Читать книгу Don Sturdy Across the North Pole or Cast Away in the Land of Ice - J. W. Duffield - Страница 4

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Don did not flinch, though the odds were heavily against him. His fighting blood was up.

He was sincerely sorry for the mishap due to his carelessness, and had been anxious to do all in his power to make amends. If the fellows had any sense of decency, they would have accepted his apology and let it go at that. But in their anger, their native coarseness came to the surface, and confident in the fact that they were two against one, they counted on getting even in the only way they knew.

“We’ll teach him to run over us that way, eh, Jake?” growled the man, as, with a scowl, he advanced on Don.

“You bet we will!” answered the boy. “We’ll knock his head off.”

“You’re not going to knock anybody’s head off,” retorted Don defiantly, his eyes flashing. “I’m not looking for a fight, but you won’t see me run. You’re two to one and you may lick me, but you’ll know you’ve been in a fight.”

He shifted his position a bit so that they could not get behind him, and, his eyes bent on his adversaries, awaited their onslaught.

And while, with his head and courage high, he faces his foes, it may be well for the benefit of those who have not read the preceding volumes of this series to tell who Don Sturdy was and what had been his adventures up to the time this story opens.

Don had been born and brought up in the town of Hillville, a thriving place of about 10,000 population, in an Eastern State and about fifty miles from New York City. He was now about fifteen years old, tall and muscular, with brown hair and eyes. Courage was a characteristic of his family, and Don had his full share of it. He never looked for trouble, but never dodged it when it came.

His father, Richard Sturdy, was a noted explorer who had traveled over all quarters of the globe. More than a year before we here make Don’s acquaintance, Mr. Sturdy with his wife, Alice, and his daughter, Ruth, younger than Don by two years, had gone on an exploring expedition on the ship Mercury. Months passed and no news came from the travelers, and it began to be feared that the Mercury had gone down somewhere off Cape Horn.

Don, apparently bereft of parents and sister at one blow, was frantic with anxiety and grief. He had been left at home under the guardianship of his Uncle, Captain Frank Sturdy, a noted hunter of big game in all parts of the world. Another uncle, his mother’s brother, Professor Amos Regor Bruce, a famous scientist, helped to look after him and supervise his education.

Partly to get Don’s mind off his troubles, his uncles, both of whom were bachelors, took him with them on an expedition to the Sahara Desert. There Don came across an American boy, Teddy Allison, of about the same age as himself, whom he rescued from an attack by Arabs. They became firm friends, and the plight of Teddy, whose father had been carried off into slavery by Sahara bandits, enlisted the sympathy of Don’s uncles, who organized a party to go to his relief. In autos, especially made for the conquest of the desert, they set forth, not only to attempt Mr. Allison’s deliverance, but also to find the City of Brass and the Cave of Emeralds, reputed to be somewhere in the remote recesses of the Sahara. The thrilling adventures they met with while on their triple quest are told of in the first volume of this series, entitled: “Don Sturdy in the Sahara Desert; or, Autoing in the Land of the Caravans.”

From Mr. Allison, they learned that the Mercury had indeed been wrecked, but that some of her passengers had been rescued and taken on a sailing vessel to Brazil. This information revived hope that Don’s parents and sister might have been among the saved, and, shortly after their return to America, Don and his uncles started for Brazil. Captain Sturdy had a contract for the capture of big snakes, and Professor Bruce had been commissioned to secure some of the rare drugs of that country. How they followed up the slender clues they had; the exciting fights they had with alligators and monster snakes and jaguars; how the professor found a drug that cured Fred Turner, at that time an almost hopeless cripple; the outcome of their search in Brazil for Don’s family are narrated in the second volume of this series, entitled: “Don Sturdy with the Big Snake Hunters; or, Lost in the Jungles of the Amazon.”

Shortly after Don and his uncles’ return home, they received further news of Don’s parents, who, they learned, were in Egypt. They immediately set out for the land of the Nile. There was a joyous reunion of Don and his mother, and an investigation as to Mr. Sturdy’s whereabouts was immediately started. He was supposed to have started for the Valley of the Kings to find the Tombs of Gold, the location of which he had learned from an ancient inscription. The party was reinforced by an old Egyptian, Zeta Phalos, to whom Don and Teddy had once been of immense service.

