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The Boy Scouts on the Yukon by Ralph Victor
"Ar-r-rouse ye-r-r-rouse ye, me merry, merry men," boomed the voice of Gerald Moore, with a slightly Celtic roll of the "r's," as he drummed impatiently on the shutter of the cabin window, while his companion, Jack Blake, performed a similar tattoo on the adjoining window. "Faith, and it was daylight hours ago, and ye don't know what ye're missing."
The shutter slid back, and the pleasant, if rather drowsy face of Randolph Peyton peered forth, and behind his shoulder that of Donald Graeme.
"Daylight, did ye say?" remarked the latter. "It's my opinion it's been daylight all night, for it surely wasn't dark when we retired, and we've only been in bed a few minutes."
The scene was the outside cabin deck of the well-appointed steamer "Queen" of the Alaska Steamship Company, which was plowing her way through the quiet waters of the "Inside Passage," on her way to the land of the Yukon and the Klondike.
The hour was only four in the morning, but the sun was high, and the day in those high latitudes was well begun.
"No regrets, Don, you sleepyhead," said Gerald. "You've already had seven hours' sleep, and on this trip one ought not to go to bed at all."
By this time, Jack had succeeded in arousing his brother, Pepper Blake, and the latter's bunk mate, Dick Wilson, who gazed out a little resentfully, as they threw back the sash, but whose faces quickly brightened at the scene that met their eyes.
"Yes," said Jack, "there's mighty little darkness up here at this time of year, and I suppose Don thinks it's an awful waste of good daylight turning it on while we sleep."
"Ye'll see more than this 'wasted' when ye get further north, and I suppose Don will sit up all night to save it," replied Gerald.
This reference to be cautious and prudent, not to say economical, nature of the canny Scot, raised a laugh, and the four who had been routed out of their bunks, through the energy of Jack, who, brought up in a newspaper office and atmosphere, hated to let anything unusual get away from him, hastily dressed and joined their two chums on the deck.
"I couldn't miss a yard of this scenery," said Jack, "and we've a few things in that line, along our native Hudson, to brag about, too."
The steamer was treading her way through straits and channels among hundreds of islands that fenced these almost lake-like waters from the long swells of the North Pacific. Although it was the latter part of April, early in the year for these latitudes, the influence of the warm waters of the Japanese Gulf Stream could be seen in the bright green of the islands.
On the other side of the ship, the dark green forests that clothed the mountains of British Columbia came down to the very water's edge, and swept by in one majestic panorama.
"There's certainly lots of scenery to the mile," said Rand, drawing a long breath, as he gazed in admiration.
"My grandfather said that is what makes Scotland such a great country," remarked Don, catching at Rand's half-humorous comment, "standing the land up on end."
"Let's give it the Scout's salute," suggested Pepper, with enthusiasm as the laugh over Don's serious remark died away. "There ought to be a great echo in those hills."
"Hold on," cried Jack, catching Pepper's arm as he unshipped his bugle. "I had a talk with the purser last night, and I'm afraid we'll have to 'cut out' the bugle calls on this trip. He says they have an official bugler aboard, for the call to meals and for the salute at landings, and we would interfere with him and perhaps affect the comfort of other passengers who may not be so keen on the early morning hunt for scenery as we."
The Scout discipline and what might be called the Scout ritual, to which the boys had been subjecting themselves for several years, was immediately apparent in the murmurs of approval which greeted Jack's suggestion. To those who have followed the career of the Boy Scouts of Creston on the Hudson, in the preceding volumes of this series, it is scarcely necessary to introduce the young men with whom this narrative starts.
