14 Arctic Adventure (19 page)

‘O.K.,’ said the policeman. ‘Here we go.’

Roger joined them and they went down the road to the farmhouse. The policeman carried a search warrant. They rapped, and Spike came to the door. He was highly displeased to see the policeman. ‘What’s up?’ he said.

‘May we come in and look around?’ said the cop.

‘You may not. You have no authority to do anything like that.’

‘Here’s the authority,’ said the policeman, and he handed Spike the search warrant.

Reluctantly Spike let them in. They searched the house quite thoroughly and found nothing.

Then there was that sound again. ‘What was that?’ said the policeman.

‘Just one of the doors. It creaks,’ said Spike.

‘Perhaps it’s this door,’ said the policeman, and he opened the door of a closet. And there they were, the two cubs.

‘You’ll get a heavy fine for this,’ said the policeman. ‘Why in the world did you steal these cubs?’

‘Well,’ said Spike, ‘I was just going to fatten them up and then kill and eat them. A man must live, you know. Besides, the bear killed twenty of my cattle.’

The policeman said, ‘You’ll live long enough to pay handsomely for what you’ve done. Pick ‘em up, boys.’

Hal took up one squirming little fellow in his arms, and Roger took the other. They climbed the hill and found the bear occupied in tearing down their tent. The great bear growled when he saw them coming. He was ready now to add them to his list of victims.

But when he saw the cubs his manner changed. They were set down gently in front of him. He licked both of them from stem to stern. He looked up at the boys and his eyes said, ‘Thank you.’ Most male bears pay no attention to their cubs. They leave that to the mother. But here there was no mother. And the great Kodiak was not only larger and stronger than others, but also more intelligent. When he lost his mate, he poured out his love on these little brats.

There was one telephone in town and that was in the postmaster’s shack.

Hal telephoned to Captain Harkness. ‘We’ve got the big bear,’ he said. ‘He’s torn things up pretty badly, but he has his cubs now. You wouldn’t believe what a difference that has made. The happiest and sweetest old bear you ever saw.’

‘How are you going to transport him?’ the captain asked. ‘Can we help? There’s no war on at the moment and we have a lot of planes standing idle. You can use one if you wish.’

‘That’s just fine,’ said Hal. ‘The only thing is, how do we get the bear and his cubs down to you?’

‘No need to do that. We’ll send a transport plane up there. Is there any sort of a runway?’

‘Not a real runway, but there’s a long straight stretch that might serve.’

‘I’ll have a transport up there in half an hour.’

They did better than that. In twenty minutes a transport plane settled down on top of Mount Sharatin. The Navy had all sorts of planes, and the ‘transport plane’ was a boxlike affair quite strong enough to carry a 2,000-pound bear and his cubs, plus two boys whose work was done. The pilot was a brisk young fellow who had never seen New York and was delighted to have this chance.

‘But how are you going to get the three bears into the plane?’ he wanted to know.

‘Very simple,’ said Hal.

He picked up the two cubs and put them aboard. The big bear promptly followed them. The sliding door at the rear was let down.

‘Got room for us too?’ asked Hal.

‘Sure. Right up in front with me,’ said the pilot.

The great box, ten feet wide and as high as a room, trundled bumpily over the ground to the edge of a cliff and then launched out into space. At first it fell dizzily. But soon it was under control and came down at the airport to pick up Nanook. This done, it rose into the sky, passed over the harbour and above the reef called Albatross Bank, where dozens of the great birds were fishing for salmon. Then in an almost direct line it flew over Juneau, Edmonton, Winnipeg and Toronto, over the skyscrapers of New York to come down at last on the Hunt Wild Animal Farm.

John Hunt looked with amazement at the great Kodiak bear.

‘I always knew’, he said, ‘that the Kodiak was huge. But he’s bigger than I ever imagined. A number of zoos have asked for him. I’m not going to give him to the zoo that offers the most money, but to the zoo that can care for him best and bring up those cubs to be as great as he is.’

He looked at his sons with great pride.

‘You fellows deserve the best. These three bears will bring at least fifty thousand dollars. You’ve both told me you want to be naturalists. All right — that money will go into a trust for you so you can get the education you need to be wildlife scientists. You already know the outside of your animals. The time will come when you will know them inside out.’