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■II -MMI
Ky ROBERT
AMES
im:\>et
WNU Service
Copyright by Robert Ames Bennet
SYNOPSIS
-iTinm »i«cwflirui'*gara—
bebd
As Alan Garth, prospec
paring to leave for his m
In the Far North, a plai
the airways emergency
it are Burton Ramil),
mining magnate; his dat
1th; and Vivian Huxby,
mining engineer, Believ
be only an ignorant pro:
men offer to make an
ir, Is pre-
iing claim
: lands at
ation. In
nlllionaire
rhter, Lll-
pilot and
g him to
ector, the
r trip to
;r to
Garth’s claim, although they
his samples of platinum-bearlnra ore
as nearly "worthless.” Lilith Kam
il], product of the ja*z age, plainly
shows contempt for tlarth. Through
Garth's guidance the plane soon
reaches the claim site. Huxby and
Itamill, after making several tests,
assure Garth his claim Is nearly
valueless, but to "encourage" young
prospectors they are willing to take
a chance in Investing a small amount.
Sensing treachery ahead. Garth se
cretly removes a part from the mo
tor of the plane. Huxby and Lilith
taunt Garth, but their tone Boon
changes when they try to start the
Plane. Returning to shore they try
to force Garth to give up the miss
ing part. Garth manages to set the
monoplane adrift and the current
carries It over the falls. He points
out that he is their only hope In
guiding them out of the wilderness,
tlarth begins the work of preparing
for the long journey. He insists
that the others help. Ramill and
his daughter must be hardened for
the hardships ahead in their trek to
the outpost on the Mackenzie. Garth
experiences difficulties in getting
his companions into line. An experi
ence with a bear helps.
CHAPTER V—Continued
—8—
Garth laid down his rifle and came
forward, lie Ignored the wary hostile
look of the mining engineer, nodded to
Mr. Kamil), and took off his haltered
lint to bend low before Miss Uatnlll in
a polite bow.
"You are too kind, my dear lady. 1
could not deprive any of you of your
sweets. ‘Rat, drink and he merry, for
tomorrow—’ You may recall the rest
of the quotation.”
Mr. Kumlll went red. What If
Lilith did happen to find these things
you were hogging for private use? We
need them as much ns you.”
"Far more so," Garth amended the
statement. “I don’t need them at all.
Go right ahead and waste wlmt's left.
You of course are certain there’ll be
no emergencies on the way out—no oc
casions when a pinch of tea or sugar
may make the difference between life
and death for you.”
“llow frightful,” said Iluxby.
"Quite so. While you’re about if,
you may as well make a clean sweep.
Here.” Garth tossed (lie gold-mounted
cigar ease to Us owner.
"Oil, so that's how Had lost his
smokes," exclaimed Miss Itamill.
"Who's the real sneak around here?
Steal all those cigars, and the gold
case, too. Then come whining be
cause we've kept you from cheating us
out of our share of these things you
hid. Hand over the c'gars, Had. My
throat’s slill rasped from the vile
smoke of that willow hark Vivian
dried for our cigarettes.”
Hamlll handed the ease back to
Garth.
“Wu-walt!" cried liis daughter.
He waved her away. "No. The
Joke Is on us. He knows what Is
ahead. We do not. We’ve emptied
the sngarbowl and half the teabag.
Tie up that bag and the salt, Vivian!
and hand them to him.”
Garth shook his head, and bowed
to the angry-eyed girl.
“Thank you, no. Miss Itamill has
taken charge. As I recall my Anglo
Saxon, ‘lady’ originally meant bread
cutter. She was the one who rationed
out the food. I tigure upon at least
five weeks before we roach the Mac
kenzie. Miss Itamill will keep charge
of the salt and tea—do with them
whatever she thinks best.”
She llared. ”1 will not 1 I’ll do no
such thing."
“As you please. It's a matter of
utter Indifference to me. More than
once I’ve gone for two months on
meat alone. You're quite welcome to
throw these pouches into the lire."
He glanced around, taking stock
of the camp.
