Part 17 (1/2)

”I wonder if it ain't a big signal fire for us,” suggested Roy at last.

”It's a big blaze of some kind,” answered Norman.

Through the obscuring snow, the nervous aviators had located the light many miles in the distance. Now it began to rise up so suddenly before them that they knew it had not been very far away. Yet they could not make up their mind that it was a signal fire. It did not at all resemble a blaze of that kind.

”Well, don't run into it, whatever it is,” shouted Roy a few minutes later as a tall spire-like shaft of yellow light seemed almost to block their progress.

But Norman was already banking the machine, and the flying car responded while the wonder-struck boys gazed open-mouthed.

”It's the camp,” Norman yelled just then as a little group of shadowy buildings seemed to rise up out of the snow.

”They've struck gas!” blurted Roy, as he sprang to his feet. ”The men have struck gas and it's a gusher!”

Even as he yelled these words, the aviators heard a quick fusilade of shots and as the car darted onward were just able to catch sight of shadowy forms running about within the glare of the burning gas well. The sight was enough of a shock to Norman to throw him off his guard and the snow-weighted car careened wildly toward the earth. Roy attempted to spring to his companion's a.s.sistance and realized almost too late that this would be fatal. While the perspiration sprang to Roy's chilled face, Norman's presence of mind returned and he threw the car upward and into equilibrium again.

Then, straining every nerve, he made a wide detour but while his brain acted, the muscles of his hands and arms seemed suddenly paralyzed. The car dropped slowly and safely in the midst of the clearing, and when it touched the snow the landing cha.s.sis caught and the airs.h.i.+p stopped as if in collision with a wall. Both boys lunged forward and when Roy got to his feet he found Norman curled up among the steering apparatus, cold and motionless.

It was a good half hour later when the young aviator had been revived.

His first inquiry was about the _Gitchie Manitou_. When he learned that this was apparently little injured and had already been backed into the aerodrome, he gave more evidence of his all-day's strain by again relapsing into unconsciousness on the cot that had been improvised for him before the fire in the living room.

The more fortunate Roy was able to relate their adventures and hear the details of the gas gusher's discovery that night. Within the protected clearing, the storm had been more of a heavy downfall of snow and less of a blizzard. Anxious to move the derrick before winter was fully upon them, Colonel Howell and his two men had persisted in working the drill all day. When the gas vein was unexpectedly tapped late in the afternoon, the drill pipes had been blown out and the escaping gas, igniting from the near-by boiler, had consumed the derrick. Fortunately, the tubing and drills had been forced through the derrick and were saved.

The engine house had also caught fire, but this had been pulled down and it was thought that the engine and boiler were undamaged. These details were discussed while Roy ate a late supper and drank with more relish than ever before his tin of black tea. Norman was so improved by morning that he was early astir, eager for a view of the still roaring volume of gas. He found that Colonel Howell had also taken advantage of the first daylight to inventory the possible damage.

While the twisting yellow flame of the uncapped well was less inspiring as day broke, the roar of the escaping flame fascinated the young aviator.

”It's a gusher, and a dandy,” explained Colonel Howell as he and Norman stood close by it in the melting snow. ”But I think we're prepared for it and we'll try to cap it to-day.”

All else, the clearing, the camp structures and the banks of the river, were peaceful and white under the untracked mantle of new-fallen snow.

The wind had died out and the gas camp at Fort McMurray stood on the verge of the almost Arctic winter.

The excitement attendant upon the wonderful discovery and the attempt made at once to control the fiery shaft again interfered with Colonel Howell's real plans of active prospecting. For days the experienced oil men made futile efforts to extinguish the gusher and to cap the shaft.

When they were of no a.s.sistance in this work, Norman and Roy overhauled the airs.h.i.+p and subst.i.tuted the ski-like runners in place of the aluminum-cased rubber-tired landing wheels.

It seemed as if every trader, trapper and prospector within fifty miles visited the camp. A week after the discovery, somewhat to the surprise of all, although apparently not so much to Ewen and Miller, the long missing Chandler appeared at the clearing late one evening. If he had any apology to make to Colonel Howell, the boys did not hear it. But he was sober enough this time and somewhat emaciated. He had come to settle with his old employer and explained his long delay in doing this by saying: ”I knew my money was good any time,” and that he had been trapping farther down the river.

He lounged about the camp the greater part of the day and even volunteered his services in the still unsuccessful attack of the flaming gas. But Colonel Howell seemed without any interest in his offers. The man was invited, however, to eat in the camp and spend the night there.

When the boys retired, Colonel Howell, the visitor, and Ewen and Miller were still smoking before the big fire. The next morning the boys slept late and when they responded to Philip's persistent call to breakfast, they found that Chandler had eaten and gone. Colonel Howell was awaiting the boys, Ewen and Miller being already at work on the blazing well, and he seemed to have something on his mind.

”Would there be any great danger,” he began at once, addressing Norman, ”in making a short flight in your airs.h.i.+p in weather like this?”

”This isn't bad,” volunteered Roy. ”It's only a few degrees below zero.

There's a good fall of snow for our runners and there hasn't been any wind since the blizzard.”

”Well,” resumed Colonel Howell, almost meditatively, ”it seems a shame for us to be livin' here in what you might call luxury and folks starving all around us. Look at this,” he went on, and he led the three boys near one of the windows where a large Department of the Interior map of northern Alberta was tacked to the wall. ”Here's Fort McMurray and our camp,” he began, pointing to a black spot on the almost uncharted white, where the McMurray River emptied into the Athabasca. Then he ran his finger northward along the wide blue line indicating the tortuous course of the Athabasca past Fort McKay and the Indian settlement described as Pierre au Calumet (marked ”abandoned”), past the Muskeg, the Firebag and the Moose Rivers where they found their way into the giant Athabasca between innumerable black spots designated as ”tar” islands, and at last stopped suddenly at the words ”Pointe aux Tremble.”