On the Yukon Trail / Radio-Phone Boys Series, #2

Curlie Carson sat before an alcohol stove. Above and on all sides of him were the white walls of a tent. The constant bulging and sagging of these walls, the creak and snap of ropes, told that outside a gale was blowing. Beneath Curlie was a roll of deerskin and beneath that was ice; a glacier, the Valdez Glacier. They were a half day's journey from the city of Valdez. Straight up the frowning blue-black wall of ice they had made their way until darkness had closed in upon them and a steep cliff of ice had appeared before them.

In a corner of the tent, sprawled upon a deerskin sleeping-bag, lay Joe Marion, Curlie's pal in other adventures.

"Lucky we've got these sleeping-bags," Joe drawled. "Even then I don't see how a fellow's going to keep warm, sleeping right out here on the ice with the wind singing around under the tent." He shivered as he drew his mackinaw more closely about him.

Curlie said nothing. If you have read the other book telling of Curlie's adventures, "Curlie Carson Listens In," you scarcely need be told that Curlie Carson is a boy employed by the United States Bureau of Secret Service of the Air, a boy who has the most perfect pair of radio ears of any person known to the service.

In that other adventure which had taken him on a wild chase over the ocean in a pleasure yacht, he had had many narrow escapes, but this new bit of service which had been entrusted to him promised to be even more exciting and hazardous.

He had been sent in search of a man who apparently was bent on destroying the usefulness of the radiophone in Alaska; his particular desire seeming to be to imperil the life of Munson, a great Arctic explorer, by interrupting his radiophone messages. This man was known to be possessed of abundant resources, to be powerful and dangerous. He had a perfect knowledge of all matters pertaining to the radiophone and was possessed of a splendidly equipped sending and receiving set. By moving this set about from place to place, he had succeeded in eluding every government operator sent out to silence him. Already he had done incalculable damage by breaking in upon government messages and upon private ones as well.

Just at this moment, Curlie sat cross-legged upon his sleeping-bag. With head and shoulders drooping far forward, as if weighed down by the radiophone receiver which was clamped upon his ears, he appeared half asleep. Yet every now and again his slim, tapered fingers shot out to give the coil aerial which hung suspended from the ridge pole of the tent a slight turn.

"I don't see how we are going to get the rest of the way over this glacier!" grumbled Joe. "That wall looks straight up; slick as glass, too. How y' ever goin' to get three sleds and eight hundred pounds of junk up there? Ought to have taken the lower trail. What if it is three times as far? Good trail anyway."

"Leave that to Jennings," murmured Curlie.

"Oh! Jennings!" exclaimed Joe. "Mebby he doesn't know so much. He's been gone too long already. What's that package he took with him? Gave us the slip already, maybe. Might be just a frame-up to keep us from making good time."

"Jennings looks all right to me," persisted Curlie.

He gave the aerial another turn.

"Well, anyway!"-

"Sh"-Curlie held up a warning finger. His nose was wiggling like a rabbit's when he eats clover. Joe knew what that meant; Curlie was getting something from the air.

Curlie started as the first word came to him-a whisper. He had heard that whisper many times before. For many days it had been silent. Now she was speaking to him again, that mysterious phantom girl of the air.

As he eagerly pressed the receivers to his ears, he caught, faint as if coming from afar, yet very distinctly, the whispered words:

"Hello - Curlie - I - wonder - if - you - are - listening - in - to-night. You - are - on - your - way - north. I - wanted - to - tell - you - the - man - you - are - after - is - on - the - Yukon - Trail - coming - south. He - started - yesterday. You - may - meet - him - Curlie - but - be - careful. It - is - big - Curlie - and - awful - awful - dangerous."

Cold beads of perspiration stood out upon the tip of Curlie's nose as the whisper ceased.

He had measured the distance. The girl was a thousand miles away to the north. So that was it? The man he had been sent to track down by means of the radio-compass was coming south over the trail. They would meet. He wondered how and where. There were wild, desolate stretches of tundra and forest on that trail. Inhabited only by Indians and wolves, these offered fitting background for a tragedy. Whose tragedy would it be?