“Everything in keeping, I see. No
sewing done on the moccasins, muffle
all eaten, woodpile nearly used up.
t You’d bettei cook and eat all the meat
you can before the rest of the wood
is burnt. When the lire goes out, we’ll
have plenty of four-footed visitors to
relieve us of those moose legs—wolves,
foxes, wolverines. Also ravens and
moosebirds. Even Mamma Grizzly and
her children may turn up.”
There followed a silence, broken at
last by Miss Itamill. Nhe repeated her
first question, but in a very different
tone: “Mr. Garth, may 1 pour you a
cup of the tea?”
“Thank you, 1 do not need it. The
rest of you will. I suggest keeping
It for breakfast. You'll have no other
vtaste of sweets for over a month, un
less we find a bumblebee nest."
The girl silently covered the top of
the pot with the Inverted tin cup. Her
father heaved up his soft bulk. He
beckoned to Huxby.
"Come, Vivian. The agreement was
that Garth should be skipper. That
wood pile will not last another hour.
We can't permit any bear raids on
our bull market."
The engineer met the quip with a
rather thin smile. However, he set
about gathering firewood with quick
ness and efficiency.
Garth lifted one of the moose quar
ters from the smoke rack and began
to cut off large thin slices. These he
laid on the poles for quicker smoke
curing and drying. He paid no atten
tion to Miss Itamill.
When the girl saw he did not In
tend to speak to her, she picked up
the salt and tea pouches and went
Into the leimto. Garth thought she
meant to go to bed. Instead, she
crawled out again, put one of the
freshly cut slices of meat on a wil
low sidt, and held it over the end of
the fire where the muffle had sim
mered.
As soon ns the steak was broiled,
the cook sullenly offered it to Garth.
He took il with no betrayal of his
surprise, and sat down to eat. ‘‘Thank
you, sister."
She frowned. "I never hated any
one so much in all my life as I hate
you. Hut that was a mean trick,
stealing your sugar.”
"All the more reason for you to
hate me. Not that it matters a penny
—the sugar or yom hate. I'll admit,
though. It's very Interesting to watch
the reactions of yourself and your fa
ther. Huxby is just a commonplace
wolf. But your father and you—the
lady of leisure and the millionaire ac
quirer—tossed from the lap of luxury
into the raw wild. You’ll have to
acknowledge It's high comedy.”
“If it Is, then you’re the clown,” was
the best she could counter.
He agreed: “That’s It, the Jester—
the fool of the play—the loon who was
to have been gulled and bilked. Who
knows? He may be yet. But he will
have had the fun of the game.”
Miss Knmill turned her back on him
and went to crawl into the leanto.
Her father and Huxby came with still
more wood to pile on the already high
heap of fuel. The engineer went to
lie down at his sleeping place on the
Ice side of the fire. During the day he
had gathered a much thicker bed of
spruce tips and dry moss.
The long hours of twilight slowly
faded to the semi-dusk of midnight
and as slowly brightened towards full
day. Sunrise found the three visitors
“You Are Too Kind, l\’.y Dear Lady.
I Could Not Deprive Any of You
of Your Sweets.”
from the cities still asleep. Along
with the tea and sugar, they had
gorged on the muffle gelatine and the
tender lynx meat. Garth did not
waken them. He looked speculatively
at the smoke rack. All the lynx meat
had been eaten. But the wide spread
of moose hindquarter slices made a
great showing around the two uncut
moose forelegs. He decided to let the
tongues and the remaining muffle keep
on smoke curing
Two hours or so later the crack of
moose bones under the blows of the
belt-ax wakened Huxby. He sat up
to turn hungrily in the direction from
which came a savory odor/ Garth had
drawn a thigh bone from the lire an.T
was buttering a piece of broiled meat
with hot marrow.
The engineer came around and laid
one of the thigh bones on the fire.
Above it he slanted a steak on a spit.
Neither he nor Garth spoke. lie
started to eat his steak and marrow
before either was more than halt
cooked.
Garth finished his own breakfast
and began to sew a moccasin. As soon
as Huxby had bolted down his food,
he picked up the emptied gold pan.
Miss Kaniill had sat up in the front
of the leanto to lace her boots. Her
father crept out past her.
“Morning, Vivian," he greeted. "I
see you’re going to set the pan on the
fire again. Good Idea. That muffle
aspic is all Garth told us it would be.”