What wonderful adventures they met with in their hunt; their encounters with outlaws; the danger they incurred of thirst and starvation; their startling adventures with a hideous apparition in the subterranean catacombs; how they discovered a marvelously rich treasure; and the result of the search for Don’s father may be read in the third volume of this series: “Don Sturdy in the Tombs of Gold; or, the Old Egyptian’s Great Secret.”

And now to return to Don, as, standing at bay with his back against the wall of the gully, he faced the two rough characters who were advancing to attack him.

The rascals had evidently expected Don to run or to beg for mercy, and the fact that he did neither and evidently had not the slightest intention of doing either, somewhat disconcerted them.

They paused and looked uncertainly at each other.

“Aw, go ahead, Jake, and soak him one,” urged the evil-faced man.

Jake hesitated. He did not like the looks of his opponent.

“Perhaps he’s got his gang near by,” Jake suggested, this being the only explanation he could think of for Don’s coolness.

As though to justify his suspicion, the sound of voices and footsteps rapidly approaching were heard.

The man took a step or two up the side of the gully and peered over its edge.

“Right you are, Jake,” he reported, as he stepped back. “There’s a bunch of hicks coming. I guess we’d better be making ourselves scarce.”

“It’s mighty lucky for you,” growled Jake, bristling again with pretended courage, now that he saw he would have no occasion to use it. “If they hadn’t come, I’d have knocked your block off.”

“You’ve got time to do it yet, if you think you can,” replied Don. “I guess you’re glad you didn’t have to make your bluff good.”

With muttered threats and scowls, the two strangers slouched away. Don relaxed as he watched them go. He was relieved and, at the same time, amused.

“A couple of blowhards,” he murmured to himself, as he climbed up the bank and exchanged salutations with several people of the vicinity, whom he knew well and who passed on without any suspicion of the part they had played in averting the struggle that had threatened.

Don picked up Teddy on his way back, and they said good-bye to Fred, promising to see him again the next day. Then the two boys made their way to the Sturdy mansion, a substantial stone structure with ample grounds around it, where Teddy was spending a few days as a guest.

On the way, Don recounted to Brick the tense scene of a few moments before.

“The bums!” exclaimed Brick indignantly. “Two against one, and over a little thing like that! It shows what hardboiled toughs they are. At that, I believed you’d have licked them.”

“Not likely,” returned Don. “Two to one is big odds. The fellow called Jake would have been a pudding. But the other one was a rough customer, and ten to one he had a blackjack in his pocket.”

The two boys passed into the gate of the Sturdy place and were passing the kitchen door when they heard the shrill voice of Jennie Jenks, the maid of all work, in animated conversation with Mrs. Roscoe, the buxom, good-natured housekeeper.

“Jennie’s off again,” whispered Don with a grin, as he put his hand on his friend’s arm.

“She’s better than a circus,” responded Teddy. “Wonder what’s eating her now. Let’s find out.”

“An’ what I say is, it’s sumthin’ scand’lous the way the cap’n keeps flyin’ in the face of Providence,” Jennie announced, her eloquence somewhat impeded by the big wad of gum she was chewing vigorously. “He ain’t never satisfied to stay at home. Home ain’t nothin’ to him ’cept a place to hang his hat. It wasn’t enough for him to go out to that there Sarah Desert an’ fight with banquets in the Hog Platter. It wasn’t enough to go into those Berzilyun jumboe an’ take chances of bein’ et up by golcondas an’ cannonballs. It wasn’t enough to go to the land of the pigamids an’ the spinach an’ get into them Egypt tombs with skellingtons that didn’t have no heads on ’em. Now he has to git up an’ fly to the North Pole.”

She paused for breath and shifted her gum.

“The North Pole!” she reiterated. “As if he couldn’t see all the poles he wanted right in the back yards. Goodness knows, I see too much of ’em when I’m hangin’ out the clothes.”

