The Radio Boys Rescue the Lost Alaska Expedition

"Strange that you boys should be talking about the 'Lost Expedition.'"

"Oh, hello, Dad. Why strange?"

"Because I have just come from a conference with a man who knows all there is to know about it. And he was telling me--."

Mr. Hampton advanced from the doorway into the sitting room, and looked at the faces of the three boys in turn. They were his son, Jack, and the latter's chums, Bob Temple and Frank Merrick, who together had gone through many adventures related in other books of "The Radio Boys" series.

It was the sitting room of a suite in a Seattle hotel. Here the four, arriving from South America, after finding and losing "The Enchanted City of the Incas" as told of in "The Radio Boys Search for the Incas' Treasure," were ensconced on their way to their Long Island homes.

"Well, Dad, what was this man telling you?"

"Yes, Mr. Hampton, tell us," added Frank "We're curious."

"What do you know about the 'Lost Expedition?'" countered Mr. Hampton. "I stood in the doorway unobserved a moment and heard you discussing it."

"Nothing but what this article in the Sunday paper tells," said big Bob, grumblingly, "And the fellow that wrote this yarn didn't know very much. It's mostly talk."

Mr. Hampton nodded.

"Speculation, I suppose," he said. "Well, that's the best the writer could do. The facts aren't generally known. However, wait a minute until I get off this wet coat and get into something comfortable. It's raining again."

"Raining again?" said Jack. "Doesn't it ever stop here?"

"Oh, that's just the Seattle Winter," said his father. "The rains are necessary, and, really, they are so mild one doesn't mind them after a time."

"Huh," grumbled big Bob. "I'd think these people would grow web feet."

"Look here," said Mr. Hampton, after getting into his smoking jacket and slippers. "What I learned today ought to interest you boys."

"Why, Dad?" Jack leaned forward eagerly.

"Well, wait until I tell you a bit about it," said his father. "Then you'll see."

Then, while the three young fellows paid close attention, Mr. Hampton proceeded to relate the story of the "Lost Expedition" so-called, the expedition headed by Thorwald Thorwaldsson, the Norwegian explorer, which had outfitted at Seattle the previous Spring, set out for an unnamed destination in the Far North, and had never been heard of since.

A great deal of secrecy as to its objects had attended the departure of this expedition in its sturdy schooner, and many were the wild guesses and surmises concerning it advanced in the papers and among the hangers-on along the Seattle waterfront. Some said confidently that the expedition was going to attempt to reach the North Pole by airplane, for an airplane was carried dismantled on the schooner. Others declared the object sought was gold. And, in this regard, the vague rumors of vast gold fields found in the past by this or that old-time prospector who died without making his secret public, were brought to light and furbished up with a wealth of apocryphal detail in order to bear out the contention.

"But none of these assumptions," said Mr. Hampton, "was correct. The real object of the expedition never was made public, for the very good reason that none of those in the know-and their numbers are few-ever betrayed a word, or hint, of the secret."

"And you know it?" asked Jack, with quickened interest.

Mr. Hampton nodded, and smiled teasingly.

"Come on, Mr. Hampton, tell us," said Frank.

"You better, Mr. Hampton, or he'll burst with curiosity," advised big Bob. "Show that boy a secret and he's not content until he takes it apart."

"How about yourself?" said Frank, indignantly. "I suppose you don't care to hear, hey? Oh, no."

Mr. Hampton interrupted.

"Wait a minute, Bob. No need to perjure yourself. I know all you boys are eager to know the answer to the mystery of the 'Lost Expedition.' Well, I can tell it to you in one word. It is--"

He paused. Then added:

"Oil."

"Oil?"

All three listeners asked the question as if in one breath. Big Bob was no less inquisitive than the others, despite his twigging of Frank for his curiosity.

Mr. Hampton nodded.

"Yes," he said. "Oil."

For a moment he was silent, collecting his thoughts. Then he leaned forward, cleared his throat and continued:

"Perhaps my words are a disappointment to you. The Northland for you, probably, is invested in a mysterious glamor. It means either men struggling through incalculable hardships to win their way to the North Pole, to the top of the world, or else fighting against all the mighty forces of Nature in a grim, ice-locked land to wrest a stream of golden wealth from the bosom of the Earth.

