CHAPTER XXIII

SOLVING THE MYSTERY

Ike did not return until dinner was nearly over. He wore a brave front, but his eyes and lids were very red and the boys knew as well as if he had told them that he had found his uncle's grave and had been grieving over the gentle old man beneath the mound of stones, but the little lad bore up under his burden of sorrow with a surface of cheerfulness that the boys marveled at.

"Well, Mr. Kid," he said, as he took his place at the table. "How did you leave Mr. and Mrs. Morton and the Bonnie Annie Laurie?"

The red mounted to the Kid's face as he answered enthusiastically: "Fine and dandy. Those three innocents hit the right idea after all. There was plenty of eating places in Dawson but they didn't set out the kind of grub that mother used to make, and that's where the old lady shined. Then the old gentleman was a pretty shrewd buyer and he laid in his supplies before prices reached clean up to the sky, although he had to pay a pretty stiff price at that.

The old lady's cooking, and the reasonable prices, and the very sight of that little girl tripping in and out amongst the tables, caught the crowd. The chekakos went pretty nigh broke buying grub that tasted like home, and many an old sour-dough is in a fair way of getting gout after all his years of eating just pork and beans. When the scurvy broke out they had about all the potatoes in town. They could have got anywhere from $1.00 to $10.00 apiece for them, but the old lady wouldn't listen to anything like that. 'They only cost us 10c apiece,' she argued, 'and it ain't Christian-like to ask more in the time of sickness and suffering, and the poor can have 'em for nothing.' So the old-timers formed a sort of bread line, as you might call it, and every day every man, woman and child in Dawson was free to march down that line and get his or her bit of potato whether they had ten cents or not. I reckon, pretty near the whole of Dawson would have been wiped out by the scurvy this winter but for the Mortons--and Dawson knows it. Those old people will make a fortune if they keep at the business." The Kid paused and the red again mounted into his face. "I might as well tell you now, because you little cusses will pry it out of me sooner or later," he said, in happy embarrassment. "That little girl and I are going to be married as soon as I make my stake, and I've got a hunch that that time is not far off."

Clay grinned. "Why, we knew that long ago," he said.

They congratulated the Kid until his face shone with happiness.

"I've got a favor to ask of you," he said, when at last they were through. "It's comin' on cold tonight or I'm no judge of Alaska weather. There's no special reason for my getting down to St. Michael's before the first steamer comes in, and it's a long trail back to Dawson, so, if you boys don't mind, I'll camp with you until it's time to start for St. Michael's."

The boys greeted this announcement with shouts of delight, for they could think of no more welcome visitor than the Yukon Kid.

It was as the Kid had prophesied, the morning showed the thermometer at 70 degrees below zero, where it hung steadily for a full week, before the end of which time the Kid had difficulty in keeping the now active invalids indoors. They wanted to be out in the open air after their long, close confinement, and with their growing strength, came the desire for activity.

"Don't try it outside yet," he advised. "If you do you'll regret it. Seventy degrees below zero isn't to be fooled with even by old timers. With kids weak as you are yet, it would mean death. That degree of cold would frost your lungs in ten minutes. Why, even the Indians rarely travel when it gets below 40 degrees. Be patient, boys, this cold weather is not going to last forever. It will get milder soon. In fact, boys, it's not going to be long before spring comes. I'll bet you boys have lost all track of the days."

"I guess we have," agreed Clay. "I can't be sure of what month it is even. We kept so busy before we were taken sick that we kept no account of days, and then we have been sick a long, long time."

"Well, it's the middle of March," the Kid enlightened him. The worst of the winter is over now. Along the last of April the ice should begin to go out."

"And as soon as it goes out, we will be bound for home," said Alex, happily.

"And all the fun and excitement of the city," sighed Clay, blissfully.

"And the news stand for me and Abe," Ike declared. "Maybe, when Abe picks up the business good, I set him up in a little stand for himself."

As for Abe, he had nothing to say. He was content to follow fadder. Never in his whole young life had he ever been so kindly treated as since when fadder had bought him from his uncle.

At last the long cold spell broke and they awoke one morning to find the thermometer at twenty degrees below--warm weather for the Yukon.

With the break of the cold spell, the days flew past with flying footsteps, for there was always something to pass the time out in the bracing cold of the gradually lengthening days. There were snow shoe races and even dog racing, in which the Yukon Kid's team was always beaten, much to Kid's disgust. But most entertaining of all was the search for the treasure which the boys all firmly believed in, though the Kid only smiled at their fruitless efforts. "Go to it," he advised them. "It keeps you busy and makes the time pass quicker," and go to it they did with all their youthful ardor. First they cleaned out the snow heaps in the lonely cabin, but found nothing to reward their search but a few pitiful battered cooking utensils and a scanty store of food. But they built a fire in the cabin and with shovels heated over it, dug up the frozen ground inside in search of concealed riches. In the center of the shore of the cove, they sank a prospect hole, keeping a fire going all the time, except when they raked it to one side to remove the thawed-out earth. In time they reached bed rock and tested thoroughly the pile of dirt they had accumulated, only to find that not a trace of color appeared in the pans.