The formation of the Patrol of Boy Scouts, at the suggestion of Colonel Snow, a retired officer of the United States army; a mysterious robbery, and a gallant rescue from the waters of the Hudson, are told in the first volume, "Boy Scouts' Patrol." The second volume leads them into adventures and difficulties incident to an excursion on motor cycles that have come to each of them as a reward for their aid in the rescue referred to which are told under the title of "Boy Scouts' Motorcycles," in the course of which Jack is captured by moonshiners on whom the boys turn the tables. "Boy Scouts' Canoe Trip," brings the chums into conflict with Sound pirates, during a canoe trip along the Long Island shore, and give Pepper and Dick, who are lost in a fog, a chance to help a foghorn operator of the United States Lighthouse Service, out of a very serious state of affairs. "Boy Scouts in the Rockies," the fourth volume, tells of the perils attending a trip into the Canadian Northwest, in search of a lost mine in which they have been given each an interest by the owner, Mr. Royce; their rescue of the latter from enemies who are also hunting the same mine; of hunting among the Indians, and of the rediscovery of the lost mine which has been named Uncas, in honor of their patrol.
The fifth volume, under the caption, "Boy Scouts' Aircraft," relates how their interest in aviation is aroused by the evolutions of a military aviator viewed during a visit to an army post; of the building by themselves of a glider with which they win a contest of these elementary aircraft, the prize being complete airship motors of the highest efficiency. With these engines they equip two aeroplanes and meet with various adventures of a thrilling nature, including an aerial kidnapping and pursuit in aeroplanes, the winning of an aeroplane meet, and the discovery and deciphering of the Narwhal's Tusk, which starts them on their way to Alaska.
The preceding February, the boys had graduated from Highcrest Academy, and some weeks before that event Colonel Snow, who had been for several years on friendly terms with the boys; had been the means of inducing them to form the Scouts' Patrol, and had looked after their promotion to be first grade Scouts, had been in consultation with their parents over a mysterious matter of which they had as yet learned nothing.
One day in March, as the boys were gathered in the club room in Mr. Scott's house, discussing plans for a Scout encampment, of the Patrols of the nearby towns, Colonel Snow entered the gate, and they crowded out on the porch to greet him.
"We were just planning to extend our Scout knowledge and experience by an actual encampment, this summer-sort of 'Spring maneuvres' you know, like the regulars and National Guard," said Rand.
"Perhaps I can offer you something of actual field experience," said Colonel Snow. "That's what I'm here for, and if you have time I've a proposition to make ... rather a cold one, however."
"I-i-ce c-c-cream soda?" inquired Pepper, flippantly, amid reproving frowns from the other Scouts.
"Why, you can't even think of that without shivering in your speech," said Jack, with scorn.
"Don't mind him, Colonel Snow, his appetite is like the poor, it's always with us," apologized Rand.
The army officer smiled indulgently upon the somewhat abashed Pepper.
"Don't lose it, Pepper," said he. "That appetite may prove one of the best of assets in this proposition of mine. How would you all like a trip to Alaska?"
The patrol came to "attention," every member on his feet and for the moment speechless.
"What! the North Pole?" gasped Rand, whose former residence in the Sunny South inclined him to look upon all high latitudes with suspicion.
"Not exactly," replied Colonel Snow, with a laugh, in which all joined as a kind of relief to their feelings. "We shall need neither sleeping bags nor furs nor pemmican. Let me explain the situation. Like all retired army officers, I am subject to call, at times by the government, for services of various kinds, and I am now intrusted with a mission in the Controller Bay region of Alaska, in connection with certain coal deposits and reservations. In our trip to the Canadian Rockies, I secured personally, as an investment, certain timber lands in British Columbia at the headwaters of the Yukon watershed, and my purpose is to cut the timber on these lands, to be eventually floated down the rivers and used in the various mines and mining camps, now being developed in both the Yukon and Alaska territories.
"On my way to my mission, this Spring, I intend to take in my sawmill plant and set it up and get ready for next winter's cutting. I shall be obliged to employ about a dozen men to establish the plant, and my experience with you Scouts in the field, in the Northwest, indicates to me that you can be as useful to me as anyone I could pick up. It will also give you a chance to see for the first time a new and growing country, by which you are bound by all the ties of government and flag. I will say at once that I have talked with your parents and your experience with me in Canada has given them sufficient confidence to furnish their consent. The decision rests with you."
The magnitude of the suggestion stunned the boys for the time, but they soon regained their self-possession, and promised an early decision. So it came about that after discussing the matter with their parents they had another talk with the Colonel when final arrangements were made. The boys, who had already banked three dividends from the Uncas mine, now a well paying property, were to outfit themselves, Colonel Snow paying all other expenses to, in and from Alaska, and allowing them fair wages while actually engaged on the sawmill work. Their outfits were selected by Colonel Snow, who had to veto many highly colored and fanciful suggestions of snowshoes, tents, sleeping bags and heavy furs.