"Ah, yes," he continued, smiling slightly, "I know how you feel. Whenever our preconceived and heroic notions are upset we feel a sense of disappointment. But, consider for a moment, the meaning of this matter. Here, far away in the Northland, in a remote district to which so far as known only two white men have ever penetrated, lies a mighty river flowing north into the Arctic Ocean, along the banks of which are such vast deposits of oil that it oozes through the soil and into the river to such an extent that the river in reality is a river of oil and never freezes."

"A river of oil that never freezes, Dad?" said Jack. "Do you expect us to believe that?"

"And flowing north, too?" said Frank, whose quick mind had seized upon that point of contrariety in Nature.

Mr. Hampton smiled.

"Well, boys, it is hard to believe, I'll admit," he said. "Yet that this river does flow north is undoubted. That it never freezes, however, is an exaggeration. The truth is, probably, that at spots so much oil seeps into the water that soft spots are formed.

"Hitherto," he continued, "there have been only two rivers known that flow north into the Arctic in that region-the MacKenzie and the Coppermine, along the shores of which are vast deposits of copper that some day, undoubtedly, will be opened up to exploitation. However, this other northward-flowing river in the midst of a vast oil field must now be added to the list, if the word of the lone explorer is to believed, of the one man who has been there and lived to return with the tale."

"But I thought you said this river was known to two white men, Dad?" objected Jack.

"So I did. So I did," declared his father. "And two there were-Cameron and Farrell. But Cameron died on the trip to the outside, and Farrell alone lived despite incredible hardships, to finally reach Edmonton with the tale. Now he, too, is gone-for he was a member of Thorwaldsson's 'Lost Expedition.'

"When he reached Edmonton, a thriving Canadian city, Farrell, an adventurous fellow who at one time had worked in the Southwestern oil fields as an employee of the syndicate of independent operators which once employed me there as superintendent, realized the value of his discovery and kept his mouth closed until he got in touch with Anderson, the big man of the syndicate. Anderson saw at once the importance of the find. But he also saw that Farrell's marvelous oil field would virtually have to be rediscovered before steps to develop it could be taken. For, in struggling through to the outside, Farrell had suffered the loss of his compass, had been turned about in Winter fogs, had lain delirious for a long period in the igloo of friendly Eskimos within the Arctic Circle and, in general, had suffered so many hardships that his mind was clouded and he had no clear idea of where lay this oil field.

"Anderson, however, placed such faith in Farrell's report that he decided to outfit an expedition to retrace the footsteps of Farrell and Cameron into the Arctic in the hope of thus once more coming upon the oil field. Inasmuch as they had gone in through Alaska, that was the way which Thorwaldsson's expedition took."

Mr. Hampton paused. Jack, who had been eyeing his father closely, now put a hand on his arm.

"And now what, Dad?" he asked.

"Now Anderson wants me to attempt to go after the 'Lost Expedition' and try to relocate the oil fields as well as find some trace of Thorwaldsson," said Mr. Hampton.

"I thought so," said Jack, in a tone of satisfaction. "When do we start?"

"We?" Mr. Hampton chuckled. "I like that. Just as cool as you please about it, too. We? Well, well."

"Do we leave at once?" asked Jack, imperturbably, not one whit disturbed by his father's pleasantry.

Mr. Hampton shook his head.

"Whether I take you at all is questionable," he said. "Certainly, I have no intention of going at once. If I go at all, it will not be until the Arctic Summer begins."

"Meantime, I suppose, I'm to return to Yale."

"Yes, you've missed a half year, thanks to our adventures in search of the Incas' treasure in South America, but that is no reason why you should miss the balance of the term. I'll tell you what," he added, taking pity on the three, "if you fellows go back to college and study hard to make up for lost time until Summer, and if the 'Lost Expedition' is still lost at that time, why, I'll see what can be done."

"Hurray," cried Jack. "That's a promise."