14 Arctic Adventure (14 page)

The big ones were 50 feet long. Hal had read that the heart alone of such a monster weighs 430 pounds. The young ones, who were singing high soprano, were about 12 feet long. Even they weighed about 3,000 pounds. Hal, picking out one of them that looked good to him, used his sleep gun. The dart penetrated the young one’s skin. The sleep medicine circulated through its body. It had not been hurt in the least but it quit singing and drifted lazily to the surface. A hawser was cast from the deck of the vessel and Hal looped it around the neck of the whale.

So far, so good. Now they must get a beluga. Roger straddled the back of one of the white beauties and Hal gave it a shot of sleep. The men on the Coast Guard boat laughed when they saw Roger and the whale pop up out of the water.

Roger caught the rope thrown to him and put the noose over this sleeping beauty.

The boys climbed aboard and the two sleeping whales were towed around the Point to the airport, where airfield employees loaded them into tanks for the flight south. The cargo plane left at once in order to get to Long Island before their big passengers woke up.

The boys returned to their lodging house. The landlord laughed.

‘So, you had to give up,’ he said. ‘I knew you couldn’t do it. The women moved and talked and you didn’t wear any whale charm, so, of course, you failed.’

Hal smiled. ‘I hope we fail as badly every time,’ he said.

They were climbing a mountain of the Brooks Range. It was difficult because the ground was covered with slippery snow.

Behind them was a sledge, pulled not by a dog team but by a boy team. The two boys did not mind much since it was light and there was nothing much on it but a folded-up tent and some provisions.

But an icy wind was blowing. The higher they went, the colder they got.

Roger stopped and beat his mittened hands together to get them warm. ‘It’s as cold as Greenland,’ he complained.

‘We feel it more than we did there because we are climbing,’ Hal said.

Every time they inhaled the cold air they shivered. It was hard to breathe. The deadly chill started at the feet and went up through the body, numbing the stomach, the kidneys, the heart, turning the nose and chin white with frostbite.

‘What did we come here for anyhow?’ Roger demanded.

‘To get a sheep,’ said Hal.

Roger stared at his brother. ‘You mean we’re going through all this just to get a sheep?’

Hot the kind of sheep you’re thinking about,’ said Hal. ‘We’re not after the sort of sheep the farmer has in his pasture.’

‘Is there any other kind?’

‘There sure is. I’m hoping to find a bighorn. It’s twice as big as a farmer’s sheep. It’s strong and wild and dangerous.’

‘Why do they call it a bighorn?’

‘Its horns are the heaviest part of it. They are thick and solid and they go around in a complete circle. One bunt of that great horny head and you are done for.’

Roger’s sharp eyes saw something moving. ‘It’s a man —a man with a gun.’

Hal said, ‘Wherever there’s a man with a gun there is trouble.’

‘He’s coming this way,’ said Roger.

The man who joined them was a heavily built brute, with a mean face and a mean gun.

When he joined them he said, ‘Hello you guys. I’ll bet we’re after the same thing. A bighorn. Sorry to disappoint you, but if we see one, I’ll be the one to get it. You see, I’m a sharpshooter.’

‘Where are you from?’ Hal asked.

‘Wyoming. I’m a bit famous down there. Perhaps you’ve heard of me. My name is Alec.’

Hal at once thought of the term ‘Smart Alec’, which according to the dictionary was applied to anyone who was a braggart and felt himself very clever.

‘Sorry to meet you,’ said Hal with a smile. ‘I’m afraid we’d better give up right now.’

‘Well,’ said Smart Alec, ‘you can tag along if you like and see how I operate. It will be a good lesson for you —to see how an expert does these things.’

‘I’m sure we will learn a lot,’ said Hal. ‘Just why do you want to kill a bighorn?’

‘To put the head and horns up on the wall in my house. I already have the living-room wall covered with antlers, but I think there’s perhaps room for one more.’

‘So you’ve done a lot of killing,’ said Hal.

‘Killing is my middle name. I’m afraid of nothing that walks. Why should I be afraid of a dall sheep? That’s another name, you know, for a bighorn.’

‘You may find’, said Hal gently, ‘that the dall is no doll.’

‘Never mind. I don’t care what it is. The worse it is, the better I’ll like it. I always get away pretty well with a tough job. After all, the Bible says man is superior to any beast.’