While they had worked a change had slowly been taking place around them. The air had been growing sensibly warmer and the heat of the sun was gradually making itself felt. The snow was slowly melting from the knolls and forming tiny rivulets that trickled their way down to the river. Spring was at hand.

It was after the failure of the prospect hole they had sunk, that they all gathered together on the _Rambler's_ deck one noon for a little after dinner chat.

"Well, I expect we might as well give up looking for the treasure," said Alex, disconsolately. "We have done all we can."

"Yes," agreed the Yukon Kid, "there's nothing to it but the excitement of looking and finding nothing. Well, boys, I've spent a good time with you, but I've got to be going soon. Just step out here and listen." He led the way out on the ice and motioned for them to be silent. Faintly there came to their ears the soft murmur of running water under their feet. "That's Father Yukon waking up from his long sleep," said the Kid, gravely. "It means that I must be on my way or I will not reach St. Michael's before the ice breaks up. I guess you'll get there not many days after me for when the ice goes out in the Yukon it goes out in a hurry."

"Mr. Kid," said Ike, who had been chosen spokesman for the boys in what was to follow. "Mr. Kid, you have been very good to us and more than once you have saved the life, maybe, of some of us, and so we want to give you a little gift, not to repay you for the good things you have done for us, you understand, but just a little gift to show that we don't forget them good deeds. We want you to kindly accept Buck and his family. We want to feel that we have left Buck with a good, kind master too. That Buck is a good dog, almost as good as Captain Joe."

The Kid's eyes shone with delight at the thought of being possessor of such a glorious team, but he protested earnestly. "I have not done anything to merit such a gift. Maybe I helped you out a mite that first day at Nome, but it wasn't any trouble to me. Sizes up to me that each of you has done his part nobly and loyally just like links in a chain. You or the most of you, would have pulled through all right even if I hadn't happened to come across you when I did." He hastened a second before he went on. "It seems to me if there's any link that shows up a little larger than the rest, it's this little chap here," patting Ike's shoulder. "He was willing to give himself up to torture that the rest of you might live. I reckon, though, that any one of you would have done the same in his place."

Alex was twisting and shuffling in embarrassment over this display of sentiment.

"There's one thing we must do before we leave," he interrupted. "We must climb that mountain. We haven't climbed a mountain on this whole trip. I'll dare the lot of you to climb it clear to the top with me.

Clay looked up at the great mountain wet and slippery from the melting snows of its summit. "None of it in mine," he said decidedly.

Ike regarded the monster thoughtfully. "I'm a family man," he declared. "What would become of Abe if he loses his fadder?"

"It's all right to take risks when one has to," growled Case, "but it's blamed foolishness to do so just on a dare."

"All right, you babies," jeered Alex. "If you're 'fraid to come. I'll climb up alone."

"I'll go with you," shouted the Yukon Kid, "just wait a minute will you?" for Alex was already moving for the mountain's base. "He won't get up fifty feet," he confided to the others. "I will take a rope from the sled here and try to keep him from a nasty fall."

"He can climb like a monkey," said Clay, doubtfully, "and for all he acts so reckless sometimes he's got a pretty cool head when he really gets into a tight place. If you don't want a long climb, don't try to follow him, for he will not stop at a hundred feet unless that mountain's so slippery that a fly can't cling to the side of it."

"Then he'll find me right beside him," said the Kid confidently, as he wound the rope around his waist and hastened after Alex, who was already at the mountain's base.

Alex was going about his undertaking cautiously, for he knew he would be subjected to ridicule by his companions if he failed at the very start. He skirted the mountain's base watching for a likely place to make a start, but finding only bare, smooth, almost perpendicular walls extending upward some fifty or seventy-five feet. Up beyond this smooth base he could see many knobs and little ledges sticking out which promised fair climbing once the intervening space was overcome. It was not until he had nearly reached the little cabin in the cove, that he came upon that for which he was searching, a place where the smooth wall had crumbled down into the sea, leaving in its wake an incline that seemed to offer a chance to reach the easier climbing above. Up the slight incline Alex scrambled like a monkey with the Kid close at his heels. When about five hundred feet up he stopped and sat down to blow and rest a bit.

"Say, don't this look like queer mountain climbing to you?" he demanded of the Kid, resting beside him.

"How so, in what way?" the Kid inquired.

"It's just like going upstairs," explained Alex. "There's holes just in the very spots where you want to put your hands or feet. Funny, isn't it?"

The Kid stood up on the ledge and peered up at the holes above him. "Whew," he whistled. "They haven't just happened there; why, boy, most of them have been made by a pick axe."

"I know it," said Alex, his face aglow. "Kid, I believe we're on the trail of that treasure."

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