A Ticket to Adventure / A Mystery Story for Girls

andise, tents, tractors, groceries, hammers, axes, and boxes of chocolate bars she came quite suddenly upon the oddest li

s stiff collar and bright tie. "But no, a Jap wouldn't look like that." She was puzzled

the bleak Arctic morning. Some of the goods that were being hoisted by a long steel crane from the depths of a ship, belonged

ister I

e heard the little

aps I am to know about this little man." She wa

-ay-ok," she encourage

were reading from a book. "My home is

en

od!" The man who had made his appearance, as if by magic, from the great pile of merchandise, where he had, the girl thought with an inw

like nose, very long and straight. There was something about his whole bearing that made Mary want to slap him. She would, too, had she felt that the occasion warranted it. She was litt

as well. A cat is like that. Just n

e stranger stopped laughing to pucker his brow

m in the dark!" the girl t

Miss?" the white man turne

rised and pleased. She

empt. "Just an oil-guzzling, blubber-eating, greasy Eskimo that lives in a hole in the ground.

, school-book voice the little man in black said, "Do you know w

t?" Mary

Very big gun. Shoot big shell. Like this!" He held up a clenched fist.

that one?" Mary asked, noddin

ee," the little man smiled, "I

booming along from behind the pile of goods, to cry: "A

He's from Alaska, and he wants to kill a white man,

nd strong as a man, looked at the little man

more north my home. Cape Nome somet

es shone. "My grandfather went there ye

?" the littl

Ken

n beamed. "I know him.

. "You, you know my grandfather? No! No!

t me show you." To their vast surprise the girls saw the little man produce from an inside pocket a small, ivory paper knife. On its blade had been carved the likeness of a man's f

he closed her eyes as she tried to think clearly. Often and often as a small child she had heard her mother describ

gh. "My grandfather is alive, somewhere aw

's tone vibrated with consternation.

not just now." The big girl's h

he long drawn hoarse hoo

lf Mr. Il-ay-ok bowed low. "My boat please. I go

llowed a dog team over long, long miles or has

slowly as if to herself,

. All her life she had believed her grandfather dead. From her mother's lips she had heard vague stories of how he had gone i

too," the girl whi

s came back to the present and

f goods that, as moments passed, grew higher and

to adventure,' that's what the man back there in San Francisco called

!" Mary's

long dock where a boy, who had barely grown into a young man,

ere's Mark. He's setting up ou