"We might wait for him," he mused, "but, no, that wouldn't do. He might turn back. Then all that time would be lost. No, we must press on. We must get off this glacier at once."

In spite of his optimism, this glacier bothered him. He had taken this trail at the suggestion of Jennings, a man who had gone over the trail during the gold rush of '98 and who had offered to go with them now without pay. He had, as he expressed it, been called back by the "lure of the North," and must answer the call. Curlie had decided to accept his assistance and advice. Now he wrinkled his brow in thought. Had he made a mistake in the very beginning?

Just then, as if in answer to his question, Jennings, a short, broad-shouldered person with keen, deep-set blue eyes and drooping moustache, parted the tent-flaps and entered.

"What? Not turned in yet?" His eyes showed surprise.

"Had to see that you got back safe," smiled Curlie. He made a mental note of the fact that Jennings had not brought back the package he had carried away. Only a light axe swung at his belt.

"Well, that's kind and thoughtful," said Jennings. "But we'd better get into them sleepin'-bags pronto. Got a good stiff day to-morrow. Make good progress too or I'm no sourdough-musher."

Fifteen minutes later, Curlie having buried himself deep in the hairy depths of his sleeping-bag, had given himself over to a few moments of thought before the drowsy quiet of the tent lulled him to repose.

The sleeping-bags, in spite of Joe's forebodings, proved to be all that one might ask. With nothing but a square of canvas between his sleeping-bag and the ice, and with the temperature at thirty below, clad only in his pajamas Curlie felt quite as comfortable as he might have felt in his own bed back home.

"Wonderful thing, these bags," he thought dreamily. His thought about the future, the day just before him, was not quite so reassuring. They had come to ridges of ice on the surface of the glacier just at nightfall. There were many of these ridges. Dogs without sleds could climb them, but up their slopes they could not pull a pound. A man climbed them with difficulty. His feet slipping at every attempted step, he was constantly in danger of being dashed to the bottom. How were they to pack eight hundred pounds of equipment and supplies over these seemingly unsurmountable barriers?

Yet he dreaded to think of turning back. That meant four days of travel to reach a point which, straight over the glacier, was but twenty miles before them.

"Ho, well," he sighed at last, "let to-morrow take care of itself. Perhaps Jennings really knows a way. He doesn't look like a four-flusher."

With that his mind turned for a moment to the girl, the Whisperer. Though he had never seen her, he had come to think of this Whisperer as a real person. And indeed she must be, for, times without number, in the Secret Tower Room back there in the city, in the wireless room on the yacht, in the tent on the trail, her whisper had come to him. Always it told of the doings of one man, the man he had been sent after. But what sort of person? He had pictured her to himself as a small, dark, vivacious girl with snapping black eyes. Yet that was only a piece of fancy. He knew nothing about her save the fact that she seemed always near the man he now was seeking. He wondered vaguely now whether he would meet her upon this trip. He tried to imagine the cabin, the lonely trail or the deep forest of the north where he might meet her.

"Probably never will," he told himself at last. "Probably will always be just a whisper."

In the midst of his revery he fell asleep.

A tardy dawn had scarcely come creeping over the surface of the glacier when they broke camp. Having breakfasted heartily on sourdough flapjacks, warmed-over baked beans and coffee, they were ready for anything.

"We'll sleep in a better bed to-night," remarked Jennings as he rolled up the canvas floor to their tent and threw it on his sled.

"Couldn't be warmer," said Curlie.

"No, but softer."

"Cheer-o," shouted Joe, "that sounds good to me."

"Now," said Jennings, producing from the depths of his pack two small double pulleys and a coil of rope, "the next thing is to get over the ridges. Have to use block and tackle."

"That sounds all right," smiled Curlie, "but how you going to hitch a block to a smooth surface of ice?"