‘When did you last read your Bible?’

‘I don’t read it. Somebody told me. And he was right. No animal on earth is as good as me.’

Hal said, ‘How about the ones that have sharper eyesight than any man, sharper hearing, better sense of smell, don’t go to war and kill millions of their own kind? They don’t smoke themselves into cancer and they don’t get drunk. They don’t neglect their young ones as some human parents do and don’t go around shooting men in order to put their heads up on the wall.’

‘I can see that you’re a couple of mollycoddles,’ said Alec. ‘I’ll go along with you to protect you from the sheep. You’d never make it alone.’

Hal noticed that the stranger had given his own name, but didn’t bother to learn the names of the two he had met. He was thinking only of himself.

They proceeded up the mountain. Since Alaska is farther south than the polar part of Greenland, the sun was much higher than it had been in the far north, and stronger. Its reflection on the snow was painful and the three began to feel as if they had sand in their eyes, or hot knives. They were in danger of going snow blind. Roger began to wish that they were animals who didn’t mind the glare.

Hal had known beforehand that their eyes would suffer.

He drew out of his pocket a piece of walrus hide and some string.

‘Wait a moment,’ he said. ‘We’ll have to make three pairs of goggles.’ He cut out three strips two inches wide and about seven inches long. He put one of the strips over Roger’s eyes.

‘What’s that for?’ asked Roger. ‘Now I can’t see a thing.’

‘I just wanted to find out if it was a good fit,’ said Hal. ‘Now I’ll finish the job.’

He took the strip and cut two slits in it, one for each eye. Then he put the strip back over Roger’s eyes and tied it fast around his head with the string.

Now Roger could see through the slits and the glare was gone.

‘Now I’ll make one for you,’ Hal said to Smart Alec.

But Alec would have none of that. ‘What do you think I am, a child? Don’t try to baby me or I’ll punch you on the nose.’

‘O.K.,’ said Hal, ‘but I’ll baby myself.’ And he made a pair of walrus goggles and put them on. He could, see through the slits, but there was no longer any sun-pain. ‘You’d better let me make one for you,’ he said to Alec.

But Smart Alec was indignant. ‘That’s all right for kids,’ he said. ‘I mean, if you have weak eyes. Mine are strong. I’m no weakling.’

He trudged on, with his eyes almost closed. Now and then he stumbled. He was evidently suffering intense pain. Hal felt sorry for the boob. He knew that the eyes of Smartypants must feel as if they were full of needles. Alec could hardly see where he was going. Hal took his arm, but Smart Alec shook him off. He was a fool, and a fool is too proud to accept help.

They came upon a small herd of caribou. Most of them passed by, but one big bull stopped and pawed the ground angrily. He had magnificent horns reaching above his head four feet high. Hal had seen plenty of caribou, but none like this king of the snows.

Smart Alec could also see the towering horns. ‘I’ve got to have those antlers,’ he said and prepared to shoot.

Before he could do so, the bull lowered his horns, drove them into Alec’s stomach, and lifted him twelve feet high. Now Smart Alec did not sound very smart’. He howled with pain. No wonder, with those sharp prongs slicing through his hide.

Hal wanted to do something to help, but before he could think what to do, the bull started off with the herd. Every time he put his foot down with a jolt, the Smartie yelled blue murder as the sharp points dug further into his anatomy.

The climax came when the bull stopped at the edge of a cliff and dropped him twenty feet into a snowbank, screaming as he fell.

Hal went and helped him up. Alec was crying. ‘I’m full of holes,’ he said. ‘Got to have some antiseptic. Those antlers have poisoned me. I’ll get gangrene and die.’

‘No you won’t,’ said Hal. ‘Those antlers are as clean as a surgeon’s knife. They’re always up in the clean air —never get dirty —except that now they have some of your dirty blood.’

‘How come you know so much about animals?’ said Alec.

‘It’s my business,’ Hal said. ‘Now pull up your coat and your shirt and let’s see what’s happening.’

The skin was punctured here and there and blood was oozing out. But as soon as it reached the surface it froze solid and stopped the bleeding. So the frigid climate did what a doctor could not do.

Smart Alec did not feel very peppy. ‘I want to go home.’

‘Perk up,’ said Hal. ‘You’re not badly hurt. Don’t forget—we’re after a bighorn.’

