CHAPTER II

A MYSTERY

The boys agreed to Ike's request with delight. They were proud of the neat little Rambler that had carried them safely and surely over so many thousands of miles of water. They led him all around showing the clever contrivances of lockers, the folding bunks, the cozy kitchen, and how every inch of available space had been arranged for the handy storage of some article.

"You've got a daisy little craft, and have got her fixed up dandy," Ike enthusiastically declared, as soon as they were seated. "Where do you expect to go this summer, and how soon are you going to start?"

"We are going to Alaska up on the Yukon," Alex exclaimed. "We're not going for fun exactly this time, although we expect to have a lot of that too. Our main object is to dig a ton or so of gold, fill up the balance of our cargo with rare and costly furs, and make our way back to the States before the ice sets."

"There you go, hoodooing the trip before it's started," growled Case gloomily. "I was in hopes we might sneak back with a few hundred dollars. But with all the bragging you've begun already, I am doubtful if we get back with the boat.

"Now, Gloomy Gus"--a name he bestowed on Case during his gloomy spells--grinned Alex. "Isn't it better a lot to think you are going to get rich when you start even if you do come back poor? It makes fun in the going anyway. Ain't I right, Clay?"

"Don't count your chickens before they are hatched," quoted Clay with a smile.

"If we did not, there would be no chicken raisers," Alex retorted with spirit. "They always expect a chicken for every egg until the shells begin to crack."

"I hate to interrupt so much philosophy," said Ike with a smile, "but I'm just itching to talk a little myself."

"Take the floor," smiled Clay, and his two companions lapsed into silence.

"What I want to say is just this," began Ike in a brisk, business-like way. "I want to go up the Yukon with you fellows."

"Hurray," shouted Alex, "four is lots better than three."

"Sure, come along," said Case, cheerfully.

Only Clay did not join in the hearty replies and his two companions eyed him in wonder.

"It is going to be a very expensive trip," Clay said at last.

"I expect it to be costly," Ike replied, quietly. "But, boys, you know that little news stand I have been running for so many years has paid pretty well all the time. It paid the expenses of all of us when mother and father and baby brother were alive. Since they were all taken by the white sickness, there has been more money than I could use, you understand, so I put it in the banks. I can put in $1,000.00 for this trip and then some more if needed."

"But why do you want to sell such a good paying stand as yours and waste a lot of money on a trip like this which may not bring in a cent?" Clay asked.

"I can put in a boy I know well, a good, honest boy, to run the stand while I am gone. You, Clay, do not understand. Every year you have vacations and have lots of fun. You come back well and happy and eager for work. For ten years I stand behind that little stand. Out in the snow and cold, the slush and rain, the dust and hot sun, and never once a play day. That is not right, that is not well. It makes a young man soon old, makes him look on life wrong. Now I can afford it I would like to have one long play time."

"But there is but little fun we'll have on the Yukon! With a $1,000.00 you could have all kinds of fun at some hunting or fishing resort closer home," Clay still urged.

"I tell you another reason why I want most to go to the Yukon," replied Ike, after a second's hesitation. "I got uncle up there several years. He makes no good at the mining. I got no other relatives now, so I hunt up uncle and if prices are high we set up fine store. Uncle can sell goods in the store while I go out and trade for furs with the Indians. I think we make good money. But it seems you no want me to go with you, Clay--why?"

"But I do want you to go with us," Clay declared, heartily, his face lightening. "We all of us want you to go. We start in tomorrow to buy our supplies and when that's done move your things right down to the boat and become one of us."

"Sorry, but I can't do that," Ike replied. "I'll have to teach the new boy the business and settle up a few of my affairs. I am afraid I will not be able to come aboard until just before you start. But I will do a fair share of the work as soon as we are off. Call by my stand in the morning and I will hand you that $1,000.00. Put it into the general fund and get me an outfit just the same as you do for yourselves."

"But a $1,000.00 apiece is more than we are putting up," said Clay, honestly. "We have only $1,400.00 in cash altogether."

Ike laughed. "You do not figure it right, my friend. I gets for my money not only a share in outfit and stores, but I get a trip up and down the Yukon which is worth much more than $500.00. And now, boys, it is getting late and I have to be up early in the morning to attend to my stand."

Clay turned on the prow light to light up the prow and dock and the three boys followed their friend on deck where they parted with many good-nights and prophecies for the coming trip.

As soon as he had passed out of sight, the three descended to the cabin again, and Alex folding his arms, looked at Clay with as much scorn as his freckled, good-humored face could express. "You're a fine one," he grunted. "Why, you cross-questioned Ike as though he was a criminal and you the prosecuting attorney just because he wanted to go on this trip with us. I was afraid he would get disgusted with your questions and give up the notion. There's no other boy I know who I had rather have go on this trip with us. Ike used to be mighty good to me when I was a little newsie. Ike is all right."

"Yes," Case agreed. "I have seen him many a time stop big boys who were abusing little ones, and leave his stand to help feeble old men and old ladies across the street."

"I know him better than either of you," Clay said, quietly, ignoring the storm that had burst upon him. "I remember the time when his family was dying of consumption. Why, all the time they were lingering on between life and death, he was like an angel to them. They had a doctor, a day nurse and any delicacy they thought they wanted. At night he would take the day nurse's place. When at last they were dead and buried, there was little left of Ike but skin and bones, for he had eaten barely enough to keep him alive, so that the others might have more comforts. The money he had saved was all gone and there was little left of the news stand but a few bundles of the best selling newspapers. A boy who acts towards his folks like that simply can't be a bad boy."

