by W E Johns
Sarton was speaking. ‘He’s a long time,’ he muttered, picking up his glass. ‘I reckon you’d better go and look fer ‘im, Jean.’
‘No. He say “go on”,’ protested the half-breed. ‘I stay here.’
The words had barely left his lips when Ginger heard the sound of heavy footsteps approaching. His heart gave a nervous leap, but his fears were allayed when he heard the footsteps halt on the far side of the hut. There came the sound of a door being opened and closed.
To his satisfaction he found that by placing his eyes level with the chink in the logs he could see into the room, which was far less risky than peeping round the edge of the window, where he might be seen if any one in the room looked in that direction.
Through his peep-hole he saw that, as he suspected, the newcomer was McBain. Clad in a long and rather dilapidated skunk-skin coat—Ginger recognized the fur by the characteristic white blaze—he was standing just inside the door, glaring at the four who were already there. It struck Ginger that he seemed agitated about something, for his face was pale and his movements abrupt. There was definitely an atmosphere of tension in the room, and, if proof of this were needed, McBain’s first words confirmed it.
‘Waal,’ he growled, ‘ain’t yer never seen me before? What’s biting yer?’
‘Why—er—nothin’, boss,’ replied Sarton nervously.
‘Waal, go on gassin’ and don’t stare at me,’ growled McBain, dragging off his coat and hanging it on a peg on the inside of a cupboard door which he opened for the purpose.
‘We was just figgerin’ that you’d been a long time,’ continued Sarton, in an explanatory sort of voice.
McBain jerked round with an abruptness that made the other start. ‘That’s a lie,’ he fired out. ‘I ain’t been five minutes. Get that?’
‘O.K. if you say so, boss,’ agreed Sarton in a conciliatory way.
‘Fact is, I came up here when you did,’ went on McBain more quickly. ‘I’ve just bin outside watchin’ the weather, that’s all. Remember that; if any one arsts you if I came back ‘ere with you, you’ll have to say yes or you’ll be tellin’ a lie. Savvy?’
‘Sure,’ agreed the others, in a sort of chorus.
‘All right,’ continued McBain, pouring himself out half a glass of what Ginger took to be neat spirit and throwing it down his throat. ‘We’re gettin’ busy to-morrow,’ he added.
‘Dey send de gold, ha?’ asked the breed quickly.
‘In a day or two,’ answered McBain. ‘About time, too.’
The word ‘gold’ made Ginger prick up his ears, and a moment later, for the first time, he saw McBain’s activities in a new light.
‘I reckon we’d have had it by now if this fool Wilkinson hadn’t clung on so long,’ went on McBain. ‘It was just a fluke he collected and brought down the last two loads that was worth while. These buddies of his may make things harder. I don’t like the look of that thin guy Bigglesworth. He’s a wise guy—and smart. But he won’t be smart enough for me. I’ll tear him in ‘arves before I’ve done with him.’
‘Do you think he’d come into the game if we gave him the low-down?’ suggested Sarton.
‘Not ‘im. He ain’t that sort,’ growled McBain. ‘Anyway, four’s enough to split, without takin’ in four more. I wouldn’t ‘a’ minded one, when Wilkinson was alone, but I didn’t trust ‘im. No, we’ll play as we are. Everything’s all set. All we’ve got to do now is weigh in next time there’s a heap o’ dust ready to be brought down.’
‘I donta like thees new guy, Bigglesworth,’ muttered Chicot. ‘I think, mebbe, it better if we fineesh heem soon.’
‘Wait till Delaney’s out on patrol,’ said McBain. ‘Then we’ll see. Are they over there now?’ He jerked his head in the direction of Arctic Airways’ hangar.
‘They all went in; we watched them go,’ declared Sarton.
‘O.K. Then I’ll think about the best way of handling ‘em between now and to-morrow. Got the ship ready to start?’
‘All set.’
‘Everything on board you’ll be likely to want?’
‘Everything.’
‘Then I’ll tell yer what to do in the mornin’. I’m goin’ to turn in. I’m tired. Don’t stay gassin’ here half the night.’ McBain picked up the bottle, and putting the mouth of it to his lips, emptied it.
