CHAPTER XII

A CLOSE CALL

Clay had just finished working the oil out of the engine and was examining it to see if the vandals had broken anything, when Alex called. With calm quickness, he threw on the switch, rocked the fly wheel over, and shoved the timer over to full speed. At the first throb of the motor. Case had sprung to the wheel and ground it hard over. The _Rambler_ trembled like an overworked race horse. She hung in the trough of a sea that threatened to swamp her for a moment, then gallantly she swung around, meeting the next sea bow on, plunging bow under and sending great showers of spray over the cabin, she leaped away into the teeth of the wind.

"For goodness sake. Clay, shut down that motor some," Alex begged. "She will bury herself in some of the big waves."

"I thought you wanted speed from the yell you let out a minute ago."

"I did," Alex retorted. "Then I was afraid of going on the rocks. Now I'm afraid of going down in a submarine."

Clay shoved the timer over to half speed and the _Rambler_ rode the high swells more easily. On looking at their watches, the boys were surprised to find that all their terrifying experience which had occurred had taken place in less than an hour, during which time they had drifted about a mile from Nome. It took the speedy little launch but a short time to cover the distance and they soon moored securely again to the little pier.

The boys were all hungry, and Case immediately began frying eggs and bacon and making coffee while the other boys hung around saying little and even breakfast was eaten without the usual clatter of conversation.

"Boys," said Clay when the meal was finished, "we each of us know why the others are so silent. We have to decide a most important question today. A man who has lived in this country for years, and whose word I believe can be trusted, gave us some important advice. You have had time to think it over and arrive at a decision. Let each one speak up for himself. I'll have my say last, so as not to influence any one. Go ahead and speak and let each one think of it as a matter concerning himself only."

"I did my thinking last night." said Ike quickly, before any of the others could reply. "I thinks so hard, I forgot to lock the door. I says to myself. 'Ike, you come up here to see your uncle and you don't want to go back to the States until you do see him. But there are those boys what you talked into coming up here and who have all been good friends of yours. What are you going to do about that?' Then I thinks some more. I got plenty of money here," slapping the seat of his pants dramatically, "so I says to myself, 'If Alex goes back I pay his fare and the money for his share of the cargo. If Case wants to go home, I do the same. If Clay wants to go, also, I do the same.' Course if all go, it take pretty near all my money, but I will own the stock, you understand, but I thinks uncle and I make good money on it. Of course I don't own the boat, but if you go back I give you a bill of sale for my news stand for the boat. We trade back again news stand for _Rambler_ if I bring back boat all right. And I tell you, boys, that news stand is worth more than that boat. She burn up money all the time while the news stand makes money always, but most of all in the winter, when folks are cold and in a hurry. They give you a nickel or a dime for a penny paper. If they don't get their change quick, they hurry on without it. I make change very slowly in the winter time," he added shrewdly. "Well, what you says, boys?"

For a moment they sat appalled at the heroic pluck of the little fellow who was willing to go through the perils of an Arctic winter all alone. It was Alex who spoke first.

"I made up my mind when the Kid was talking last night. I believe in what he says, 'that a thing not worth finishing, it not worth starting.'"

"You can't ship me back home to be laughed at by a lot of sapheads who have never been ten miles from Chicago in their lives. It's me for the great silence and all the rest rather than that."

"Can't drive me back with a club, either," announced Clay.

Ike danced up and down in glee. "I meant my proposal, you understand, but all the time my heart was like lead for fear you all go home."

"I felt so sure of what you fellows would decide," smiled Clay, "that I've made out a little list of things we had ought to buy here at Nome. They are mostly things we will not need until winter, but I'm sure that we can buy them cheaper here than up the river. They have larger stocks here and we will not have to pay the heavy river freights and the big profits to the dealer at the other end."

"That's good business, Clay," said Ike admiringly. "Let me do the bargaining."

"All right," agreed Clay. "Case had better go with you. I can't trust you and Alex together, you'd be sure to get into trouble right off."

The boys were off at the word and while Alex tidied up the cabin, Clay toiled over the motor to correct small derangements the vandals had caused.

Alex and Ike were back long before they were expected, and three sleds followed them bearing their purchases. On the first was tied a small light canoe. "It was not on your list, but I thought it would be handy to go ashore in at places where we could not run the _Rambler_ in. It will save a lot of wet feet."