They came upon one an hour later. It stood proudly on a big rock. It was a magnificent fellow with great heavy horns that curled around and came back to where they had started. Smart Alec raised his gun. Smarter Hal had just brushed away the snow and picked up a small pebble. He threw it at the bighorn and when it struck the animal moved a few feet and the bullet missed.

All Alec had done was just annoy the animal and it now stood up on its hind feet and came toward him. It was taller than he was, and a great deal stronger.

Hal brought out his sleep gun. ‘I thought you didn’t believe in guns,’ said Alec.

‘I believe in this one,’ said Hal, and he fired.

The dart pierced the skin of the big sheep. He came down on all four feet and began scratching at the dart. He got it loose but the medicine had already gone into his body and was at work. Since he could wander away before the sleep medicine took effect, Hal lassoed him and held fast.

Roger drew the sledge up beside the animal. When the dall began to teeter Hal pushed it over and tied it fast on the sledge.

‘Well, you won that round,’ said Alec. ‘By the way, what’s your name?’

Hal told him.

Alec looked at him with more interest than he had shown before. ‘I saw something in the papers about you. You take animals for zoos.’

‘That’s right,’ said Hal. ‘What’s your business in Wyoming?’

‘I have a ranch. Wyoming has some wild life too. And a fair number of zoos. I’ve a notion to imitate you —but on a small scale. Perhaps we can pick up some animals alive for our zoos.’

‘That’s the best thing you’ve said yet,’ said Hal. ‘Good luck to you.’

They parted on good terms. The Hunts with their trophy went down to the mountain’s base, where a truck waited to take them to Point Barrow.

‘Send me the biggest moose you can find,’ John Hunt telegraphed to his sons.

Hal knew where to find the largest moose in the whole world. ‘This means a trip to the Kenai Peninsula,’ he said.

‘I know where that is,’ said Roger. ‘But it’s too far away. We’re on the north edge of Alaska. Kenai is on the south edge. Aren’t there moose right around here somewhere?’

‘There are moose in many parts of Alaska, but the really great ones are the Kenai moose. That’s where we’ll have to go to find the big boys.’

Early the next morning they were on the plane that would carry them south from the Arctic Ocean to an even greater ocean, the Pacific. They knew the pilot and co-pilot because they had so often visited the Point Barrow airport to arrange for shipment of their animals to Long Island.

‘Hope you enjoy the trip,’ said the pilot, Ben Bolt. ‘If you want to come up in the cockpit now and then it will be quite all right. You can get a better view there of what’s ahead.’

What was ahead was quite thrilling. First the plane had to soar ten thousand feet high to clear the mountains of the Brooks Range. Then down, only to rise again to get over the Endicott Mountains.

Over dozens of lakes, then up again to cross the Ray Mountains.

Now below them was the great Yukon River. They were no sooner over that than they must climb again over the Mooseheart Mountains.

Then came the most thrilling experience. They passed over Mount McKinley National Park. They flew close to Mount McKinley, highest mountain in North America, but did not attempt to fly over it. They did fly above the other mountains of the Park, Mount Brooks, Mount Hunter and Mount Foraker.

Then over lakes, lakes, lakes—what a wet country Alaska was! Over a great glacier, over Cook Inlet, then down to the airport in the small town of Kenai.

Hal and Roger were in the cockpit when a big moose appeared in the middle of the runway. The moose is a proud animal, and very stubborn. He does not make way for anybody. Everybody must make way for him. He rules the animal kingdom in the north, just as the elephant in Africa is all-powerful. There, if you see an elephant in the road, you must stop and wait — perhaps for hours — because elephants ‘have the right of way’. In Alaska ‘moose have the right of way’.

The moose continued to stand there as solid as a rock while the plane rushed toward him. The pilot did his best to bring the plane to a halt. It was no use. Plane and moose met with a sickening crunch. The whirling propeller tried to turn the moose into a hamburger. The plane came to a sudden stop throwing everyone forward. The moose must have been badly hurt, but no sound came from him because a moose does not cry as lesser animals may do.

Airport hands helped to disentangle propeller and moose, then turned the plane about and let it move slowly to another runway. In the meantime the moose remained exactly where he had been just as if he were not a living animal, but a granite statue.

‘Now you get an idea’, said Ben, ‘of what a job you are going to have if you try to capture a moose.’