The others stood up.
Ginger waited for no more. He had learned more than he had hoped for, so, after backing quietly away until he was what he considered a safe distance from the hut, he hurried back to the hangar, where he found the others just starting out to look for him.
‘Where the dickens have you been?’ asked Biggles sharply.
Ginger’s manner was terse as he waved them back to the table. ‘I’ve been indulging in what is generally reckoned to be a very questionable pastime. Some people might call it eavesdropping, but in time of war, like this, the best people call it scouting. I’ve been listening to McBain’s little party over the way.’ He turned and regarded Wilks with a curious smile. ‘If you think those guys are here simply to run you off your aerodrome, Wilks, you’ve been thinking wrong. That isn’t what they’re after.’
There was a moment’s silence.
‘What are they after?’ Biggles almost hissed the words.
Ginger drained his cup of half-cold coffee before he replied. ‘Gold,’ he said quickly. ‘The little bags of yellow metal which the people at Moose Creek are digging out of the ground.’
Wilks nodded slowly. ‘Kick me, somebody,’ he said weakly. ‘I never even thought of it.’
A Staggering Blow
THE STARS were still twinkling in the sky, although those in in the east were paling, when, the following morning, Biggles, Wilks, and Ginger pulled the Jupiter out of the shed and forced her head to wind ready to take off as soon as Mose arrived. A hearty breakfast, and Biggles and Ginger got into their flying kit, for it had been decided that it would be advisable for some one to remain on guard, and as Wilks was still feeling a bit shaken from his recent crash, he was to be the one to stay behind while the others took the delayed freight to Moose Creek.
While they were waiting they discussed the situation in the new aspect revealed by Ginger’s opportune scouting expedition the previous night.
‘It would be no use telling Delaney.’ remarked Biggles quietly. ‘Knowing that there is no love lost between us he’d think that we were just shooting a cock-and-bull story to put McBain and Co. under suspicion—and you couldn’t blame him for that. At this stage it would be better to say nothing. Having got our own clock set right—so to speak—our game is to keep a closer watch on McBain’s movements until we’ve got proof of his intentions.’
‘How about warning the people at Moose Creek?’ suggested Wilks.
‘No use at all,’ declared Biggles. ‘They’d be less likely to believe us than Delaney. They would think, naturally, that it was simply a scheme to keep McBain out of the air-line business. They might even tell McBain that we had reported them for a gang of crooks, in which case he would guard his movements more closely, making our task of exposing him more difficult. No, at this juncture we say nothing to anybody.’ Biggles glanced at his wrist watch as he finished speaking. ‘Old Mose is late,’ he observed. ‘I thought he would be here before this.’
‘Who’s this coming?’ asked Ginger, who was staring in the direction of the village.
‘Some one on a horse,’ put in Wilks.
‘Looks like Delaney—yes, it is him,’ declared Biggles. ‘He seems to be in a hurry, too.’
It soon became obvious that the Irish-Canadian ‘mountie’ was making for the Arctic Airways buildings, and a minute later he pulled his horse up and dismounted beside the waiting airmen. His blue eyes flashed to the Jupiter and then came to rest on Biggles’s face.
‘You pulling out?’ he questioned crisply.
‘Not exactly,’ answered Biggles.
‘What do you mean by that?’
‘What I say. I’m going away, but
not for good. As a matter of detail, I’m going to slip up to Moose Creek with some stuff they’re waiting for.’
‘Where did you go after you left the Three Star last night?’
Biggles raised his eyebrows at this change of subject. ‘I came straight back here,’ he said wonderingly.
‘Could you prove that?’ Delaney fired the question like a pistol-shot.
Biggles smiled faintly, and shrugged his shoulders. ‘Well, naturally I don’t clock my movements about, but if you are prepared to take Wilkinson’s word, no doubt he’s got a rough idea of what time I got back here. You saw how I was loaded up when I left the Three Star; it is hardly likely that I should go for a stroll at that time of night and with that load, is it?’
Delaney switched his eyes to Ginger. ‘How about him?’ he asked tersely.
‘He came with me, of course,’ declared Biggles. ‘He had as many parcels as I had. What’s all this about, anyway?’
