderful, a look of admiration and yet of concern.

She and Dave had become great friends. Dave was a wonderful fellow. His Scotch mother was small, quite frail, yet altogether lovely. When their logs in their cabin walls had begun to warp, Dave and his father had sodded it up, quite to the eaves. Now they were all set for winter.

"I'll look after your horse and cow and-and cut the wood," Dave said huskily. "I only wish I might take your place." He looked Mary squarely in the eye.

"I'm glad you can't," she laughed, looking away. "I'm sure it will be a wonderful adventure."

"Cold up there," suggested the pilot. "We shall need blankets and food. We may have to freeze in and fly out on skis."

The Hughes family was not stingy. A huge cart-load of supplies was carried to the water's edge, then ferried to the airplane.

"I stay," said stout Madam Chicaski. "I stay until you come back. I look after everything." Mary's heart warmed to this powerful old woman.

"Goodbye," she screamed as the motor thundered. "Goodbye, everyone." A moment later, for the first time in her life, she was rising toward the upper spaces where clouds are made.

The moments that followed will ever remain like the memory of a dream in the girl's mind. Though the motor roared, they appeared to be standing still in mid-air while a strangely beautiful world glided beneath them. Here a ribbon that was a stream wound on between dark green bands that were fringes of forest, here a tiny lake mirrored the blue sky, there a broad stretch of swamp-land lay brown and drear, while ever before them, seeming to beckon them on-to what, to service or to death?-were the snow-capped mountains.

So an hour passed. Swamps vanished. Jagged rocks appeared. Hemlock and spruce, dark as night, stood out between fields of glistening snow.

And then, with a quick intake of breath, Mary sighted a tiny lake. Half hidden among rocky crags, it seemed the most marvelous part of this dream that was not a dream. And yes-clutching at her breast to still her heart's wild beating, she shouted to her silent, awe-struck brother:

"That is the place!"

Nor was she wrong. With a sudden thundering swoop that set her head spinning, the powerful ship of the air circled low for a landing.

"Now!" she breathed, and again, "Now!"

One instant it seemed they would graze the rocks to the left of them, the next the bank of trees to the right. And then-

"What was that?" Mark shouted suddenly.

As the pontoons of the plane touched the surface of the lake, there had come a strange ripping sound.

They had not long to wait for the answer. Hardly had the airplane taxied to a spot twenty feet from a shelving bank, when the plane began settling on one side.

"Tough luck!" exclaimed the pilot. "A little ice formed on the lake. Must have punctured a pontoon. No real danger, I guess. Those fellows should be here any-"

"Yes! Yes! There they are now!" Mary exclaimed, pointing to a spot where two men were putting off in a small boat.

The boat, she saw at once, was one used on their own small lake not so many days before. In a narrow cove she sighted the blue and gray airplane.

"Well!" laughed their pilot. "Here we are."

"Yes," the girl thought soberly. "Here we are. Two hundred miles from anywhere in a frozen wilderness. Two disabled airplanes. Food for a month. One injured boy. Fine outlook."

The instant her eyes fell upon the men in the boat she experienced one more shock. Peter Loome, the man with a hard face, who hated all Eskimos, was there. She barely suppressed a shudder. Just why she feared and all but hated this man she was not able at that moment to say.

She was not one to see the dull gray side of life's little cloud for long. The instant they reached the improvised camp she asked after the injured person and was not surprised to find that it was Bill.

"That bear," Bill drawled as she dressed the rather deep wounds on his arms and chest, "took an unfair advantage of me. He could run a lot faster'n any man. And he ran the wrong way. Funny part was, when he got up with me, he wanted to hug me. If he hadn't been badly hurt, he'd have killed me."

"If you'd left him alone in the first place, probably he wouldn't have bothered you," Mary said soberly.

"No-o, probably not," Bill replied ruefully.

"Oh, well," one of the hunters consoled him, "you'll have his skin for a rug back there in your cabin this winter."

"Not for me," Bill exploded. "I've been cold long enough. That cabin leaks air. Soon's I get back I'll be startin' for old Alabam', or at least some place that's warm."

Mary frowned but said nothing. Already she had come to love that valley where their cabin stood by the little lake. If it was her good fortune to return there in safety she would not ask for more. As for Bill, he had, she thought, brought all his troubles upon himself. But Bill was wounded and ill. What he needed, at the moment, was kindness and gentle care, not advice.

That night Mary and Mark sat down for some time beside a glowing campfire. Bill was resting well, would sleep, they thought, quietly. The others, too, had retired.

"Mark," the girl's tone was sober, "I've always wanted adventure. Most young people want adventure in one form or another, I guess. But when it comes-"

"It doesn't seem so wonderful after all," Mark laughed low.

"Well, no," his sister agreed.

"May not be so bad after all," Mark said cheerfully. "While you were taking care of Bill, we floated three large dry logs out to our damaged ship. We lashed them to the pontoon support. That means she won't sink any more. And when we are frozen in, we-"

"Frozen in!" Mary was startled. She had realized in a vague sort of way that at this very moment the thin ice on the lake was hardening, that they could not hope to get away on pontoons, yet the thought of a forced wait was disturbing.

"How-how long?" she managed to ask.

"Perhaps ten days, perhaps a month. Depends on the weather."

"Ten days, a month!" The girl's head swam. Adventure! Surely this was it!

"But, Mark," her voice was low with emotion, "so many things might happen. A storm may come roaring up the mountainside and-"

"And wreck the planes beyond repair. Yes, but we'll do our best and we must trust God for the rest."

"Yes," the girl thought. "We must trust Him and do our best."

Then, because she did not wish longer to dwell upon their own position, she forced her thoughts into other channels. She tried to picture the folks at home-mother, quietly knitting by the fire, Florence, if she were back from Palmer, poring over a book, and silent, occupied only with her thoughts, the strange Madam Chicaski.

How often she had wished she might read that woman's thoughts. Did she sometimes think of the missing copper kettle and the seven golden candlesticks? If so, what did she think? What was in her mind as she stood for a long time staring at the great stump?

"We'll get away from here," the girl thought at last. "We'll go back to our snug cabin and the joys of winter. How peaceful and secure we shall be. Let the wind roar. We shall be snug and warm.

"And Sunday! What a day that will be! The Petersons with the twins will come over in a bobsled, and the Dawsons in their home-made cutter. The Sabins have a dog team. What sings we shall have!

"Mark!" she exclaimed. "It's too bad you had to give up training your dogs." Mark had befriended five shaggy dogs deserted by settlers gone back to the States.

"Be back to the dogs before you know it. Besides," Mark laughed a low, merry laugh, "there's the cat. What the dogs can't do, the cat can." (He was speaking of his caterpillar tractor. They called these "cats" for short.)

"Yes," Mary joined in the laugh. "But it will be truly thrilling to have a dog team. Wish we had it right now. Then if everything went wrong we could drive out."

"Yes, but everything won't go wrong." Mark rose and yawned sleepily. "You'll see."

"Will we see?" the girl asked herself as, a quarter of an hour later, she crept beneath heavy blankets to lie down upon a bed of sweet-scented boughs. She knew their plans in a general sort of way. The gray plane carried skis. The blue and gray one had none. Mark and the pilots would work on the disabled motor of the blue and gray. If they got it working they would make skis for it. The two planes would take off on skis as soon as the ice was safe.

"A ticket to adventure," she whispered. "When and how will our adventure end? Ah, well, Mr. McQueen says that so long as our adventure comes in the line of duty, Providence will see us through, so surely there is nothing to fear." With this comforting thought, she fell asleep.