"Leave it to me," laughed the miner. "Between four and five thousand of us went over this glacier in '98. Had mighty few dogs and pulled 1400 pounds of outfit apiece too. That was tough sledding. Didn't make a thousand feet progress in a day sometimes. Three of our crowd never did get over; froze to death right here on the glacier. But I tell you," he exclaimed suddenly, "those were the days! Those were the men! It's always the bravest and the best that go first in a rush like that. The cheap, the idle, the crooked ones come later to live off the gains of those who dared much in the beginning." Having ended this little oration, he got down to business.

"You boys string the rope through those blocks. When you get that done, throw me up one of the blocks."

"Here," he exclaimed, "better strap these on your shoes. They'll help you a lot."

The things he threw at their feet were made of steel and leather. When they were strapped upon the soles of one's shoes they transformed their plain, heavy felt-lined shoes into something resembling baseball shoes.

"Great stuff!" exclaimed Joe, driving the sharp steel barbs beneath the balls of his feet into the ice. "Couldn't slip in these if you tried to."

A moment later they tossed one of the blocks into which the rope had been threaded up to Jennings on the icy ridge above.

"All right," he sang out a moment later. "Hitch the other block to the sled and heave away."

Much to the surprise of the boys, when they pulled at the rope, the block, out of sight on the ridge above, held firm, and the sled climbed slowly up the almost perpendicular bank. A moment later, they saw Jennings drag the sled to a safe position on the icy bench.

"How does he do it?" whispered Joe.

"Got me," Curlie whispered back. "He surely couldn't hold it."

"Say not! Took both of us to pull it up and we had the advantage of the blocks."

"All right," came from above as a block glided back to them, "let's have the next one."

When the three sleds were upon the bench and the dogs had been induced to follow, the boys climbed up, eager to discover the miner's secret.

"Oh!" exclaimed Joe. "Only a stake in the ice. Who could have left it?"

He was staring at a stout stake which stuck ten inches above the surface of the ice.

"Nobody. I put it there," Jennings smiled. Then, seeing their look of incredulity, he went on, "You'll remember I left the cabin last night with a package under my arm. Also, you will remember that I melted a bucket of snow water while supper was cooking. In the bundle there was nothing but stout stakes; a dozen of them. You'll find them up the glacier, all frozen in. All I had to do was to chip a hole in the ice, then thrust in a stake. After that I filled the hole full of snow, then poured water over it. The snow and water froze together almost instantly and here we have our stakes. We'll have lunch on the other side of the ridge and to-night we will sleep in a spruce forest. We shall then have gained a full two days on our journey. With the trail in its present condition we could not have made the journey over the roundabout valley in less than four days and even then we would have worn down our dogs."

When, a few hours later, all the miner's prophecies had been fulfilled and the boys were preparing the second night's camp, they were enthusiastic in their praise of their new-found friend.

"To-night," smiled the miner, "we will sleep on a bed of Arctic feathers."

"Arctic feathers!" exclaimed Curlie in surprise. "What are they?"

"Wait and see."

Jennings studied the shapely spruce trees which towered about them on every side. Then he allowed his eyes to wander over the surface of the earth's two-foot-thick mantle of snow.

"That's a good place," he pointed at a smooth spot which was surrounded by trees. "First we'll tramp down the snow. No need of shoveling it away."

At once they set to work packing down a square of snow.

"Might as well start right," said the miner. "We're going into a land of long nights. Fairly long now but they'll get much longer. Get to be twenty hours. If we start making camp right we'll have all the comforts of home."

"There," he said at last, "guess that'll do. Now we'll divide up the work and make the jobs regular; each fellow do the same thing every night. System, that's what you need on the trail, as well as in business."

Turning to Joe he said: "There's a likely looking tree right there. Cut it down."

"It won't burn; it's green."

"Who said it would?"

Joe grinned as he seized an axe to drive it into the thick bark of the tree.

"There's a dead tree for you, Curlie," said the miner. "Get it down and cut it into wood for the Yukon stove."