“But this is a different kind of a pole,” said Mrs. Roscoe, with a twinkle in her eye.

“Mebbe a little bigger,” conceded Jennie. “But, after all, one pole is jest about like another when it comes to that, I don’t care what any one says.

“I seen a feller climb a greased pole at a county fair once, where I went with Dan Bixby,” she went on, with the inconsequence which was one of her chief conversational features. “That is, he tried ter climb it, but he couldn’t make it an’ came down with a rush. An’ Dan he sez to me, sez he: ‘Tryin’ to climb that pole hez made a differunt man of him,’ an’ I sez: ‘I don’t see no differunce ’cept he’s got more grease on his pants,’ an’ Dan sez: ‘Oh, yes, there is,’ he sez, ‘he went up a Pole an’ he came down a Russian,’ an’ I sez: ‘why shouldn’t he come down a rushin’? I guess you would if you tried to climb it,’ an’ Dan jest looked at me an’ laffed fit to bust.”

“I don’t wonder he laughed,” said the housekeeper, with a sarcasm which went clean over the head of its unconscious object. “But suppose you get busy now and set the table. Dinner’s almost ready.”

The boys moved on, their faces crimson, and it was only when they got beyond earshot that they gave full vent to their laughter.

“Isn’t she a scream?” exclaimed Brick, as he wiped the tears from his eyes.

“The only one of her kind, and we’ve got her,” chuckled Don. “She’s too good for housework. She ought to be on the vaudeville stage. She’d have them falling out of their seats.”

It was a thoroughly happy party that gathered around the table that evening. Don’s heart swelled as he looked around and contrasted it with the times when only he and his uncles formed the company, each with a subcurrent of pain at the thought of the three empty places that might never again be filled.

Now they were filled. Don’s father sat at the head of the table, handsome, genial, his splendid mind fully restored. At the foot sat Mrs. Sturdy, sweet and smiling, the load of terrible anxiety lifted from her heart forever. And there was Ruth, blossoming into glorious girlhood, as gay and merry as of old.

The captain and the professor, who made their home in the old mansion when they were not absent from the country, Teddy and Don, completed the party, and Don wondered whether in all the world there was a family circle so replete with happiness.

“Did you see Thompson and get that matter fixed up?” Captain Sturdy asked Don, in the course of the conversation.

“Yes,” answered Don. “I have the papers in my pocket. He kept me waiting a little longer than I expected, and I took a short cut back. Nearly got into a fight on the way back, too.”

Mrs. Sturdy gave an exclamation, which was echoed by Ruth, and Don’s father looked at him inquiringly.

“Oh, it didn’t really amount to anything,” Don hastened to assure them, and then went on to narrate the incident.

“Ever see the fellows before?” asked his father.

“No,” replied Don. “And I don’t care if I never see them again. They were a couple of hard citizens, if you ask me.”

“They were talking of its being easy to pull off something in this burg, as they called it,” volunteered Teddy.

“Too many of that kind round here lately,” remarked Mr. Sturdy, with a thoughtful frown. “I heard at the post-office yesterday that there had been two or three burglaries recently in the town.”

“I wouldn’t put it past those fellows to do something of the kind, the older one especially,” said Don. “The young fellow looked more weak than bad. But the other one looked as though he might be a regular jailbird.”

As he was finishing the meal, a thought occurred to Don.

“I’ll help you with that catalogue you were speaking about, Uncle Amos, if you like,” he said. “I haven’t anything on to-night, and I can spend the whole evening at it.”

“Thank you, Don,” replied his uncle. “I’d be glad if you could. The time is getting short, and the work of classification has taken me longer than I expected. But Teddy is your guest, and I don’t want to take you away from him.”

“Oh, that’s all right,” chimed in Teddy. “I’ll be glad to go over there with Don, if you’re willing. I don’t suppose I can help much, but I’ll try not to get in the way.”