‘What were you three standing here for when I came along? You looked like you were expecting somebody.’
‘We were,’ agreed Biggles.
‘Who?’
‘Mose—I don’t know his other name.’
‘What did you plan to do with Mose?’
‘Fly him up to Moose Creek, and then on to the claim he shares with Angus Stirling. Between ourselves, Delaney, Angus has still got the transfer of this property. If we can get it, it should enable us to give McBain the run-along.’
‘I see,’ said the constable slowly. ‘Well, Mose won’t be coming.’
‘Why not?’
‘He’s dead.’
Biggles paled. ‘Dead! ‘ he cried incredulously. ‘Why, he was as right as rain last night.’
‘No doubt he would have been this morning, too, if some one hadn’t clubbed his brains out.’
‘You mean—he was murdered?’
‘People don’t beat their own brains out.’
‘Great heavens!’ Biggles’s brain raced as he tried to focus the situation in its new aspect. ‘You don’t think we did it, by any chance, do you?’
‘I’m going to find out who did do it.’
‘Well, we had everything to lose and nothing to gain by his death,’ Biggles pointed out. ‘We want that transfer badly, and now he’s gone we don’t even know where the claim is.’
‘Yes, I know,’ broke in Ginger. ‘He told me before you spoke to him. It was—dash it, what was the name of the place?—Eskimo Bend—no, Eskimo Island, wherever that may be.’
‘By gosh, if we can’t find the place, things will look bad for Angus. Mose was taking up the winter grub,’ muttered Biggles.
‘If he’s on Eskimo Island he will be snowed in for six months when the freeze-up comes; so, as he won’t have much grub left by this time, he’s as good as a dead man,’ declared Delaney.
‘I’ll take the grub up,’ stated Biggles. ‘I’ll find his shack.’
‘Then you’ve no time to waste,’ said Delaney harshly. ‘The snow’s on the way. Don’t all go. One of you had better stay here in case I want you. I’ll go and have a word with McBain.’
‘You’ve no objection to me going to the claim?’ asked Biggles.
Delaney thought for a moment. ‘No,’ he said at last. ‘Get back as soon as you can, though.’
With a curt nod, leading his horse, the constable strode away in the direction of McBain’s shed, where McBain himself and his assistants were now pulling an aeroplane from the hangar.
As soon as Delaney was out of earshot Ginger swung round to Biggles. ‘McBain killed him,’ he whispered tensely. ‘That’s why he was so agitated when he came in to the others. I thought his manner was odd—I mentioned that when I was telling you what took place in the room.’
Ginger had, of course, described in detail to the others what had transpired in McBain’s but while he had been watching.
‘I wonder,’ murmured Biggles. ‘Well, if he did, he certainly had a motive. No doubt he was told by that Indian of the arrangement I made with Mose, so by killing the old man he might have reckoned on stopping us making contact with Angus. So certain was I that Mose was coming with us that I didn’t bother to ask him the name of the place. It’s lucky he told you, Ginger. What’s the name of it?’
‘Muskeg Bend, on Eskimo Island, he called it.’
‘That ought to be sufficient to enable us to find it,’ muttered Biggles. ‘The question is, does McBain know that we know where Angus is? It’s no use guessing, anyway. We’ll fly up there and let McBain do what he likes. You look after things here, Wilks. I’ll take Ginger with me. With luck we ought to be back in two or three days—four at most. The first thing we’ve got to do is to get poor old Mose’s grubstake up here, although it wouldn’t surprise me if Angus packs up and pulls out when he learns what has happened. I imagine that Muskeg Bend isn’t the sort of place where Angus would want to spend the winter alone. Let’s see about fetching this grub.’
The business of fetching the food occupied some time, for it necessitated a journey to the village; more than one scowl was thrown at Biggles and Ginger as they walked through Fort Beaver, suggesting plainly that they were suspected of the crime that had cost Mose his life, but they took no notice. By the time they got back to the aerodrome Delaney had gone. So had the machine—one of McBain’s Weinkel Twelve Transports—which had been outside the other hangar when they had left for the village.
