The greatest adventure
Wheeling back in the starlight, she dipped and circled low above the
forlorn little monsters on the ice. All her dormant mother love awoke
and strode rampant over one particularly shameful case of abandonment.
The isolated little creature, no bigger than a Newfoundland dog, could
not have been more than a few days old. Its ridiculous little tail
was a mere stub, and its grotesquely disproportionate head all but
over-balanced the emaciated body see-sawing on two feeble pins.
"Ole," she exclaimed, "we must take that darling little devil chick
back to the ship. It is perishing for warmth and its mother."
"You're not its mother, and I'm blowed if I'll warm it."
"Oh yes you will. For you are going to catch it."
"Who is crazy now?"
"Not I. You will be perfectly safe with the parents away selfishly
enjoying themselves. Besides, you will have a fair start of nearly
three-quarters of a mile if the mother sees your kidnapping. If you
can't outrun her at that distance you're no good. Here we are. Climb
out and fetch the baby. Grab it well up by the neck so it can't bite."
"I'll be damned if I do."
"You will be if you don't. Now look here, Ole. Either you get that
chick for me or I make your life miserable forever by telling the
Captain how you ran away from your prayers. You will be famous from
Liverpool to San Francisco and from there to Hong Kong as the grateful
seaman whose able-bodied prayers raised the devil. Get that poor little
beast for me and I swear never to tell a soul what kind of a fool you
looked racing that two-legged reptile."
It was rank blackmail, and as such succeeded in a continent where there
is not a single lawyer.
With elaborate but unnecessary caution Ole sneaked up on the squawking
foundling from behind. In its hunger and pathetic loneliness it would
have welcomed him with open mouth. Grabbing its long thin neck with one
hand, he clutched its stubby tail with the other. Then putting forth
all his barrel of strength he started to lug the kicking little monster
toward the airplane.
Who would have suspected that the puny wretch had such a fight in its
emaciated body? And who would have dreamed from its plaintive squawk
that the little devil had lungs of leather? It bawled for its daddy,
screeched for its big brother, and yelled for its gadding mother. They
came bounding in great hops.
All things considered, we must conclude with Edith that Ole, not the
abandoned chick, was the attraction.
Edith's mother love suddenly fell below zero. She implored Ole to
drop the little beast--he was now carrying it bodily by its neck
and tail--and win the race to the propeller. But Ole's Norwegian
perseverance was roused. Having begun the job he would finish it or
bust.
Only an exceptionally strong man could have duplicated his feat. While
with one hand he cranked the propeller he held the chick by its neck at
arm's length with the other. The little beast had a wicked, raking kick
with its feeble-looking legs. One rip with its claws might have taught
Ole anatomy.
The bereaved family arrived in time to hear their darling's farewell
wafted from above. It was dangling over the side of the plane, still
kicking. Ole had not relaxed his strangle hold on its neck. With a
deft swing he got it aboard and sat on its stomach. He still did not
trust the chick with its own head. Consequently its last message to its
mother was sufficiently like the skirl of a bagpipe to be distressing.
"Cuddle it up in the sealskins," Edith directed, "so it won't freeze on
the way home."
Ole cuddled it. He was careful, however, not to let go of its neck.
"Won't father be delighted?" Edith resumed. "This is better than a
whole continent of dead ones. I wonder what it eats?"
"Shall I let go of its neck and find out?"
"Not yet. Milk, I think is probably the right diet for so tender an
infant. Have we plenty of the canned variety aboard?"
"About a hundred cases, I suppose. They will last this little devil all
of a week."
Their way home passed over a region which was new to them, some thirty
miles west of the line which they had flown first. About ten miles
beyond the blowholes they saw far beneath them a strange black lake.
"That looks interesting," Edith remarked, dipping down, "let's
investigate. We can't be much later than we are already."
Nearing the surface of the lake they saw that it was in violent motion.
Even by starlight Ole recognized the appearance of those huge bubbles
instantly.
"Oil!" he shouted.
Oil was in fact bubbling up from hundreds of gushers at the bottom
of the lake. The theory which Ole spontaneously brought forth was
probably not far from the truth. The underground tides having risen to
the rock roof above them were forcing the crude oil through a chain
of blowholes. At this point some obstruction, possibly a heavy fall
of rock from the roof, jarred loose by the violent earthquakes, had
blocked the passageway damming back the tidal oil. Consequently it now
spouted through the gas vents. The correspondingly slower motion of the
heavy oil as it was forced upward had not generated sufficient friction
to ignite the fluid. Such at any rate was Ole's theory.
As a first rough guess it may pass. Much further work, however, must
be done before all the scientific puzzles raised by Lane's historic
expedition are finally elucidated.
The practical question troubling Ole now was whether the oil would
be sucked down with the receding subterranean tide. If so Anderson
might find it difficult to form a stock company. For obviously it
would be one thing to sell shares in a thirty by fifteen mile lake of
oil and quite another to float stock on a dirty hole in the ground.
He comforted himself with the reflection that more oil stock is sold
on one smell of oil than on a thousand gushers. With a practically
unlimited supply of smell in the hole even when empty they might easily
make millionaires of themselves and the entire crew in a month.