“No." Iluxby’s tone was almost
curt. “We've lost too much time al
ready. I am going, to make a complete
test of that placer deposit.”
He looked with cold wariness at
the rightful claimant of the placer.
Garth smiled. "Go to it. The more
you pan out, the more of my tit) per
cent I’ll he able to jingle In my
pocket.”
That sent the engineer off with a
crease between his hard eyes. Mr.
Itamill studied Garth’s amused face.
“What Is the Idea?” he inquired.
“Do we infer you still stand by the
terms you offered?”
“Well, I may at least allow you four-
tenths of what your Man Friday
sweats out of my placer. The laborer
is worthy of his hire.—I’m going for
a dip. You and Miss Itamill might
get your moose bones to roasting. The
marrow goes well with the steaks.
Let me suggest that you build a large
lire in the regular cook hole. When it
burns low, rake out the coals and lay
in one of the forelegs, thickly smeared
with mud. Then rake on dirt, embers
and ashes, build a small lire on top,
and keep it going four or five hours.”
Miss Itamill looked down at her
slender hands. They were already
roughened and grimed, and two of the
highly manicured nails had been
broken. The large diamond of her en
gagement ring flashed blue-white fire
up into her angrily flashing blue eyes.
Nhe jerked her head up to Hare out
at Garth. He was already disappear
ing in the brush on his way to the
rock pool.
When he returned from his plunge,
a fire was flaming high in the cook
hole. Well away from it, the heiress
to millions was smearing one of the
moose legs with mud brought up from
the lake shore by her father in his
expensive soft hat.
Garth raked the thigh bones from
the smudge-fire and set back the spits
of the partly burnt steaks. He then
dripped melting moose fat Into a
small twist-cup of birchbark that he
had brought back with him. The cup
already held two or three gills of
spruce pitch.
The mud-daubers washed their hands
in the rill and came for their over
cooked breakfast. While Mr. Ramill
cracked open the marrow bones with
the belt-ax, Garth stirred his dope
together with a twig. He took off his
hat before starting to smear the dope
on his face. Miss Ramill gazed at
hint.
Garth offered his dope. “Best cos
metic in the North. You may as well
go the limit."
“I'll die first!”
Her father dipped his fingers in the
dope and smeared the stuff on his face
and nock as Garth had done.
Garth said: “Eat your fill. Miss
Ramill will stay to tend the fires. You
and I are to climb. You'll wear Hux-
by’s leather trousers outside your
own.”
“But they’re too small for me around
the belt.”
“They’ll not be after a few days.
You’ll wear the jacket also.”
A taste of hot nmrrow roused the
girl’s appetite. Hunger overcame her
other cravings. She said nothing even
when, at the end of the meal, her
father drew on Huxby’s flying suit,
over his clothes and started off with
Garth.
Though Garth had spoken of a climb,
lie first led along the lake shore to the
beginning of the muskeg swamp. Then
turned and slanted gradually up
through the belt of spruce trees until
the west side of the trough was
readied at timberline. He stopped to
look at Iluxby while Mr. Ramill
caught his second wind. The min
ing engineer gave no heed to them.
He was hard at work panning out
gravel, midway up to the discovery
stake.
Garth led across to the east side of
the trough. After every halt he started
the portly millionaire on again as soon
us lie could draw a deep breath. They
kept plodding up the tundra slope
until at last Mr. Kamill’s legs gave
out. lie staggered and collapsed. He
lay, purple-faced and quivering, spent.
When able to speak, he gasped an
appeal: "Ka-quit! ’U’ll kill—me!”
“No such luck,” Garth bantered him.
“It’s only the fat. If it was your
heart, you’d have died long before this.
Open your coats and let the sun
soak In."
The exhausted man turned flat on
his back and basked. Within a few
minutes he drowsed off. Garth let him
nap a long two hours, then started
him on up the long climb.
Three hours later found them still
below the lower end of the glacier.
Garth at last called a halt to the
climb. He headed back.
Midway down to timberline. Itamill
collapsed, so utterly spent that he
could not get up even after a long
rest. Gartu took him on his back and
packed him on down to the camp,
without a halt.
