The Pony Rider Boys in Alaska

Chapter 9

“But surely whoever was here must have left some trace,” protested Professor Zepplin.

“Perhaps you may be able to find it. I can’t,” answered Tad.

“We’ll all look,” cried Ned.

Tad nodded, and while they were scanning the ground he walked about the outskirts of the camp with his glances on the ground. There was not a footprint, not a thing to indicate that any person outside of themselves had been near the camp. Tad was looking in particular for the strings with which the stuff had been tied to the rope. Not finding these he was certain that some human being had been in the camp.

“We shall have to make the best of it and let it go at that,” he said, returning to his companions. “Shall we go to sleep again?”

“Sleep!” shouted Ned.

Stacy popped his head out to see what the shout was about. He ducked back again upon encountering Rector’s angry gaze.

“If it isn’t Stacy Brown raising a row it’s Tad Butler, and if it isn’t Tad it’s a midnight robber.”

“Or else Ned Rector himself,” added the Professor. “If you young gentlemen will excuse me I think I shall put on some clothes. We might as well have our breakfast and get an early start, since we are all awake.”

“I was going to suggest that,” replied Tad. “I’ll go rub down the ponies while the rest of you get the breakfast.”

“Shall we dress before or after?” questioned Walter.

“Before, of course,” returned the Professor.

Breakfast was not a very merry meal that morning. Tad was chagrined to think a person could get into their camp and steal a ham without his having heard the intruder. Either he had slept more soundly than usual, or else their late visitor had been unusually stealthy.

“I’ll tell you what I think,” spoke up Rector after a period of silence.

“Out with it,” answered the Professor.

“I’ll wager that some of these prospectors have ducked in here and taken our stuff. There must be plenty of them in the mountains hereabouts.”

Tad shook his head.

“I don’t think so. I have an idea.”

“What is your idea?” questioned Professor Zepplin.

“Are there Indians up here?” questioned Tad.

“Many of them.”

“It was an Indian who did this job. No white man could get away with it so skilfully. If it was, as I suspect, we might as well give it up,” concluded Butler.

“Oh, I kissed that ham good-by a long time ago,” piped Stacy solemnly.

“I don’t agree with any of you,” said Ned. “I think the ham, unable to endure Chunky’s singing, took wings and flew away. Either that or it was afraid he would kiss it again. He said he had kissed it good-by.”

“You are wrong,” declared Walter. “If Stacy had got that close to the ham he would have eaten it.”

“You’re right,” agreed the Professor with an emphatic nod.

“I’ve got a bone to pick with you, too, Walt Perkins,” warned Stacy.

“A ham-bone?” twinkled Tad.

“No, a drumstick.”

“The probability is that we shall never know any more about the affair than we do now,” decided the Professor. “Break camp as soon as we have finished breakfast and we will get under way. Have you looked to see which way the trail leads from this point, Tad?”

“Yes, sir. That way,” replied Tad, pointing.

“Northwest?”

“Yes, sir.”

Camp was broken in short order and within an hour they were on their way. Though the country was very rough and rugged and the going awful, they found the trail narrow and perilous only in spots. Generally they found it perfectly safe. That night they camped in a pass through which flowed a rushing glacial stream. Tall cottonwoods lined the stream and giant arborvit was thick and almost impassable a short distance back from the stream. The Professor explained that this arborvit was ordinarily found about glaciers, and in cool, dim fiords.

Determined not to be robbed of their provisions again, Tad led a string through the loops made in tying the meats to the provision line. He carried one end of the string into his tent and when he turned in he tied the end to his wrist.

Long after midnight he felt a jolt at his wrist that brought him to his feet in an instant. Another jolt followed.

The boy slipped the twine from his wrist and hurried out. The night was not so dark but that he could make out objects distinctly. There was nothing of an alarming nature in sight. He examined the provisions. None had been tampered with.

Considerably mystified, Tad returned to his tent, after rearranging his burglar alarm, and lay down. He had just dozed off when there came another tug more violent than the others.

“Hang it! Something is at those provisions,” he muttered.

Tad once more slipped out. This time he remained out for a long time. He sat down behind the tent where he waited and watched. Nothing of a disturbing nature occurred. He could not understand it.

“There must be ghosts around here,” he muttered. “If there are, I reckon I’ll catch them before the night is over.”

He grew weary of waiting for the “ghosts,” after a time, and returning to the tent went to bed. Three times after that was the boy dragged out by a violent tug at the rope, and three times did he return without having discovered the cause.

“I think I begin to smell a mouse,” thought Tad Butler.