Turning to the camp kit, he was soon at work straightening out the tent, which had collected dampness from the previous night and was frozen stiff in spots.

He spread it over their tent-site and set it up as best he could. Then, crawling inside, he set up the sheet-iron stove and started a fire. As the tent, warmed by the fire, began to soften, he gradually drew it into its accustomed shape.

In the meantime each boy had felled his tree and had trimmed it up.

"Now, Joe," said the veteran camper, "cut your tree into lengths to go across each side of our tent and chop the first six inches of each end half off as if you were building a log house."

When this had been accomplished, he assisted Joe in placing the poles in a square about the tent. He next drew the lower edges of the tent out over the logs and packed snow over them to the depth of several inches. After that he spread a square of canvas as a floor to the tent.

"There," he sighed at last; "won't any air get into our tent to-night. Next thing is a lot of spruce boughs. Cut 'em right off and drag 'em inside."

When the tent was packed half full of boughs, he took out a large clasp knife and began to clip off the small twigs on the branches. The boys followed his example. In a few moments the shorn branches were all outside the tent and the canvas floor was buried ten inches deep with spruce needles and fine twigs.

"Now," said the miner, "the two of you hold up the stove while I spread a canvas over the whole of it and our camp is made."

"Just like an old-fashioned feather bed!" exclaimed Joe, as he bounced down upon the springy bed of twigs.

"That's it," smiled the miner. "Those are Arctic feathers. If we take time to make a camp like this every night, we'll get a lot of comfort out of it and be all the better fitted for the trail. I'll go out and set up a shelter for the dogs while you boys get supper, then we'll be through for the night."

After a hearty supper, Curlie brought forth his instruments and carefully wound his coil aerial.

The miner watched him for a long time in silence. Having lived in out-of-the-way places, he had learned nothing of this wonderful new invention, the radiophone.

"You don't mean to tell me," he broke forth at last, "that you can hear folks talk with just that outfit, no wires at all, and them fifty miles away?"

"Yes," smiled Curlie, "five hundred miles or a thousand if you like. Almost any distance when conditions are right."

Dropping back upon his sleeping-bag the miner watched with increasing interest. It was evident that he found the thing hard to believe and that at the same time he did not wish to doubt the word of a boy who had never told him a lie.

"Joe," said Curlie, "here's something brand new. I think it's going to help us a lot."

He placed a small instrument on top of a metal box, then connected it by a tube to a loud-speaker. After that he tuned in on the 750 meter wave length and spoke a few words into his transmitter. Having done this, he settled back as if to await an answer.

Presently a loud jumble of sound, resembling nothing quite so much as a flock of crows fighting over a carcass, began coming forth from the loud-speaker.

Joe Marion's brow wrinkled. At the end of three seconds he exploded:

"Tune her up, why don't you!"

Curlie grinned, but did not move.

"No use letting it go on like that," expostulated Joe, making a move to take a hand in the business. "He might be sending something important."

"He is," said Curlie, pushing his companion back to his seat. "He's saying something mighty important. That's why I don't change it. I told you I had something new. Can't you wait to see it tried out?"

Sinking back into his place, Joe listened to the strange clack-clack in silence.

A few seconds later the sounds ceased. Quickly removing a small instrument and disconnecting the tube from the loud-speaker, Curlie tuned in on 350 and, a moment later, they were listening to a concert which was being broadcasted somewhere on the Pacific Coast.

"Do you mean to tell me that that thing is a phonograph?" said Jennings.

"No," said Curlie, "I don't. That music comes to us over five hundred miles of space, perhaps a thousand; Seattle, Vancouver, San Francisco, I don't know which."

Again the miner was silent.

Removing a small disc from the instrument which had produced the strange jumble of sounds, Curlie slipped it upon a second instrument which resembled a small phonograph.

"Now listen to this," he said to Joe, as he shut off the radiophone.

