A Ticket to Adventure Read online

  Produced by Stephen Hutcheson, Rod Crawford, Dave Morganand the Online Distributed Proofreading Team athttps://www.pgdp.net

  _A Mystery Story for Girls_

  A TICKET TO ADVENTURE

  _By_ ROY J. SNELL

  The Reilly & Lee Co. Chicago

  COPYRIGHT 1937 BY THE REILLY & LEE CO. PRINTED IN THE U. S. A.

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER PAGE I The Little Man in Black 11 II The Indian Girl's Warning 19 III Seven Golden Candlesticks 37 IV The Great Stump 59 V Happy Landing 68 VI A Wanderer Returns 76 VII And Then Came Adventure 87 VIII A Secret Is Told 101 IX Help from the Sky 112 X In Search of a Grandfather 121 XI The Fresh-Dough Club 131 XII Her Great Discovery 139 XIII A Bright New Dream 149 XIV "They Are Off" 157 XV The Phantom Leader 165 XVI The Golden Quest 178 XVII The Black Seal's Tooth 194 XVIII To Be or Not to Be 206 XIX Coasting Up Hill 216 XX Black Waters and Gray Dogs 227 XXI The Secret of the Great Stump 237

  A TICKET TO ADVENTURE

  CHAPTER I THE LITTLE MAN IN BLACK

  Mary Hughes had walked the entire length of the long dock at Anchorage,Alaska. Now, having rounded a great pile of merchandise, tents, tractors,groceries, hammers, axes, and boxes of chocolate bars she came quitesuddenly upon the oddest little man she had ever seen. Even for a girl inher late teens, Mary was short and slender. This man was no larger thanshe.

  "A Japanese," she thought as her surprised eyes took in his tight-fittingblack suit, his stiff collar and bright tie. "But no, a Jap wouldn't looklike that." She was puzzled and curious. At that particular moment, shehad nothing to do but indulge her curiosity.

  Together with hundreds of other "home-seekers"--she smiled as she thoughtof herself as a home-seeker--she had been dumped into the bleak Arcticmorning. Some of the goods that were being hoisted by a long steel cranefrom the depths of a ship, belonged to Mary, to Mark her brother, and toFlorence Huyler her cousin. There was, for the time, nothing they coulddo about that. So--

  "I am Mister Il-ay-ok."

  To her surprise, she heard the little man addressing her.

  "Oh," she breathed. She was thinking, "Now perhaps I am to know aboutthis little man." She was, but not too much--at least not for some time.

  "Oh! So you are Mr. Il-ay-ok," she encouraged. "Is this your home?"

  "Oh no, no indeed!" He spoke as if he were reading from a book. "My homeis quite distant. North," he pointed away.

  "Then you--"

  Mary did not finish. At that instant a loud, harsh-sounding voice brokein upon them. "Mister Il-ay-ok! MISTER! Har! Har! Har! That's good!" Theman who had made his appearance, as if by magic, from the great pile ofmerchandise, where he had, the girl thought with an inward shudder, beenhiding, burst into a roar of hoarse laughter. To say that Mary wassurprised and startled would not express it at all.

  She looked at him in silent alarm. He too was strange. He was a white manwith a back so straight you might have run a yard stick up it and made ittouch at every point. He had a horse-like nose, very long and straight.There was something about his whole bearing that made Mary want to slaphim. She would, too, had she felt that the occasion warranted it. She waslittle, was Mary, but her snapping black eyes could shoot fire. Thoseslender brown legs of hers, hidden for the moment by brown slacks, andher steel-spring-like arms were made for action.

  Mary could, at times, be quite still as well. A cat is like that. Justnow she stood quite still and waited.

  "So you are Mister Il-ay-ok, now, eh, Tony?" The stranger stoppedlaughing to pucker his brow into a scowl that did not improve hisappearance.

  "Shouldn't want to meet him in the dark!" the girl thought with anothershudder.

  "Want to know what he is, Miss?" the white man turned to Mary. "He's anEskimo."

  "Oh, an--" Mary was surprised and pleased. She was not allowed to go on.

  "Yup, Miss, an Es-ki-mo." The man filled his voice with suggestions ofloathing and utmost contempt. "Just an oil-guzzling, blubber-eating,greasy Eskimo that lives in a hole in the ground. That's what he is tome. But to you he's Mister Il-ay-ok. Bah!" The man turned and walkedaway.

