Lost in the Air Part 20

"And the worst is not yet! She's still swinging!" he groaned, rising stiffly.

But immediately his mind was turned to the white "cop." How had he fared?

The boy felt for his automatic. Fortune favored him; it was still in his holster. This was well, for the white bear, very much shaken but still game, having wrought further havoc with the debris left by the demolished wing, was charging down upon him.

Standing his ground, Bruce waited until the bear was within six paces.

One stroke from that giant paw would end the struggle. His aim must be true and certain. Suddenly his hand went to his side for a hip-shot.

Put-put-put-put. Four bullets smashed into the bear, bringing him to a standstill. Put-put-put-put. With a roar, the bear sank to the ice. In a second he was dead.

It was with a feeling almost of regret that Bruce bent over the giant beast. But it was with a sense of new power that he noted that seven of his bullets had crashed through the Arctic Goliath's skull.

Again his mind was turned toward the plane. Cold and hungry as they were, he realized that he and his two companions must spend the next hour making their craft safe from further damage.

Three hours, indeed, elapsed before they were again seated in the snow-cabin. This time the primus stove was going and the coffee coming to a boil.

"Well," said the Major, "I'm glad we're all here. We'll be delayed for several days. We may have lost the race. But we won't give up. As long as our plane has wings we'll keep on. No race is ever lost until the goal is reached and pa.s.sed. Let's eat."

"Anyway," said Barney, as he sipped his cup of hot coffee, "we won't run out of dog meat and hamburger soon. I'll bet Bruce's bear weighs a thousand pounds dressed."

"Fourteen inches between the ears," grinned Bruce proudly.

CHAPTER XIV

"BOMBED"

Standing silently beside the aged engineer, Dave Tower gazed thoughtfully at the golden dome that flashed, then slowly darkened in the setting sun.

That yellow gleam did not lure him on, for the honor of helping to reach the Pole was more to him than money. But Jarvis? He perhaps had learned in his long years of labor that "the paths of glory lead but to the grave," and now that he was growing old wealth would mean escape from toil and worry. Perhaps, too, somewhere in the States a gray-haired wife awaited him to whom just a little of that gleaming gold would mean rest and peace as long as she might live.

So Dave looked at the golden dome and pondered what he ought to do. When at last, he spoke, his tone was kind:

"Jarvis," he began, "as you know, I am in command of this craft. The fact that it has been stolen and won back, more by your efforts than by anything I have done, does not change matters any. I am still commander."

Jarvis looked up with an impatient gesture, as if about to speak, but Dave kept on:

"As captain of this submarine, I might order you below, and your refusal to do so would be mutiny. But from the time we came aboard this craft we have been more like pals than commander and engineer. I give you my word of honor I will never order you below. If you go, you go of your own free will."

Jarvis raised his face for a moment, and upon it was a look of growing hope.

"You know," Dave continued, "what our duty is. We shipped under the orders of the Doctor. Those orders still go. No matter how fine the chances are that we are letting slip, we are bound to do as the Doctor wants.

"More than that, we have friends back there who had only two days' supply of food when we left them. They are living in a village of superst.i.tious, treacherous savages, who may attack and murder them at any moment. Jarvis," he touched the old man's hand, "we are American seamen.

Will you forget your flag and your shipmates for gold?"

For a second the old man stood in silence, then with a rush, he stumbled down the hatchway, and in another moment Dave heard him tinkering away at his engines.

Before Dave wrapped the dead stranger in his burial blanket, he searched the pockets of his clothing. There was no mistaking the garments; they were oriental in make. And had there remained any doubt, it would have been dispelled by two packets of papers taken from an inside pocket.

These bore the official stamp of that oriental government which had been named by Jarvis.

"I must tell Jarvis," said the boy to himself. "It will please him to know that he was right."

And that night, while they glided silently back toward the native village they had left not many hours before, leaving the treasure city a mystery unexplained, he _did_ tell Jarvis. As he finished, the old man's face lighted.

"The thing that's troublin' me just now," he said slowly, "is the question of th' two bloomin' 'eathen that faded from h'our h'eyes. H'I 'ates to think they live, an' h'I 'ates to trust my 'opes they're done for. If they're h'alive, they may get the treasure yet, an' h'I 'ates t'

be beat by a b.l.o.o.d.y, bloomin' 'eathen."

"They're a long way from home base," said Dave with a grin. "They may find the treasure, but getting it home's another thing."

"I want you to know," he went on, huskily, "that I appreciate your standing by me, and if we get out of this alive, you and I, with our discharge papers, I promise I'll be your partner in this new enterprise--the quest for treasure; that is, if you'll take me on."

"Will h'I?" Jarvis sprang to his feet, a new glad light in his eye. "Will h'I? 'Ere, give us a 'and on that. H'and we'll win, lad; we'll win! An'

that in spite of th' bloomin' 'eathen!"

It was early the next morning that the Doctor, who was enjoying, with the gobs, the native festival of rejoicing over the killing of the great, and to them unknown, beast which had attacked their reindeer herds, he noticed a young native come running from the direction of the sea. He paused now and again to shout:

"Tomai! Tomai!" which was the native call for the arrival of a boat.

Instantly the crowd was thrown into commotion. Natives rushed hither and thither. But the white men realized at once that this could mean nothing less than the return of the submarine, and, while they did not at all understand it, they whooped their joy and rushed toward the sh.o.r.e to see a dark body rounding the point.

"The sub! The sub! Hurray! Hurray!" they shouted, tossing their caps high in air. And the submarine indeed it was. Dave and Jarvis were overjoyed to rejoin their companions.

The stories of adventure were soon told and then everyone was set to hustling the last bit of equipment on board. There would be neither meals nor sleep until everything was in readiness and they were away.

As the Doctor and Dave stood on deck watching the casting off of the ropes, the Doctor spoke of his plans.

"We may have lost the race," he remarked rather grimly, "but we're going to the Pole just the same. It will mean something to you boys, at least, to be able to say that you've been there. It was my purpose to lay our course directly for the Pole without establishing a base, but since we have been carried out of our way so far, and have used so much fuel, I feel that it will be wise to head for the farthest-north point of Alaska--Point Barrow.

"I was a.s.sured, in Nome, that there were two oil-burning whalers wintering near there, and I have no doubt that we can depend on them for extra fuel."

The hatches were lowered, the submarine sank from sight amid the "Ah-ne-ca's" and "Mat-na's" of the awe stricken natives who lined the cliffs a half-mile away. The sub, with all on board, was again on its way to enter the race for the Pole.

"The race is on," said Dave.

"I wonder?" smiled the Doctor.

Three times they rose in dark waterways for air. The fourth time it seemed they must be nearing land--

Yes, as the submarine b.u.mped the edge of an ice-floe, a point of land showed plainly to port.

Dave, with field-gla.s.s in hand, sprang to the nearest ice-cake, then climbed to a pinnacle to take an observation.

"Clear water to the left of us," he reported.

"Too close ash.o.r.e?" asked the Doctor.

"I think not," was Dave's answer. "We'll have to submerge for three or four miles; then we'll be clear of the ice."