"I have an idea," said the Colonel, "that there will be many days when you boys will be satisfied with a thin suit of khaki and even yearn for linen. Even if we should reach the Arctic Circle in winter, you will remember that our latest Arctic and Antarctic explorers have about discarded furs for thick woolens. Above all things, don't forget the mosquito nettings."
The night before the Scouts were to leave Creston they were holding a final meeting at the club-rooms, when Pepper burst forth excitedly:
"N-n-now we c-c-an s-solve it."
"What, your appetite?" asked Jack.
"N-n-no, the ivory mystery."
"What's that; your head?" put in Rand.
"N-n-no," yelped Pepper, whose face now rivaled his locks in color and whose fists were doubled up. "I mean that ivory-that narwhal's horn. We're going to Alaska and we can find that cave."
"Faith, that's so. We might get all that ivory," put in Gerald, with interest.
"I think I heard somewhere, but I'll not be sure about it," suggested the cautious Don, "that there's more than five hundred and ninety thousand square miles in Alaska, and I ha'e me doots that we find it the verra first day."
Despite these gibes, their interest was aroused and the cave, whose mouth was shaped like the ace of clubs, figured not a little in the imaginations of the boys, when, followed by the good wishes of relatives, neighbors and friends, they entrained the next morning like true soldiers in their patrol uniforms, and from the rear platform of the train, sounded the Scout salute to their native town upon their bugles.
Four days later they joined Colonel Snow, who had preceded them, in Seattle, and, after two days of sightseeing in the Washington metropolis, boarded the "Queen," and at ten o'clock at night, steamed out upon Puget's Sound, for their long trip of nearly a thousand miles on the water.
Among the cases of machinery and other freight, traveling in the vessel's hold under Colonel Snow's name, was a long box shaped like an old-fashioned piano case, which had nothing to do with Colonel Snow's enterprises. Despite the fact that it weighed more than half a ton, the boys had clubbed together to pay the rather exorbitant freight charges upon it. Superfluous as it appeared at one time to the Colonel, it was destined to play an important part in the Scouts' adventures in the land of gold and glaciers.
An hour of gazing on the scenic wonders that sped past on the right and left the morning after their departure from Seattle, aroused the boys' appetites, and they were beginning to long for the breakfast bugle call, when Colonel Snow came from his stateroom and bade them a hearty good morning. He had just redrawn their attention to the magnificent land and waterscape, with the remark that Major General Greeley, of Arctic fame, had made ten voyages to Alaska, and on each trip found some new wonder in the "Inside Passage" when there arose a chorus of yells, curses and vituperation from the deck below, and leaning over the railing, the boys saw a man with a pistol in his hand backing away from two who were striking at him with handspikes that they had grabbed from the side of the vessel.
At the same time a youth of about their own age dashed in behind the man with the pistol, and dived between his legs, tripping him up. He doubled up like a jackknife, fell back against the gangway gate, which had not been properly fastened, and shot through it into the tideway, here very swift, and disappeared. The quickly raised cry of "Man Overboard," reached the pilot house, the engine room gong boomed, the screw stopped and the "Queen" gradually lost headway.
* * *
"I think--" began a tall, slenderly-built lad of sixteen, speaking in a somewhat indolent way; then suddenly he paused to look down through the trees to where the river gleamed below. "What's on your mind now, Rand?" his companion queried, a boy of about the same age, nearly as tall, but more stoutly built, and as light in complexion as the other was dark. The two were standing at the top of the road that wound down the side of the mountain from the town of Creston, which was perched, like the nest of some great bird, in a hollow of the Palisades. "I think--" repeated the first speaker, pausing again.
Rachel used to think that her devotion would win Brian over one day, but she was proven wrong when his true love returned. Rachel had endured it all—from standing alone at the altar to dragging herself to the hospital for an emergency treatment. Everyone thought she was crazy to give up so much of herself for someone who didn’t return her feelings. But when Brian received news of Rachel’s terminal illness and realized she didn’t have long to live, he completely broke down. "I forbid you to die!" Rachel just smiled. She no longer needed him. "I will finally be free."