"Good idea, Case," Clay approved.

The other two sleds contained more warm blankets, snow shoes, fur-lined parkas, a kind of cape with a monk-like hood, moccasins and clothing of furs. Besides all of which Case had thoughtfully bought another sack of potatoes and one of onions.

In a few minutes they had all the stuff aboard and stacked up in a pile to wait until they had more time to stow it. Then Alex cast off the moorings, Clay started up the motor and Case took up his usual place at the wheel, and the _Rambler_, swinging around the end of the pier, headed her sharp bow straight for the mouth of Father Yukon, nearly one hundred miles away.

"Good bye, Nome!" said Case, waving his hat.

"So long, 'till next spring," shouted Alex, throwing up his hat and catching it.

The old prospector, sitting on his usual post, taking the farewell for himself, rose painfully and after waving his red bandana handkerchief in the air, fired a parting volley from his heavy pistol.

Ike was not to be outdone. He intended to make his farewell dramatic and impressive. He mounted the rail and threw out his arms as if to embrace the whole straggling town. "Good-bye, Nome the golden," he cried. Good-bye golden city, what gives four boys $420.00 in one day for doing nothing, but though we will leave you now, Nome, the golden, we will come back."

Clay, down by the motor, heard nothing of the banter going on above deck. From the gentle motion of the boat, he decided that the sea had gone down. In fact, it had subsided greatly before they had left the dock. He wanted to reach the Yukon long before the river steamer did, so he pushed the timer over to full speed. The _Rambler_ responded with a forward leap which caught Ike just as he was concluding his eloquent farewell. He struggled to retain his footing, but with arms waving, disappeared over the stern.

Alex ran to the motor hold. "Man overboard," he yelled. "Stop her and back up." Case had been laughing over the joke on Ike, but his face grew suddenly pale as Ike's head appeared above the surface, his arms grasping at the air.

"Why, he can't swim a stroke," he cried.

But Alex had realized that fact more quickly. In a flash he had slashed away the laces of his shoes and kicking them off his feet, dived far out over the rail. Just after he leaped, he saw a white flash passing above him. As he came to the surface, he saw Captain Joe, loyal and faithful, though wounded and weak, swimming twenty feet in front of him. It was Captain Joe also who first saw the black head and seizing the long hair in his teeth, strove valiantly to hold it above the surface. A few strokes brought Alex to their side, and with the quickness that he had learned by desperate experience, he relieved the panting animal of his burden. Ike, after the manner of drowning people, strove to drag Alex down with him to the depths below, but Alex was expecting that and clinching his little freckled fist he drove it with all the force he could summon, just under the drowning lad's jaw. Ike loosed his grip and hung limp as a rag. Alex gave a sigh of relief, and rolling over on his back, drew the other up over him so that Ike's head was raised above the water. In this position he could not swim. It took all his strength to sustain their bodies above the water. He knew his companions would come to their assistance but would they be in time. The icy cold water was striking a chill to his blood. Could he last that long? He dreaded the cold that was boring into his very bones.

His friends were loyal to his faith in them. The moment Alex spoke Clay threw off the switch shutting off the power, but the _Rambler_'s momentum was so great that he did not dare to reverse the engine immediately; to do so would have stripped the gears and made the engine helpless. So soon as he dared, however, he threw on the switch and shoved forward the reverse lever. The _Rambler_ stopped suddenly and under full speed tore her way backwards to where the three, fighting for their lives, lay 400 feet astern. As the _Rambler_ backed swiftly down upon them. Clay gradually shut down the power and finally stopped her short twenty feet from the straggling, drowning ones. Calling to Case to leave the wheel and come to his assistance, Clay sprang out of the motor hold and snatching up the stern fine, flung an end of it over Alex's face. Alex, by exerting all his strength, managed to shift so as to pass a couple of turns around Ike's body just below the arm pits. "Hoist him up and then take Captain Joe up. He's about all in." Alex rolled over again on his back to float, floating took so little exertion. He was surprised to find how warm and comfortable he was becoming. True, his feet were sinking and would soon drag his head under water, but what did he care. He was warm and comfy and was getting deliciously sleepy. Something hit him across the face and he brushed it off dreamily. As his head slowly sank beneath the surface, something fastened in his hair and dragged his mouth above water. He opened his eyes dreamingly to look into Captain Joe's loyal, loving eyes. In one corner of his mouth Joe carried the end of the rope. With the last bit of reserve of his strength, he twisted the rope around one arm and with the other clasped Captain Joe around his thick neck. He felt himself being pulled violently forward--then came darkness and a void.