"Then why didn't you want him to go with us?" demanded Alex, still unsatisfied.

"I see I have got to tell it all," Clay said wearily. "It isn't so much, but it has made me a little curious. I was passing Ike's stand one evening last fall and stopped to get a paper. Ike was at the other end of the stand talking with two strange-looking men who wore rough clothes and whose faces were covered with big blotches where they had been frost bitten. All three were talking friendly but eagerly, and often I could catch the words, 'Alaska,' 'Yukon,' 'and great wealth,' so I decided that the two men were miners just in from Alaska. Well, I could not hear much of what they said, they talked in such low tones. At last I got tired of waiting and called Ike and gave him the change for the paper and left. Now you all think it was my idea about this Yukon trip; you are wrong. It's Ike's plan. Ever since the day I saw him with those two men he has been trying to enthuse me about this Yukon trip."

"Maybe he had learned something good about the Yukon country and wants that we should get the benefit of it," Alex suggested.

"I thought that myself," Clay said, sadly, "until this afternoon, when I passed Ike's stand on my way home. There stood the two miners I had seen before and they and Ike were having a violent quarrel. In fact, they were coming to the point of blows. One of the men aimed a blow at Ike and I started to run to Ike's assistance, yelling for the police. The yells for the police seemed to scare the two men for they took to their heels. I asked Ike what all the trouble was about and he said they were a couple of roughs who had bought a paper and gave him a nickel. When he gave them their change they had insisted on change for a dollar, which they claimed was the amount given him."

"Great mystery all that," Alex said scornfully. "Have you any more evidence to pile up, Mr. Sherlock Holmes?"

"Welt, Ike's story rang rather flat to me," Clay replied. "Neither man carried a paper or anything else when they took to their heels. I would not have thought much about these things if Ike had not come down tonight and wanted to go to Alaska with us. That seemed to string all those things together. I felt sure Ike was too much of a business chap to spend $1,000.00 on a pleasure trip to the Yukon. But when he said he wanted to go to hunt up his uncle, why that made things look better, for a Jew will go a long ways and do a lot for a relative."

"Well, what are we going to do about it?" Alex demanded.

"I want him to go with us of course," answered Clay. "I know Ike's all right, but I was in hopes that my questions--about which you have been roasting me so--would clear up the things that had been puzzling me."

"Ike might as well go as not," Case agreed gloomily. "We always have to carry a nice fat mystery on each of our trips, and I'd rather Ike brought it along with him than to have some uninvited stranger smuggle it aboard."

"You and Clay make me tired," snapped Alex. "One of you is just as bad as the other. I guess I'll have to call one of you Gloomy Gus 1, the other Gloomy Gus 2."

"All right, you wait and see," said Case darkly. "It's only a nice gentle kitten-like mystery we start with on each trip, but before the trip is ended it grows to be as big as a grizzly bear."

"That reminds me that one of us will have to bring Teddy Bear down to the boat. He's getting pretty big but we must have him along with us for one more trip anyway."

Teddy Bear was a grizzly cub the boys had captured on their trip on the Columbia. On their return from their last trip, they had turned him over to the zoo man as he had grown so big and had such a thieving appetite for sugar and other sweet things that they could not trust him in the _Rambler_ while they were away at their work. Whenever they had a day of leisure, they would take Captain Joe along with them and go up to see their pet. They would put him through his tricks and slip him in a generous amount of sugar. So they kept themselves fresh in his memory. Teddy and Captain Joe were the greatest comrades and both rejoiced at these meetings. It was comical to see Captain Joe seated on his haunches, look up with one eye cocked as though saying, "Well, Old Chap, how are they treating you down here?" and Teddy Bear would with one eye wink back as though replying, "Pretty well, Joe, but it isn't anything like life on the Rambler."

Alex declared that he once heard Teddy tell Joe to sneak him down a pail of sugar the next time he came and Joe replied with vast scorn that he would not steal from his masters, but if Teddy had any good meat to exchange for sugar he'd manage it somehow. Clay, on hearing this story, had promptly placed Alex's head down in an empty flour barrel until he confessed that he might have been mistaken.

When Clay spoke of bringing Teddy Bear down next day, Captain Joe arose in dignity from his corner and wabbled over to his side. Clay patted his head, "Yes, Joe, we are going to bring Teddy Bear tomorrow. Teddy Bear is going to stay on the boat now. You want Teddy Bear, Captain Joe?"

Captain Joe cocked his eyes and wagged his stump of a tail vigorously. He seemed to be saying, "I guess you're talking straight, boss, but I don't believe that guy's going to leave all the good meat he's getting if he can help it." Captain Joe then rubbed his nose across Clay's ankle, rose sedately, and made the rounds of the table rubbing his nose on each boy's leg.

"He's telling us that it is time to go to bed and stop disturbing his sleep with our chatter," laughed Alex.

"He's right, too," Case agreed, "but listen, aren't those more foot-steps on the dock close to the boat?"

Clay reached over and snapped on the prow light. Instantly there was a scamper of foot-steps up the wharf.

Clay laughed and shut off the light. "We seem to be having our share of visitors tonight," he remarked, "but I am not anxious to make another capture tonight. I am going to bed and trust to Captain Joe to wake us up if any one tries to get in."

The boys were all ready for bed and they were soon all asleep, leaving Captain Joe on guard.

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