Huxby and Miss Ramill were feast
ing. They had pried the moose leg out
of the fire hole and broken off the
clay shell. The meat had baked to
juicy tenderness. Even the gristle was
melted into gelatine.
When Garth laid her father in the
leanto, the girl brought a big chunk
of the best meat. But the millionaire
climber was too exhausted even to eat.
His daughter turned upon Garth.
“Another of your damnable jokes!
He’s dying! You’ve killed him!”
Garth smiled approvingly. “So,
after all, you're capable of feeling a
little concern for someone else than
yourself. Boil the cup two-thirds
full of water, and put in enough of
that sweet tea to cool it for drinking. ’
“The tea is hot already. I’ve kept
back Dad’s share. I’ll give it to him
straight.”
“You’ll warm that water.”
The mining engineer stood up. “I've
told you to speak respectfully to Miss
Ramill.”
Garth paid no more attention to him
than to the buzz of a mosquito. The
girl looked expectantly at her fiance.
He stood waiting for Garth to apolo
gize. When Garth neither replied nor
so much as glanced around at him,
the engineer’s cold assurance gave way
to doubt. He turned and went down
to the lake.
Miss Ramill’s eyes widened. She
glanced from his stiff back to the
buckskin clad shoulders that had so
lightly toted her father into camp. Ail
tills had been a matter of seconds. In
another moment she was darting over
to the rill with the tin cup.
When she came tr ’he leanto with
the almost scalding hot mixture of
boiled water and tea, .her father mut
tered, between groans, that he did not
want it. "No—no! Uh-oh-h! Let me
die—in peace!”
Garth heaved up the lax head and
shoulders, and held the cup to the
quivering lips. "Drink, or I’ll pour it
down your throat.”
A few minutes later the “dying” mil
lionaire began to eat. He bolted down
the juicy tender meat until sleep over
took him in the midst of a bite.
“Roll the blanket over him and let
him sweat,” Garth directed. “He’ll
wake up a new man. I’ll wager he
has worked off ten pounds of fat, to
say nothing of the toxins he’s burned
up. Next climb he’ll make the foot of
the glacier.”
Though spoiled, Lilith was far from
being a fool. She had begun to realize
that to get what she wanted, some
thing more than wishing was neces
sary. Her father had gone over to
Garth. Even Iluxby had failed her.
She could not believe her fiance a cow
ard. He was undoubtedly brave in
his way. Garth had admitted as
much. He had called the engineer a
wolf, not a fox.
The rub was over for Garth. Miss
Ramill’s surrender meant that he was
now the acknowledged master of the
party. Huxby had also admitted the
fact by going off, Instead of following
up his implied threat of attack. He,
however, would require watching.
(TO BE CONTINUED)
No Evidence That Ships
Founder in Sargasso Sea
Sargasso sea is the name given to
a region between the Azores and West
Indies where seaweed Is kept in a slow
swirl by the action of the Gulf stream
and the equatorial current The weed
collects much in the same way that
floating debris co fleets on the surface
of a river back etdy or wash. On his
first voyage, notes' a writer In the In
dianapolis News, Columbus noted this
sea. The name c imes from the Span
ish word sargazo meaning seaweed.
In the days oi small sailing craft,
navigation was hindered by the sea
weed, and mariners sought to avoid
the region. In this way was encour
aged the legend that the sea Is a grave
yard of ships.
A scientific survey of the region was
made in 1925 by William Beebe, who
headed an expedition sent out by the
New York Zoological society. He re
ported that only at certain seasons do
the weeds collect in the “floating
meadows” referred to by some observ
ers, and that these surface mats of
seaweed are soon scattered by the
wind. Beebe cruised for a month in
the Sargasso sea and found no rafts
of seaweed sufficiently heavy to im
pede his progress, or even to excite
attention. There Is no evidence that
the storybook references to lost ships
floating about in' the sea are based
on fact
Naming ‘‘Greenwich Village”
Two hundred years and more ago,
when New York was only the tip of
Manhattan island and the rest was
given to pleasant farms, there lay
to the north of the city a suburban
community which the late Dutch own
ers had called the Bossen Bouerie.
But the English, who had taken over
the Dutch colony and renamed New
Amsterdam New York, were beginning
to call the Bossen Bouerie by the
name of the London suburb Greenwich.