The professor’s collection was stored in a stone outbuilding on the grounds that had been constructed especially for the use of Don’s uncles. There were two floors, the lower being reserved for the use of Captain Sturdy. Here he kept his skins, heads, antlers and other trophies of the chase.

On the top floor, which was spacious and well-lighted, Professor Bruce had his laboratory and storeroom. Here were gathered together many rare specimens of minerals and antiquities that he had collected during his many journeys in out-of-the-way corners of the world.

At the present time, the professor was busy making a catalogue of specimens of minerals that were peculiarly valuable. The work was being done for a museum, and the professor had agreed to have the catalogue ready at a specified time, so that the collection could be placed on view in a special room of the museum that had just been completed for that purpose.

He had been busily engaged at the task for several weeks, and Don had been of great service to him. During their trips together, the boy’s uncle had taught him a great deal about the specimens gathered, and he found this information, in conjunction with the lad’s quick and alert mind, of great value just when it was needed.

Brick went over with his chum that evening, and found plenty of things to attract his attention and interest him while Don was busy with the professor.

“I suppose that collection is worth an awful lot of money,” Teddy remarked to Don, as they strolled back to the house after the evening’s work was over.

“A good many thousands of dollars,” replied Don. “These minerals represent years of labor and an awful lot of expense in getting them together. They’re worth so much, in fact, that Uncle Amos is getting rather nervous over being responsible for them, and is anxious to get them off his hands.”

Several days passed pleasantly, with Fred, Don, and Teddy getting together as often as possible for swimming and fishing and long hikes into the surrounding country. At the house there was a good deal of bustle and excitement, caused by the preparations of the captain for his forthcoming trip.

Don had occasion several times to attend to commissions in town for his busy uncle, and as he was coming back on foot one day he saw ahead of him a man whom he noticed for his peculiar shuffling gait. He knew it was a walk he had seen somewhere before, and he was trying to remember where when the man turned around and Don saw that it was the evil-faced companion of the boy who had been called Jake.

That the man had recognized him also was evident from the scowl that came over his face. Don wondered for a moment whether another encounter was in store for him. But he did not for a moment relax the rapid pace with which he approached the fellow.

The man hesitated for a moment, then turned, and quickening his gait, passed down a side road near at hand and was soon out of sight.

The incident made no special impression on Don, and by the time he reached home other things had driven it from his mind.

Teddy had gone over that night to take dinner with Fred and Emily Turner, and Don spent the evening with his Uncle Amos, who was now nearing the completion of his task.

About half past nine the telephone bell rang, and the professor answered it. There was a hurried interchange, and Don’s uncle turned to him with a troubled face.

“It’s from Mrs. Thomas,” he said. “Her husband has been taken suddenly ill and wants to see me at once. He’s one of my oldest friends, you know, and I’ll have to go. I’ll leave you to lock up. You’ll be careful to see that everything’s all right, won’t you?”

“Sure, I will,” replied Don. “I’m sorry to hear Mr. Thomas is ill. You go right ahead. I’ll tend to everything.”

Professor Bruce hurried away, and Don, after finishing what he was working at, turned out the lights, locked the door of the storeroom carefully and went to the house.

The next morning at the breakfast table, Don inquired about Mr. Thomas.

“He’s better, I’m glad to say,” replied his uncle. “It was a sudden heart attack, and for a time it looked as though it might be fatal. But the doctor got it under control, and I guess he’ll pull through all right.”

After his long vigil of the previous night, the professor’s appetite was light that morning, and he finished before the rest, excused himself and hurried over to his laboratory.

In less than five minutes he was back. He burst into the dining room, his face the color of chalk.

The others looked up in surprise at the way in which he rushed in, so much at variance with his usual placid manner. Then the surprise changed to alarm as they noted his excitement.

He sank into a chair, too agitated for a moment to speak, while the others sprang to their feet in consternation.

“What is it, Amos?” demanded Mr. Sturdy. “What has happened?”

“I’ve been robbed!” the professor gasped, waving his arms wildly above his head.

“Robbed?” came in a chorus.

“Robbed!” reiterated the professor. “My collection of minerals! Stolen! Gone!”