‘Where’s that machine?’ Biggles asked Wilks as they loaded the food in the Jupiter.
‘It took off about twenty minutes ago, and headed north.’
‘McBain go with it?’
‘No. Sarton was flying. I think he only had Chicot with him.’
Biggles nodded, but made no comment on this piece of information as he climbed into the control cabin of the big machine. He was chiefly concerned with getting to Moose Creek as quickly as possible. He spent a minute studying his map, then folded it up and put it away. ‘Eskimo Island isn’t marked,’ he told Ginger, who had got into the seat beside him. ‘We shall have to ask where it is when we get to Moose Creek. I expect they’ll know up there.’
He started the engines, ran them up, and tested his controls carefully. Satisfied that all was well, he waved to Wilks, who was watching them from the hangar, and then with his left hand moved the throttle slowly forward.
With its engines nearly under full power the Jupiter raced across the aerodrome, rose steadily into the air and sped away to the north.
The Jupiter Heads Northward
BIGGLES only spoke twice during the next two hours; once, to tell Ginger to keep his eyes open for the Weinkel, and, some time later, to comment on its possible destination.
‘I fancy we shall find it at Moose Creek,’ he concluded, and in this he was correct.
They roared low over Wilks’ Rockheed, which was still standing as they had left it the day before, but receiving the O.K. signal from Algy, they did not land. Biggles tilted the Jupiter’s nose upwards as he climbed to his original height.
The country over which they now passed both fascinated and appalled Ginger, who had never seen anything like it before. He realized that he was looking at one of the forbidding sections of the world’s surface, a vast area that was absolutely untouched by the hand of man. For the most part it was gaunt grey rock, twisted into a thousand fantastic shapes by vast upheavals when the earth was young, and later cut and scored by glaciers into rifts and gorges both great and small. Occasionally a clump of sparse, wind-twisted bushes mottled the rock; that was all. Once or twice he saw moving objects, which showed that there was a certain amount of wild life even in this wilderness, but the plane was too high for him to identify the animals. Only a small herd of elk did he recognize by their antlers. ‘No wonder they call this the “bad lands”,’ he thought dismally. Instinctively—as most airmen do when flying over such country—he kept a look-out for possible landing places, but he saw none that he would have been willing to try except in the most extreme emergency.
> The sun was hanging low over the western mountains like an enormous ball when Biggles picked up the river, which, judging from his map, would lead him to their destination. Soon afterwards the country became a little more open, but they were beyond the world of trees, and the stark barrenness persisted. They passed one or two isolated huts, and then, looking ahead, Biggles saw what he knew must be the gold-field. The river bayed out into a wide lagoon, on the banks of which were clustered a number of huts with corrugated iron roofs. Near them the ground was flat, rather like a marsh, and as they glided down they were able to discern wheel tracks which told them where machines usually landed—for the place could hardly be called an aerodrome.
In ten minutes they had landed and taxied up to the buildings—log huts of the most primitive description—where a man in a fur jacket was waiting for them.
‘You Canwell?’ called Biggles, guessing that it was the traffic manager.
‘You’ve said it,’ was the curt reply. ‘You seen anything of Wilkinson?’
‘Yes. I’m his new partner. I’ve brought your stuff along.’
‘About time, too. If you fellows can’t do better than this, I’ll have to find another way of handling my output.’
‘We shall do better in future,’ Biggles promised him. ‘We’ve had a little trouble, but we’re all set now for a regular service.’
Canwell blew a whistle, at which some men appeared and began unloading the equipment. ‘I’ve had one of McBain’s machines here,’ he told Biggles.
‘When was it here?’
‘Just now. It’s just gone off.’
It struck Biggles as odd that they had not seen the Weinkel on its homeward journey, but he did not comment on it. ‘What did the pilot want?’ he inquired.
‘He has offered to carry all my stuff—all of it, you understand—at fifteen cents a pound.’
Biggles was a bit taken aback by this ‘cut’ rate, but he did not show it. A smile broke over his face. ‘Why, the fellow’s a profiteer,’ he said lightly. ‘I’ll do it—all of it—at twelve cents.’
Canwell registered surprise. ‘You will?’