It is not known exactly when this
name, was first applied, but a deed of
1721 speaks of “the Bossen Bouerie,
alias Greenwich.” In subsequent years
“Greenwich Village” became a favorite
suburban place of residence, until It
was finally absorbed by its growing
neighbor. But a good many old fam
ilies still kept their homes within its
precincts, and In one way or another
it has always maintained sufficient dis
tinctiveness to keep its name alive.
Castle Is Famed
The tiny city of Eisenach, Germany,
famed for historic Wartburg catle, is
also the [dace where Martin Luther re
tired under the pseudonym of “Junker
Georg” to translate tbs Bibls into Gt*
man.
Explorer II Rising from the Stratobowl.
Prepared by the National Geographic Society.
Washington, D. C.—WNU Service.
T HE Explorer II, balloon o*f' the
National Geographic society-
army air corps stratosphere
flight, which rose to a record
altitude of more than 73,000 feet on
Armistice day, was the largest free
balloon ever built. Commanded by Capt.
Albert VV. Stevens, who also was the
scientific observer, and piloted by Capt.
Orvil Anderson, both of the army air
corps, the balloon soared more than
two miles farther into the upper air
than the previous official altitude rec
ord (61,237 feet), made by Lieut. Com
mander T. G. W. Settle of the navy
and Maj. Chester Fordnev of the ma
rine corps, on November 20, 1933. The
unofficial balloon altitude record prior
to the flight of the Explorer II was
72,200 feet, made by Russian balloon
ists. The crew of three men was killed
when the gondola crashed on descent,
January 30, 1934.
If a tent were made from the bag
of the Explorer II 20,000 men could
find standing room beneath it, with
space to spare. It will cover about
two and two-thirds acres of ground, or
115,845 square feet. It has a capacity
of 3,700,000 cubic feet of gas. This is
23 per cent larger than the capacity of
the Explorer I, used on the 1934 Na
tional Geographic-army air corps stra
tosphere flight and at that time the
record-breaker for size.
If fully inflated on a football field
the Explorer would cover more than
the total width of the gridiron and
about two-thirds of its length. A build
ing more than eleven stories high and
of equal width and depth could be
placed easily inside it.
The big bag is made of cotton fabric,
treated repeatedly with rubber until
It is gas-tight. The gondola, and its
four-and-one-half-ton load of men, in
struments, and ballast, was suspended
from a catenary band or girdle cement
ed to the lower part of the balloon.
Moored With Seven Miles of Rope.
Seven miles of rope, enough to reach
from the earth to the stratosphere,
were used to moor the giant bag dur
ing its inflation and until the time of
the take-off.
The balloon was inflated with helium
gas, which could not burn or explode,
instead of the hydrogen gas used in
the Explorer I. Only about 260.000
cubic feet of helium, about 7 per cent
of the balloon’s capacity, was let into
the bag at the start. As the balloon
rose it expanded until at a height of
about 12 miles it filled out the entire
balloon into the shape of a perfect
sphere.
After the balloon became spherical
and the helium continued to expand,
there was no danger of the bag burst
ing because the excess gas escaped
through four appendixes in the bot
tom. These are tubular openings like
inverted chimneys, 17 feet long and 7!4
feet in diameter.
The gas in the balloon was con
trolled by two valves of a type in
vented by Captain Stevens. Operated
by compressed air, somewhat as air
brakes are operated, the valves were
controlled from within the gondola.
They could be used to let gas escape
from the top of the balloon when it
was desired to halt the ascent tem
porarily, or to hasten the descent
toward earth. .
The gondola of the Explorer If
which housed the' crew and precious
scientific instruments is a big nine-foot
bubble made of a magnesium alloy, thin
but strong. Though nearly as strong as
steel, the metal used in the sphere is
less than one-fourth as heavy. It is
the world's lightest structural metal.
Even aluminum is half again as heavy.
New Lightweight Metal.
This lightweight champion of the
metals is a comparatively new bit of
modern chemical magic. It contains
95 per cent pure magnesium, one of
the lightest of substances. The mag
nesium is obtained from deep-buried
supplies of salt water, or brine, pumped
from wells at Midland, Mich., by the
Dow Chemical company.
