The three girls fairly gasped in their relief and delight. It was with the greatest difficulty that they refrained from embracing the visitor.
“I suppose,” said the stranger, “that you would like to know how it comes about that I am living here on this island all by myself; and, above all things, in an igloo. Well, you see, my uncle owns this island. He is a retired Arctic trader. For twenty years he lived on the coast of the Arctic—made a huge fortune in furs and whale bone. Then he came back to the city to live.
“Well, you see,” she sighed after a pause for breath, “he had lived in igloos on the Arctic coast for so long that he wasn’t satisfied with the cave he lived in on the shores, in the noisy city. So what does he do but buy this little island and have a wonderful little igloo built beneath one of its sand dunes?
“Of course he doesn’t live in his igloo all the time; just comes over when he wishes to. This winter he is spending in Florida so he lent his igloo to me.
“I graduated from the university last year. And I wanted to write a book, a book about the vanishing race—the Eskimo. Sort of an Eskimo Ramona, don’t you know.
“I had never been in Alaska but my uncle had told me about it. Nights and nights he talked about nothing else, so I knew enough to make a book. All I needed was the atmosphere. I thought I could get that best by coming out here and living in his igloo all by myself, paddling about in a kayak, fishing through the ice and all that. So that,” she laughed, “is how I came to be here.”
The three girls stared at her with looks of wonderment in which was mingled not a little joy. Had she been a fairy come down from some magic kingdom to render them a great service she could hardly have been more welcome.
“Oh!” she cried, bouncing up from her chair, “You shall all go to my igloo. We will have dinner together there and—and why don’t you bring along a few of your things, prepared to stay all night? You’ll hardly be leaving tonight. No, of course you won’t. Ice won’t let you.”
“It’s not alone the ice,” said Florence soberly. “We don’t know how to start our motor.”
“Oh! Those motors! There now!” she exclaimed “I’ve never told you my name. It’s Marie Neighbor. What are yours?”
The girls told her.
“Motors are a real bother,” she said, returning to her original subject. “Uncle has had six or eight of them in all, on cars, yachts and all that. Not one of them was like any other one. I puzzled my poor old head nearly off over them but I always succeeded in making them go. They’re worse when there’s no gas. Once I tried a pint of ether and some moth balls instead of gas. That came near being my last experiment. The cylinder exploded. Perhaps I can help you with your engine. Let’s have a look.”
Florence led the way to the engine room and there switched on a light.
Marie studied the motor for a moment.
“But my dear,” she exclaimed at last, “this wire should be fastened there and that one here. You have them crossed. That will never do. Hope you haven’t ruined your batteries. But never you mind, I have a set down at the igloo.”
“Now about the timer. That screw’s loose there. Off time of course. Why, there’s nothing the matter with the motor; not really. We’ll have it going in a moment.”
She gave the balance wheel a turn. There followed a sucking sound. A second turn brought a similar result; the third elicited a loud explosion and the fourth threw the engine into such a spasm of coughing as set the whole yacht a-tremble.
“There you are,” she exclaimed triumphantly. “I told you there wasn’t anything the matter.” She touched a lever. The engine stopped. Then she reached for a handful of waste with which to clean her dainty fingers.
“Now,” she said, “shall we go over to the igloo? I think the wind is changing. The ice may be going out tonight. In that case you may be wishing to leave in the morning. The yacht will be all right here. No one about and no chance for her to go out of the river. Throw a line out and tie her to the shore. That’ll make her doubly safe.”
Delighted with this strange and efficient hostess, the girls went about the task of making the ship snug, then, having each gathered up a small bundle of clothing, went ashore.
“By the way,” said Marie, “if you don’t mind I think I’d like to go back to the city with you. I’ll work my passage as chief engineer.”
“That would be splendid!” said Florence enthusiastically. “I’ve been worrying about the engine. We might get it going and not be able to stop it.”