He lay down. Again came the tugs at the string. But Tad apparently gave no heed to them. After a time he began snoring, but stopped suddenly, pinching himself to keep awake. A few moments later he got up quietly and went out. This time he ran the fingers of one hand along the provision line. The fingers stopped suddenly as they came in contact with a second string the size of the one he had used for a burglar alarm and evidently from the same ball of twine.

“I thought so,” chuckled the boy. “More of Chunky Brown’s tricks. I reckon I’ll teach him a lesson and give him a surprise at the same time. Let’s see. Yes, I have it now.”

Tad found a quarter inch rope. He made a slip noose at one end, working the honda or knot back and forth until it slipped easily. In reality it was a lasso. He tucked the loop under the rear of the tent, then crawled cautiously in after it. Great caution was necessary in order not to disturb the other occupants of the tent, though the boys were sleeping soundly, Stacy snoring thunderously. The fat boy’s feet protruded from under his blanket. Tad found them after a little careful groping. He wished to make certain that he had the right feet. Satisfying himself on this point he slipped the noose over the feet and wriggled out.

Tad then drew the rope carefully about a slender tree, taking care that there might be no strain on the other end about the fat boy’s feet. Using the tree as a leverage Butler gave the rope a quick jerk. A slight commotion in the tent followed.

He now gave the rope a mighty tug. A wild yell from the interior of the tent told that his effort had been successful. The freckle-faced boy now began pulling with all his might, hand over hand. Stacy Brown’s yells were loud and frightful. To his howls were added those of another voice. Stacy was sliding out from under the rear of the tent feet first, being dragged along on his back as Butler hauled in on the rope.

But Stacy was not alone. Instead of one boy there were two. One of Chunky’s feet and one of Ned Rector’s was fast in the loop. Tad had made a mistake and selected a foot from each of the two boys.

“Something’s got me!” bellowed Chunky. “Help, help!”

“It’s got me, too,” yelled Rector. “It’s got me by the foot.”

“Oh, wow, wow! Help, help!”

The two boys were fighting and clawing each other in their excitement. Chunky fastened a hand in the hair of his companion fetching away a handful. Ned retaliated by smiting Chunky on the nose. Then both grabbed hold of the tent wall as they slipped out from under it feet first. The tent swayed and threatened to collapse.

Walter Perkins was struggling about in the dark, shouting to know what had happened. Professor Zepplin roared out a similar inquiry and sprang from his bed of boughs. He fell out into the open in his haste, but the night was so dark that he was unable to make out a single object. He could hear the two boys yelling at the rear of their tent, struggling and fighting to free themselves from the grip on their ankles.

The hauling ceased suddenly. Ned reached down and freed his foot, the same movement freeing that of the fat boy.

At this juncture Tad Butler dashed out from the tent, to which he had run after having thrown the freed rope away.

“Here, here, what’s going on here?” he shouted.

“Something got us. It was a snake,” howled Chunky. “Oh, wow; oh, wow!”

“A snake? Nonsense!” exploded the Professor. “There are no snakes in Alaska.”

“There’s one here and he’s the biggest one you ever saw. Why, he twisted right around my leg and dragged me out. I think he bit me, too,” wailed Chunky.

“Somebody make a light here,” commanded the Professor.

“That’s what I say,” shouted Ned. “You pulled half the hair out of my head, Chunky. I’ll be even with you for that.”

“Did the Thing get you, too?” questioned Walter.

“Get me? I should say it did. I never had anything grip me like that.”

Tad was busy starting the fire. The Professor, by this time, realized that the boys were in earnest; that something really had happened to disturb them, though he had not the least idea that it had been as bad as they said.

The fire began snapping briskly. Tad was bending over it in his pajamas, standing as far back as possible to avoid the sparks. Glancing at the others out of the corners of his eyes, he observed that Stacy’s face was pale; Ned Rector’s was flushed and angry, and Ned kept passing a hand over his head where the hair had come out. Tad could barely keep back the laughter.

“Now, show me!” demanded the Professor after the camp had been lighted up.

Stacy went into an elaborate explanation of what had occurred so far as he knew. He said something had grabbed them by the ankles and dragged them out under the tent. He showed where they had been dragged. The backs of their pajamas were evidence enough of this fact, the dirt being fairly ground into the cloth.

The Professor fixed his keen eyes on the freckled face of Tad Butler. The Professor was plainly suspicious, but he did not voice his suspicion. Instead, he smiled to himself.

“I am going back to bed, young gentlemen, and I trust there will be no further disturbance in this camp to-night. If there is I shall be under the necessity of taking a hand in it myself.”

“If Ned and Chunky will behave themselves, I don’t believe there will be any further trouble, sir,” said Tad.

Stacy fixed a glance of quick comprehension on Butler, and Tad saw in that one glance that the fat boy’s suspicions were aroused, too. Stacy was sharper than Tad had given him credit for being.