When he came to he was lying in his own bunk with warm blankets piled over him and Clay trying to force a cup of hot coffee down his throat, while Case and Ike stood near with a suspicious moisture on their eye lashes.

"What are you sniffling for?" he demanded crossly of Case and Ike, for his whole body was sick and aching.

"We're not sniffling," replied Case, hotly, with a boy's disgust at being caught in a display of sentiment "We are just sweating from working over you so hard."

"My noble preserver," said Ike, dramatically, "I owe my life to you but how can I reward you? How can I ever repay you for your so nobly risking your life for mine? This lump on my jaw that you gave me will always remind me of your noble action."

But Alex had had all the sentiment he could bear. "Shut up," he snapped. "I didn't go after you. I went after Captain Joe. He's a valuable dog. If you want any more souvenirs of your little wetting, I'll give you one on the other jaw, and as soon as they go down I'll give you fresh ones. Oh, I'll keep your memory fresh and green. Gee, I'll give you the other one now," he declared, throwing off his blankets, but Ike had fled at the first signs of war. Alex chanted after him, with a grin:

"Mush, mush, mush, Always to be taken with A tablespoon of gush. Mush in the morning Slush at night If I don't get my mush I'm bound to get tight."

"What are you waiting for, Case?" he interrupted his chant to demand.

"Just to tell you that you have got to keep quiet until tomorrow morning. Clay is going to start up the motor now. We let the _Rambler_ drift while we were working over you and Ike. One of us will stay down in the cabin with you all the time ready to get you anything you want."

"So I'm to be made to stay here and miss the last glimpse of Nome," Alex growled. "Miss seeing the _Rambler_ tearing through the water at over twenty miles an hour. Miss seeing Michael's Island and the river steam boat, and worst of all, miss the first glimpse of Father Yukon. What are you going to do if I refuse to be in this old bunk?" he demanded.

"Then I'll have to tie your hands and feet, lash you down to the bunk, take all your clothes away from you, lock them up in your locker, and keep the key," Case said firmly.

Alex laid back and closed his eyes.

"Well, which shall it be?" demanded Case, as Alex still lay quiet with closed eyes. "Will you promise to lay quiet or will I have to tie you up?"

"Don't disturb me, Case," Alex murmured rapturously. "I'm having a vision, such a touching vision. Maybe I'm only delirious, but it's touching, touching. Let me tell it to you, Case. It seems like it was the Sunday before we left Chicago and I am sitting on a bench looking at the couples strolling around, when I see a fellow I know walking with a red-headed, freckled-faced girl.

"Her hair isn't red, it's auburn, and she isn't freckled," Case said, indignantly.

"Keep still," said Alex. "This is only a vision and I've got to tell it as I saw it. They didn't notice me, they were so taken up with each other. Pretty soon they sit down on the bench close to me, only a clump of bushes between them and me, and the fellow talked so funny you would have laughed to have heard it, Case, honestly you would have, and then they got up to go, Case," and Alex's voice lowered. "He kissed her, Case, and said, 'I'll be back in the fall, darling.'"

Case had reddened to the roots of his hair. "I am not ashamed of what I said or did," he said, desperately, but a great fear was in his heart as he foresaw the ridicule and banter he would have to endure if Alex told the story.

"Does she play 'Annie Laurie?'" inquired Alex, who had been writing rapidly on a scrap of paper.

"Of course," said Case stoutly. "She can do anything any girl in Chicago can do, and do it better." "I just made up another verse that you two might like to sing together when you get back."

Case took the scrap of paper and read:

"An' her hair was like the red bird's Her neck scraggly like the crane's An' her feet they were the biggest I'll ever see again."

Case surrendered. "Sit still for two hours and I'll fix a place in the sunshine on deck for you. And you won't tell any of the boys about your vision?" he inquired anxiously.

"Nary a tell," Alex promised, solemnly, "and I say. Case, I was just joshing about her. She's pretty and a good appearing girl."

"She's both," said Case, happily, as he turned to go on deck.

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