“And might stop it and not get it going again,” laughed Marie. “Well, I’m glad that’s arranged. A friend had promised to come after me, but I was talking to him night before last and he told me his boat had sprung a leak. Didn’t think he could come.”
“You were talking with him?” cried Marian.
“Yes, radio, don’t you know. Oh! I didn’t tell you. I have a radiophone for short-distance work. Uncle insisted on my having it; thought I wouldn’t be safe without it. When I wish to talk to shore all I have to do is to hoist up my two portable towers, key up my instrument and start right in jabbering away. I have the wireless too, and can talk to my uncle way down in Florida.”
Florence took a long breath. “So this,” she told herself, “is the explanation of the phantom wireless.”
“By the way,” said Marie, “your friends must be anxious about you. Of course they must be. I’ll get my little talking machine going as soon as we are at the igloo and you may tell them all your troubles; also assure them you’ll be home tomorrow or the next day.”
“Oh! How can we thank you?” cried Lucile.
“Don’t have to,” laughed their hostess. “It doesn’t cost me anything and I’m to get a free passage home for it.”
“Talking about things being free,” she said pointing to the splendid little evergreens all about them. “See all those trees! They really should be thinned out. They’re free for the asking. Yet there are ten thousand homes in the city where there will be no Christmas tree this year. What do you say we cut down two or three hundred of them and take them along? We can play Santa to that many families anyway.”
“I think it’s a fine idea,” said Lucile.
“So do I! So do I,” said the others in unison.
“Well then that’s all settled. And now for a lark. Watch out; here’s the entrance to the igloo. Just take a look down, then we’ll get up the towers and start talking across empty space to the poor tired old city,” laughed Marie.
CHAPTER XVI
AN UNEXPECTED WELCOME
“It’s an exact reproduction of an igloo!” exclaimed Lucile.
The three girls, following the example of their hostess, had dropped through a hole some three feet square, had poised for an instant upon a board landing, to drop a second three feet and find themselves in a small square room. Leaving this room, they had gone scooting along a narrow passageway, to drop on their knees and crawl through a circular opening into a room some twenty feet square.
“Why!” exclaimed their hostess, “have you seen an igloo somewhere?”
Lucile smiled. “Marian and I spent a year on the Arctic coast of Alaska and Marian has lived most of her life in Nome on Behring Sea.”
“Why then,” Marie Neighbor’s face was a study, “then I’m just a—a—what do you call it? a chechecko, I guess—beside you.”
“Oh, no, nothing like that,” smiled Marian.
“Anyway you’ll help me with my book, won’t you? I have it only a third finished. After dinner I’ll read that to you and you may tell me frankly whether it’s any good or not.”
“I tried a story once myself,” said Lucile with a laugh.
“How did you come out with it?”
“Haven’t come out yet, but I’m really crazy to get back to the city and find out about it. I mailed it to the editor of ‘Seaside Tales’.”
The igloo was heated by genuine seal-oil lamps and over these Marie cooked her food. The pots and kettles were of the antiq
ue copper type traded to Eskimos by Russians long before the white man reached the Arctic shore of Alaska. The food cooked in this manner over a slow fire was declared to be delicious.
“And now,” said their hostess, when the dishes had been washed and put away, “I’ll introduce you to my alcove bedroom.”
Drawing aside a pair of heavy deerskin curtains she revealed a platform some six by eight feet. This was piled high with skin rugs of all descriptions. White bearskin, Russian squirrel, red fox and beaver rivaled one another in softness and richness of coloring.
“You see,” she explained, “it’s sort of a compromise between the narrow shelf of the Eskimo igloo and the broader sleeping room of the Chukches of Siberia.”
Lucile and Marian were fascinated. It took them back to the old days of Cape Prince of Wales, of East Cape and Siberia.
“Tell you what,” exclaimed Lucile. “We’ll all get fixed nice and comfy for going to sleep, then we’ll spread ourselves out in the midst of all those wonderful rugs and you may read your book to us.”