Linsey was stood up by her groom to run off with another woman. Furious, she grabbed a random stranger and declared, "Let's get married!" She had acted on impulse, realizing too late that her new husband was the notorious rascal, Collin. The public laughed at her, and even her runaway ex offered to reconcile. But Linsey scoffed at him. "My husband and I are very much in love!" Everyone thought she was delusional. Then Collin was revealed to be the richest man in the world. In front of everyone, he got down on one knee and held up a stunning diamond ring. "I look forward to our forever, honey."
Rumors said that Lucas married an unattractive woman with no background. In the three years they were together, he remained cold and distant to Belinda, who endured in silence. Her love for him forced her to sacrifice her self-worth and her dreams. When Lucas' true love reappeared, Belinda realized that their marriage was a sham from the start, a ploy to save another woman's life. She signed the divorce papers and left. Three years later, Belinda returned as a surgical prodigy and a maestro of the piano. Lost in regret, Lucas chased her in the rain and held her tightly. "You are mine, Belinda."
The dream of everyone with regards to marriage is to be able to find that special someone and settle down with them. Even arranged marriages grant you an opportunity to meet your partner briefly before the wedding. How will you feel about waking up in the morning with someone sleeping next to you who is not just anyone but your legally married partner yet with no memory of how that had happened in just a few hours of going out the previous day? This is the story of Jason Haward and Julia Harrison, two strangers trapped in a marriage they never planned. The quest to find out why led to the unfolding of a mystery which made them realize they are both living a lie. To find out more, read this amazing story of love, betrayal, revenge and murder.
COALESCENCE OF THE FIVE SERIES BOOK ONE: THE 5-TIME REJECTED GAMMA & THE LYCAN KING BOOK TWO: THE ROGUES WHO WENT ROGUE BOOK THREE: THE INDOMITABLE HUNTRESS & THE HARDENED DUKE *** BOOK ONE: After being rejected by 5 mates, Gamma Lucianne pleaded with the Moon Goddess to spare her from any further mate-bonds. To her dismay, she is being bonded for the sixth time. What’s worse is that her sixth-chance mate is the most powerful creature ruling over all werewolves and Lycans - the Lycan King himself. She is certain, dead certain, that a rejection would come sooner or later, though she hopes for it to be sooner. King Alexandar was ecstatic to meet his bonded mate, and couldn’t thank their Goddess enough for gifting him someone so perfect. However, he soon realizes that this gift is reluctant to accept him, and more than willing to sever their bond. He tries to connect with her but she seems so far away. He is desperate to get intimate with her but she seems reluctant to open up to him. He tries to tell her that he is willing to commit to her for the rest of his life but she doesn’t seem to believe him. He is pleading for a chance: a chance to get to know her; a chance to show her that he’s different; and a chance to love her. But when not-so-subtle crushes, jealous suitors, self-entitled Queen-wannabes, an old flame, a silent protector and a past wedding engagement threaten to jeopardize their relationship, will Lucianne and Xandar still choose to be together? Is their love strong enough to overcome everything and everyone? Or will Lucianne resort to enduring a sixth rejection from the one person she thought she could entrust her heart with?
Due to the plight of her family, Phoebe had no choice but to embark on the path of selling herself. In an accident, she had a tangled night with Alexander. Everything began to derail, and even if she fled to the ends of the earth, she would still be found by him and entangled... *** Phoebe screamed in frustration, "What do you want from me?" What was this supposed to be? He raised an eyebrow wickedly. "What do I want? You'll find out soon enough." With that, he hoisted her up and carried her back into the office. The door slammed shut with a kick, and he cleared the desk with a sweep of his arm before laying her down on it, his body pinning hers in place, completely trapping her in his grasp. Every cell in his body was telling him he wanted her. He wanted to claim her again. This time, there would be no escape for her-he wouldn't let her slip away. Never again. If he had suffered for five years, then this woman wouldn't get off easily either!