Though it appears hard and shiny
like any other metal when fashioned
into the material for the gondola, mag
nesium ground or shaved into bits also
r-an burn with a brilliant light. It was
used in photographers’ flashlight pow
der before electric flash lamps were de
veloped, and in flares dropped by avia
tors at night during the World war
to illuminate the ground for bombing
and photography.
Despite its light weight, the mag
nesium alley needs r. ’hickness of only
three-sixteenths of an inch to give it
sufficient strength for the Stratosphere
balloon gondola. It carried into the
stratosphere on the flight a load of two
men, more than a ton of scientific ap
paratus and thousands of pounds of
ballast.
In tests it withstood strains five
times as great as it was called upon
to bear during the flight. During the
flight it was subjected not only to the
load but the strain of an air pressure
inside that was far greater than that
outside.
Walls of the gondola are made of
rolled plates of the magnesium alloy
welded together. The hatches are cast
ings of the same material. The entire
gondola, with its metal floor, hatch
covers and a metal arm from which
some instruments were suspended,
weighed 638 pounds.
Sunny, Calm and Cold.
In the stratosphere, it has been dis
covered. continuous sunshine reigns,
with no storms, clouds, rains or fogs.
But—it is about 80 below zero! Also
in this paradoxical region of the upper
air the sky is so blue that it is almost
black and sounds are strangely faint
and feeble.
No summer resort on earth can
equal the sunshine and calm of strato
sphere days. The sun shines from ris
ing to setting, every day. with a bril
liance unknown on earth, for there is
little air to dim its rays. Practically
no water vapor exists in the strato
sphere. so there can he no clouds to
shut out the sun, and hence no rain
or fog. The turbulent air currents near
er the earth also are missing, so
storms are non-existent.
But even with this perfect weather
overhead, the stratosphere is far from
being an ideal vacation spot. It Is as
cold as the desolate polar regions of
earth. A temperature of nearly 80 de
grees below zero Fahrenheit was re
corded in 1934, both on the first Na
tional Geographic-army flight to the
stratosphere and in the Antarctic on
the second Ryrd expedition. And again
on November 11, 1935, the Explorer II
found a similar temperature. The air Is
so thin in the stratosphere that a man
would suffocate and die there unless;
artificially supplied with oxygen.
The stratosphere is one of the
earth’s newest frontiers, a region of
cold air 20 miles or more thick, sur
rounding our globe as the skin sur
rounds an orange. It hangs above the
earth at a height ranging from ten
miles at the equator to seven miles in
the latitude of the United States, while
over the poles it may hang lower still.
Its bottom is the level at which the
air above the earth stops growing cold
er. Every one knows that the air
grows colder as one climbs higher on
a mountain or in an airplane, and sci
entists formerly believed the coldness
steadily increased with altitude. But
about 37 years ago it was found that
the temperature ceased to drop at a
height of seven to ten miles, and re
mained about the same as far up as
could be measured with thermometers
attached to small balloons.
Man Couldn’t Live There.
The stratosphere always stays at
approximately the same low tempera
ture because the heat that Its air ab
sorbs is almost exactly balanced by the
heat it radiates away. It is colder in
winter than in summer, but strangely
enough is colder above the equator than
nearer the poles.
A man suddenly transported to the
stratosphere could no more live than
he could in the depths of the sea. Not
only is there much too little oxygen
to keep him alive, but the tissues of
his hody would tend to expand be
cause the pressure inside his body
would be far greater than that out
side. The crew of the Explorer II was
sealed in a gondola and supplied with
artificial air by an air-conditioning
unit, just as is the crew of a subma
rine.
All astronomers wish they could go
to tlie stratosphere to observe the stars.
At a height of 15 miles they would be
well above most of the earth’s atmos
phere, which acts like a swirling fog in
front of telescopes on earth and be
cause of this the view is partially
spoiled. In a clear stratosphere sky
the stars shine far more brilliantly
than we ever see them. At a height
of 20 miles the brighter stars probably
could he seen in daylight. That is be
cause the stratosphere sky is almost
black. There are comparatively few air
particles to scatter the sun’s rays at
that height, hence the sky does not
appear as blue as it does from the
earth.