“Yes, and you’ll be asleep in ten minutes,” laughed Marie.
“No, no! No we won’t,” they all exclaimed.
“Then it’s a bargain.”
A few moments later filmy pink and white garments vied in color and softness with the rugs of Arctic furs while Marie in a well modulated tone read the beginning of the story of Nowadluk, the belle of Alaska. The three companions were quite content to listen. The ways of life seemed once more very good to them. Their friends had been notified by radiophone of their safety. They were to return tomorrow or the day after. The wind had changed. The ice was already beginning to scatter.
Now and then Lucile or Marian would interrupt the reader to make a suggestion. When the end had been reached they were unanimous in their assurance that it promised to be a wonderful story. Their only regrets were that more of it was not completed.
A half hour later Lucile and Marian were asleep. Florence and Marie were talking in whispers. Florence had been relating their strange and weird experiences while living aboard the O Moo.
“So that’s why you thought I was held captive by the Negontisks?” Marie chuckled.
“But really,” she said presently, “there were some of those people in Chicago. May be yet, but no one knows.”
“Tell me about it,” Florence breathed excitedly.
“I don’t know a great deal about it, only they were brought over from Siberia for exhibition purposes during a fair in Seattle. From there they were brought to Chicago by a show company. The company ran out of money and disbanded. The Negontisks were thrown upon their own resources.
“They were getting along one way or another when it was discovered that they were worshipping some kind of idol.”
“A blue face,” whispered Florence breathlessly.
“Something like that. It was believed that in their religious rites they resorted to inhuman practices. The government looked into the matter and decided to deport them. But just when the officials were preparing to round them up, they found that the last one of them had vanished—vanished as completely as they might had the earth opened up and swallowed them.
“That was two or three years ago. The papers were full of it. I think there was a reward offered for their capture. But I believe they never found a trace of them or their blue god.”
“Oh!” whispered Florence, suddenly sitting up among the robes. “Oh, I do hope the ice is gone by morning!”
“Why? Aren’t you happy here?”
“Yes, but I want to get back to the city—want to awfully. You see, I think I know where the blue god is and I want to go and find it.”
It was the afternoon of the second day following the night spent in the igloo before they were able to leave the island. Ice still blocked their path, that first day, so they had spent the whole day piling the deck of the O Moo high with Christmas trees. Since fate had been kind to them in landing them on the hospitable shores of this island they had been glad to do this much toward the happiness of others.
The lake could never have appeared more lovely. Its surface, smooth as a mirror, reflected the white clouds which drifted lazily overhead. The sun, sending its rosy reflections over all, made each tiny wavelet seem a saddle on the back of a fairy horse of dreamland. Across this dreamland the O Moo cut her way.
Now they were nearing the city. For some time they had been seeing the jagged line of sky scrapers. Now they could catch the outline of the beach by the dry dock. Toward this they pointed the prow of the O Moo. A wireless telephone message had made known to Dr. Holmes the probable hour of their arrival. Old Timmie would doubtless be prepared to get the O Moo back upon her trestle.
“But what makes the shore all around the dock look so black?” puzzled Lucile.
Just then there came a succession of faint and distant pop-pop-pops.
“Someone coming to meet us,” Lucile decided, pleased at the thought.
Then there came another set of poppings, another and another, all in slightly different keys.
Now they could see the gasoline launches coming toward them. Seeming but sea gulls for size at first, they grew rapidly larger.
“Six of them,” murmured Marian. “I didn’t know we had that many friends.”
Their amazement grew as three other boats put out from shore. Then Lucile, who had been studying the beach exclaimed:
“I do believe that black spot about the dry dock moves. It seems to contract and expand, to waver backward and forward. You don’t think it could be—be people?”
“Why no, of course—yes! I do believe it is!” cried Marian.