From the phonograph-like instrument there came first a grating sound, then in a somewhat metallic but very distinct tone:

"Valdez speaking. Your man is still active. Doing much damage in air. Last night interrupted an important U. S. army order. Seemed nearer. Appears to be moving toward us. Location somewhere south of Fort Yukon. Advise speed and caution. N. T. S."

"Well, now, what do you think of that!" exclaimed Joe.

"I think," said Curlie, "that we have put one over on our old friend up north there who persists in raising hob in the air.

"You see," he went on more soberly, "it's a very recent invention. You slip a little affair on your sending instrument, which tears your tones all into little bits and sends them out as so much mental mince pie. But this little instrument here straightens them out for the person at the other end and gives them to him just as they have been spoken. I feel sure that the man we are after does not possess one of the outfits. That means that we may speak with Valdez at any time without fear of detection. All that an outside party gets is a jumble of sounds.

"If we ever get separated on the trail we may speak to one another in the same way. You have that small, reserve sending and receiving set on your sled and I am going to give you a set of these new instruments.

"Once more," he smiled, "I want to state that it is my belief that if you keep your little radiophone dry and tuned up, it will help you out of any dangerous position."

Had they known under what strange circumstances this belief would be tried in the days to come and on this very trip, the two boys might not have laughed quite so merrily as Curlie again threw on the radiophone and they listened to jazz being broadcasted from Seattle.

Joe, tired out from the day's struggle over the glacier, feeling the cozy warmth of the fire, stretched himself out on his sleeping-bag and fell at once into a drowsy slumber.

"Here," said Curlie, noting the eager manner in which Jennings listened to the bits of music and gossip which drifted in from the air, "you listen with this." He snapped a receiver over the miner's head. "I've got to shut off that loud-speaker. Want to listen in and see what I can catch."

For a time he listened on short wave lengths for his friend, the Whisperer. At last, having given that up, he tuned in on long wave lengths and at once began picking up something.

Having tuned his instrument accurately and adjusted his coil aerial, he succeeded in listening in in a very satisfactory matter.

"Big business," he whispered to himself. "Shouldn't wonder if that was a clue."

It was indeed big business that was flashing through the air that night. It was the report of a government official, the announcement of the securing of sufficient evidence at Nome, Alaska, to convict a bold band of smugglers who had been carrying valuable jewels, taken from rich families in Russia, into America by way of Alaska. These smugglers had escaped detection for some time by traveling in native skin-boats across Behring Straits. In some way, Curlie could hardly make out how, the great explorer Munson had been of assistance to the government in bringing these men to justice. Because of this service the government was instructing all its officials, especially wireless operators, to lend every assistance possible to Munson in his dash to the Pole.

"Don't see how a fellow three thousand miles away can help an explorer reach the Pole," Curlie told himself, "but I suppose there must be a way-"

His thoughts were cut short by an interruption to the message. Someone with a powerful sending set had cut loose into the air with his sparker. The result was utter bedlam of the air. Not one word could be recognized.

"That's the man," Curlie breathed excitedly, "that's the fellow I'm after! Now for his location."

His fingers moved rapidly from instrument to pencil and paper, then back to instrument again. There was a look of tense excitement on his face, such a look as comes upon the hunter as he sights a moose not a hundred yards away. Curlie was a born hunter, a hunter of the air. He had got scent of a prey, a dangerous prey, and was at this moment hunting him down.

"There," he breathed as the bedlam ceased, and he drew the receiver from his head. "I know where you are, at least. You're moving. I wonder if we'll meet and when. I know what I'm going to say to you when we meet. Wonder if you know what you're going to say to me!"

Having packed his instruments away, he stretched himself out before the fire to think. Events were moving on apace. It looked as if his journey would be shorter than he had at first believed it would be. You never could tell, though. He thought for the hundredth time of the Whisperer; wondered who she really was and why her whisper had been missing to-night.

At last, reaching over to Joe, he shook him into wakefulness and told him to turn in. Having undressed, he slipped on a suit of pajamas, crept into his sleeping-bag and was soon fast asleep.