  For a full moment nothing further was said. At last, in a steady,school-book voice the little man in black said, "Do you know what mypeople did to the first white man who visit our village?"

  "No. What?" Mary stared.

  "Shot him," the little man's voice dropped. "Shot him with a whale gun.Very big gun. Shoot big shell. Like this!" He held up a clenched fist."Very bad man like this one. He talked too big," the little man scowled.

  "And would you like to shoot that one?" Mary asked, nodding toward theretreating figure.

  "Not now. Mebby byum bye. You see," the little man smiled, "I go to visityour country. I am--"

  At that moment Florence Huyler, Mary's big cousin came booming along frombehind the pile of goods, to cry: "Ah! There you are! I've been lookingeverywhere for you."

  "Florence," Mary stopped her, "this is Mr. Il-ay-ok. He's from Alaska,and he wants to kill a white man, but not just now." She laughed in spiteof herself.

  "But this is Alaska." Florence, who was big and strong as a man, lookedat the little man and smiled as she asked, "Is this your home?"

  "No--no," the little man bowed. "Much more north my home. Cape Nomesometimes and sometimes Cape Prince Wales."

  "Oh you've been in Nome?" Florence's eyes shone. "My grandfather wentthere years and years ago. He never came back."

  "Name please?" the little man asked.

  "Tom Kennedy."

  "Ah yes," the little man beamed. "I know him. Big man. Very good man."

  "What?" the big girl's eyes fairly bulged. "You, you know my grandfather?No! No! He is dead. He must have died years ago."

  "Not dead please. Tom Kennedy not dead," the little man appeared puzzled."No not dead. Let me tell you." He took a step toward them. "Very bigman. Very straight. Always smile. Let me show you." To their vastsurprise the girls saw the little man produce from an inside pocket asmall, ivory paper knife. On its blade had been carved the likeness of aman's face. It may not have been a very accurate picture, there was,however, one touch that could not be wrong, a scar above the left eye."Tom Kennedy my friend," the native said simply.

  "Tom Kennedy, my long-lost grandfather!" Florence stared in unbelief. "Heis dead. And yet, he--he must be alive!" She closed her eyes as she triedto think clearly. Often and often as a small child she had heard hermother describe this man, her grandfather. Often too she had seen hispicture. Always there had been that scar
over the left eye.

  "Mary!" she exclaimed, her voice rising high. "My grandfather is alive,somewhere away up there!" she faced north. "I'm going."

  "Oh, but you couldn't leave us!" Mary's tone vibrated with consternation."You couldn't leave us, not just now!"

  "That--that's right. I couldn't--not just now." The big girl's handsdropped limply to her side.

  From the distance came the long drawn hoarse hoot of a steamboat whistle.

  "Excuse please," the little man who called himself Mr. Il-ay-ok bowedlow. "My boat please. I go to visit America. Perhaps please, we meetagain."

  With the swift, sure movement of one who has followed a dog team overlong, long miles or has hunted on the treacherous ice-floes, he was gone.

  "No," Florence repeated slowly as if to herself, "I can't leave you now."

  For one full moment she stood staring at the spot from which the littleman had vanished. Here indeed was a strange situation. All her life shehad believed her grandfather dead. From her mother's lips she had heardvague stories of how he had gone into the north and never returned. Nowhere was a little Eskimo saying, "Tom Kennedy my friend. Yes, I know him.He is alive."

  "And he proved it too," the girl whispered to herself.

  Then, of a sudden, her thoughts came back to the present and to herimmediate surroundings.

  "What a jumble!" she said, looking at the heap of goods that, as momentspassed, grew higher and higher. "How will they ever get them sorted out?"

  Turning to her cousin, bright-eyed, eager Mary, she said: "'A ticket toadventure,' that's what the man back there in San Francisco called it, 'aticket to adventure.' Will it truly be an adventure? I wonder."

  "I hope so!" Mary's eyes shone.

  Turning, the two girls walked away toward a distant spot on the long dockwhere a boy, who had barely grown into a young man, was struggling at thetask of setting up a small umbrella tent.

  "See!" the big girl cried, "there's Mark. He's setting up our first homein a wilderness."