“It’s the newspapers,” exclaimed Florence. “They’ve published a lot of nonsense about our silly adventure and all those people have come down to see us come in.”
“And the people in those motorboats are reporters,” groaned Marian. “It’s the last of our life on the O Moo.”
“That’s over anyway,” said Lucile. Her face was very sober. “By the time we’ve paid for having this yacht put back in order, I figure we’ll have about enough money left to buy soup and crackers for examination week and a ticket home. Good-bye old university!”
“Ho! Well,” laughed Florence, “no use being gloomy about it. No use being gloomy about anything. Life’s too long for that. Let’s make up what we’ll tell the reporters. They won’t print the truth anyway, so we might as well tell them plenty.”
“Tell them what you like,” said Marie Neighbor, “only please don’t give them the location of my island. I don’t want them to come out there bothering me.”
“We’ll guard your secret, never worry,” smiled Lucile.
When the reporters’ boats swarmed about them, the girls told as little as they could, but when later Dr. Holmes came on board with three official reporters, they gave them the true story of their adventures.
They were shown their own pictures on the front pages of all the papers and were assured that nothing but their adventure had been talked of since their disappearance.
A woman had come on board with the reporters, a trim, matronly woman in a tailored suit. At her first opportunity she drew Florence to one side to talk with her long and earnestly.
“The cabin of the O Moo is a wreck,” Marian said to Dr. Holmes. “But really, Mr. Holmes, you may trust us to put it back into perfect shape if it takes our last penny. You may send upholsterers and decorators over as soon as the O Moo is in dry dock.”
“Tut—tut!” exclaimed the good doctor. “Don’t let that trouble you. That’s all provided for.”
“Oh, no! Really you must let us pay for all that.”
“Did it ever occur to you,” his eyes were twinkling, “that the O Moo might be insured?”
“In—insured!” Marian’s knees gave way. The news was too good to seem true.
“Then, then we can stay?”
“In school, yes, but on the O Moo, probably not. Too much publicity, you see. University people would object an
d all that, don’t you know. But then, cheer up. I fancy the lady dean is telling Florence of something which will interest you all.”
“In the meantime,” he exclaimed, “we are not getting ashore. Yo-ho, Timmie,” he cupped his hands and shouted, “bring on the rowboats and tackle. Let’s get her brought in.”
CHAPTER XVII
HOT WATER AND A GHOST
It was night. The crowd that had screamed its welcome to the returning O Moo and her crew was gone. A great truck loaded high with Christmas trees had departed with Marie Neighbor bouncing about on top of it.
The three girls were in the cabin of the O Moo. This, they were sure, was to be their last night on board. The lady dean had told Florence that a flat belonging to the university, three rooms, kitchenette and bath, was at their disposal. The rent seemed terribly high to them, but someway they must meet it, since the dean had looked very sternly adown her nose and said, “Of course this sort of thing cannot be gone on with. The university would be scandalized. Besides, there is no telling what may happen to you if you remain here.”
“Of course,” Lucile said with a long face as the three of them discussed the matter, “she says it’s a very nice apartment but it can’t be half as nice as—”
“As the O Moo,” Florence put in. “Of course not. Nothing ever can be.”
“Oh, well,” Marian sighed, “I guess we’ll have to do it. But I do think the old O Moo is a dear. I shouldn’t like anything better than rambling through a whole summer with her almost anywhere on the Great Lakes.”
Since this was to be their last night they determined to make the most of it. They had Mark Pence in for hot chocolate and vanilla wafers. They told him of their adventures and he spoke modestly of his own.
“So you see,” he said, going back to the very beginning of the story as he now knew it, “when these Negontisks found out they were going to be deported they hunted out an unscrupulous Chinaman who transformed them into people of his own race. That wasn’t hard. They were Orientals anyway. All he had to do was to provide them with black sateen suits and artificial pigtails and the transformation was complete.
The Girl Detective Megapack: 25 Classic Mystery Novels for Girls Page 67