The southern boundary of the lake gave Ole a qualm. On the south the
oil was dammed back by a mere swell in the ice not fifty feet broad on
top and less than twenty feet high. What if this slight wall should
give way before the pressure of the oil? The millions of dollars in
that beautiful lake would rush down the blowholes on the plain beyond.
To the north, on the shore nearer the ship, conditions were more
satisfactory. Here the wall of the long trough--fifteen miles broad
by thirty long--was well over a hundred yards across the top. His
calculations, of course, were only rough estimates based on their time
of flight and their first observation from above that the lake was
about twice as long as it was broad.
With a thousand fortunes in sight Ole forgot himself. A tentative nip
on his leg reminded him of his infant charge. Once more he grasped it
firmly by the neck.
The reception of the wanderers was cordial in the extreme. Edith had
expected the very deuce from her father, but she was totally unprepared
for Drake's attack. The devoted John tersely vented a longing to shake
the tar out of her.
"Try it," Edith suggested. "You might find it profitable."
"What?" the Captain shouted. "Have you found oil?"
"Oceans of it."
The Captain forgave both her and Ole on the spot.
"Father," said Edith, uncovering the devil chick which till now they
had kept concealed beneath the skins, "I have brought you a little
playmate. Am I forgiven?"
Ole at that instant loosened his stranglehold on the chick's windpipe.
A whooping squawk greeted the Doctor.
"Oh you beautiful child!" he exclaimed with wondering reverence. But
whether he was referring to Edith or her peace offering she was unable
to decide.
15
ANTICIPATIONS
"What do you expect to get out of all this, Doctor?" the Captain asked
curiously.
They were sitting in the Captain's cabin. Eight days had elapsed since
the advent of the devil chick. Tomorrow the explorers were to begin
their first serious attack on the unknown. Everything was in readiness
for a quick march to the heart of the mystery and for a safe return to
the ship.
Lane parried the Captain's question.
"I may have come for my share of the oil stock. I'm a member of the
crew, am I not?"
"You're no money grubber. Come on, tell us why you came. I've owned up
to everything. A thousand-acre orange grove in California with nothing
to do but boss it drove me into this mess. After twenty years of
whaling you might be just as ready as I am to sell your soul for a pint
of dirty oil. I've had enough of the cold and the stink. Now I want
sunshine and orange blossoms. What do you want? You have all the money
you need. Now just why did you come?"
"Perhaps I came to collect all those magnificent specimens we have
stowed away. The lively little devil chick alone is enough to make any
lover of the beautiful happy for life. Perhaps that is what I expect in
return for my money."
"I don't think so," said the Captain shrewdly.
"To change the subject for a moment," Lane rejoined after a pause,
"have you any relatives who would miss you if you died?"
"Not one. Why?"
"Because we may never see the ship again after tomorrow."
"If these two," the Captain indicated Edith and Ole, "got through
alive, why can't we? There is dynamite enough between here and the
crater to blow up an army of two-legged reptiles. We shan't be taken by
surprise."
"It isn't that. Yet if you were to ask me what I anticipate I should
have to put you off. For I don't know myself. Only I have a feeling
that we may blunder into more than we foresee. Don't you feel the same,
Drake?"
"Yes," he admitted useasily. "That's why I say Edith shouldn't go. Not
on the first attack, anyway. If everything is all right she can come
with us the second time."
"There may be no second attempt," Edith replied. "I'm coming, John. Now
don't get fussy about it."
"All this may seem rather old womanish to you, Captain," the Doctor
resumed. "Nevertheless that is how Drake and I feel. We have
collaborated during the past seven or eight evenings and have now a
fairly definite theory."
"As to feeling nervous," the Captain laughed, "I occasionally have an
attack of nerves myself when I think of all that beautiful oil being
sucked down the blowholes. It may at any time, you know. But you
haven't told us yet why you want to go on."
"Drake really knows more about what may be ahead of us than I do." He
grew strangely serious. "On the eve of what may be our last peaceful
day on earth I think it only right to tell you everything I suspect.
Drake can speak for himself later.
"This is no mere naturalist's holiday. The tons of specimens we have
gathered are priceless beyond count, no doubt, compared to the oceans
of oil which you expect to discover. Yet priceless as our collections
are, and rich as your oil fields may prove, both together are not worth
the fraction of a cent when balanced against the true purpose of this
expedition."
Anderson gaped at him, "What under the sun did you come for?"
"As I have said, I don't really know. I can only guess. If my
suspicion is right we shall save civilization from a horrible
destruction."
The Captain looked incredulous. "You're pulling my leg for what Ole and
I did to yours in San Francisco. When did you find out that we are a
gang of anointed crusaders prancing forth to make the world safe for
democracy?"
"We shall not make it safe for democracy, or for aristocracy, or for
socialism, or for any other pet creed. What we shall make the world
safe for is life itself. I am serious. This is the greatest adventure.
It was on the slaughter beach that I first definitely recognized
something fundamentally evil in all the strange things we have seen