Читать книгу Lost at the South Pole, or, Ted Scott in Blizzard Land - J. W. Duffield - Страница 7

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Eben Browning started violently as Ted Scott made his declaration. Charity lifted her hands in dismay.

“The South Pole!” she ejaculated.

“Yes,” Ted admitted. “But don’t worry, Mother,” he hastened to add. “I probably shan’t be able to go there. Hollister has thrown a monkey wrench into the machinery.”

“But that you even thought of going there!” wailed Charity. “Oh, Ted, it’s the very end of the earth!”

“It would be a very dangerous trip, my boy,” put in Eben gravely.

“No more so than many others I’ve taken, and I’ve always come back safe and sound.”

“That’s not saying that you would this time,” interposed Charity. “There’s apt to be an end to good luck sometime.”

“Speaking for myself,” said Eben, “I don’t see any special reason for going there. Now the last time you went to Brazil you went to save the lives of those explorers. That was all right, even if it was mighty risky. Grace Larue had saved your life and you felt you had to try to save her father’s. And I didn’t have any kick when you went to the West Indies to look for them lost flyers. Nor in Mexico when what you did among them bandits was to help your country. But the South Pole! What is there, except snow and ice? It’s there now and has always been there. It will be there when you come back. What’s the use of taking all that risk for nothing?”

“It won’t be for nothing,” declared Ted. “Nothing is unimportant that increases human knowledge. It’s up to man to conquer the earth, to wrest from it all its secrets. What are we put here for, if not for that? And there’s a great continent there almost as big as the United States and Canada together, of which very little is known. It has practically defied the human race to find out about it. And defiance is something that the human race won’t stand.”

Eben with a sigh gave it up. He was silenced, if not convinced.

“But even if all these things are true,” persisted Charity, “let other folks find out about them. There are plenty without you. Remember, Ted, you’re all we have. If anything happened to you, life would be all over for Eben and me.”

“I know, Mother dear,” said Ted, kissing her affectionately. “And for your dear sake I’d be especially careful in case I went. Of course, as you say, there are plenty of others to do these things. But suppose everybody said that? Who would there be to do anything? There were plenty of others to fly over the Atlantic. Wasn’t I right to try to do it first? If I have any gifts for flying, oughtn’t I to use them, especially when a chance comes to be of service to the world? But now just let’s forget it. As things go, I probably shan’t have a chance to join the expedition.”

With a parting hug the young aviator went out on the veranda of the hotel, where he found Walter Hapworth awaiting him.

“Hello, hero,” was the greeting of Ted’s friend.

“Lay off,” replied Ted. “Where do you get that stuff?”

“Oh, just by putting two and two together,” laughed Hapworth. “I’m not perhaps such a fool as I look. You’d be surprised to know how intelligent I am. Now, for instance,” he went on, indicating the paper in his lap, “I see here a dispatch from the Associated Press telling about a very daring rescue of two people from a blazing house. Climbs a tree and catches a woman in his arms as she leaps from a window. Forces his way through smoke and flame to an upper floor and comes staggering out with a man thrown like a sack of wheat over his shoulder. When I got that far I began to smell a mouse. ‘That sounds like Ted Scott,’ I said to myself. Then I learn that the fellow is an aviator. By that time the mouse has come into full view. A little farther, and I learn that the fellow was so modest that he wouldn’t tell his name. By that time I’ve caught the mouse. Then I look at you as you come out of the house and see the marks of burns on your face and hands. Now I let the mouse go. I need him no longer. You are the man,” and he pointed his finger sternly at his friend.

Ted grinned.

“Wonderful!” he exclaimed. “As a detective you’ve got them all beaten to a frazzle. No use trying to hide anything from you. I plead guilty and throw myself on the mercy of the court.”

“The court suspends sentence,” laughed Hapworth. “But really, Ted, it’s a splendid thing you’ve done. Sit down here and tell me all about it.”

Ted sketched briefly the happenings of the afternoon and Hapworth drank in the details avidly.

“Magnificent!” he commented when Ted had finished. “It was just like you, old boy, and nobody can say more than that. But wasn’t it the queerest thing in the world that the man you rescued happened to be Gustavus Hollister?”

“It was,” admitted Ted. “I was struck all in a heap when I learned his name. But coincidence has a long arm.”

“It just fits into your plans,” exulted Hapworth. “It removes the last obstacle in the way of your going on the Antarctic expedition.”

“I don’t see how.”

Walter Hapworth looked in amazement at the young aviator.

“You don’t see how?” he repeated. “Why, you don’t suppose for a minute that Hollister would keep up his objection to your going when he learns that it was you who saved his life and that of his wife, do you? No decent man would ever speak to him again in his life, if he did that.”

“I know,” admitted Ted. “That is, if he knew that I’d saved him. But he isn’t going to know.”

Hapworth looked at his friend as though he thought he was going out of his senses.

“Oh, come, Ted, that’s carrying modesty too far,” he protested. “It’s all right within certain limits, but there’s no use of going to extremes. Of course he’s got to know about it. If you don’t tell him, I’ll tell him myself.”

“Not with my consent,” replied Ted firmly. “Please, Walter, keep this to yourself.”

Hapworth fumed and stormed without avail.

“It’s the most ridiculous thing I ever heard of,” he exclaimed. “It isn’t as if you’d set out to do him a great service, the greatest service that any man can render, just for the sake of gaining his favor and removing his objections. The opportunity came without your seeking. Fate itself has thrown a big juicy plum in your lap and you refuse to pick it up.”

“I can’t help it, Walter,” returned Ted stubbornly. “I may be a fool, as you intimate, but I’m just built that way. I’m not going to get a thing through gratitude that I don’t get right on the merits of the case. That’s all there is about it.”

“Well, there’s one thing,” said Hapworth hopefully; “he’ll learn about it, anyway. This mystery about the unknown airman will stir the curiosity of the newspaper reporters, and they’ll follow the matter up and pin it on you.”

“Maybe,” admitted Ted. “But they’ll have a fancy time doing it. You and Eben and Charity are the only ones besides myself who know the identity of the airman, and you’re not going to tell. And I’m pretty good at keeping silent.”

“If you refuse to answer, that will be almost the same as admitting it,” argued Hapworth.

“They’ll know that you’d say no promptly if you weren’t the man.”

“I’ve thought of that,” replied Ted. “So I’m going to be out of the way when they come around. I’ve got to see my publishers in Chicago about the new book I’m writing about that trip to Brazil. I hadn’t intended to go for a few days yet, but under the circumstances I’ve decided to start to-morrow morning. I’ll stay in Chicago for a few days, and by the time I get back interest in the matter will have died down.”

“A wilful man must have his way,” grumbled Hapworth disappointedly. “But of all the pig-headed idiots—” further words failed him.

“Cheer up, old boy,” laughed Ted. “Behind the clouds the sun is shining. I have a hunch that I’m going on that South Pole expedition, yet.”

“You and your hunches! Here you’ve got something that’s worth all the hunches in the world and you haven’t got sense enough to use it. I’m out of patience with you.”