“If you don’t mind,” said Dave, “for the sake of my friends, and especially of my mother, I wish you’d include my name in the message.”

“It’s already done,” smiled the Doctor.

CHAPTER V

AN INFERNAL MACHINE

When Bruce, Barney and the Major found themselves stranded on the shore of a vast frozen lake at the beginning of an Arctic winter, they at once took steps to conserve all resources.  Building a cache between three scrub spruce trees, they piled upon it their wolf meat and skins.  To Barney the thought of eating “dog meat,” as he called it, was most repulsive, but necessity gives man little choice in the Arctic, so he munched his roast wolf’s back that night in silence.  But at the same time, he vowed that, sure as the caribou had not all passed, he would dine on caribou roast before long.

Once the cache was completed, they began scouting the woods near the ruins of the burned trading station.  There they found plain signs of Indians.  A circle of beaten tracks made certain a pow-wow had been held there.

“Doesn’t look very good to me,” admitted the Major.  “These Indians of the Little Sticks are a fierce and cruel people, full of superstitions, and living up to the old law of ‘blood revenge.’  There’s only one thing in our favor:  they have a superstition about a giant creature, known as the Thunder-bird.  The stories of this terrible bird are known to almost all Indian tribes, but the Little Sticks believe them literally.  From the tracks I should judge that they left in great haste.  What could cause this fright, save the sound and sight of our plane hovering over them?  Since it is almost certain that they have never seen an airplane, it seems likely that they considered it to be old Thunder-bird come to carry them off.  If that is true, I shall not look for them back in a hurry.”

“What puzzles me is, where’s the remains of the fellow’s generator and wireless?” said Barney.  “Don’t see anything down there in the ruins, do you?”

Instantly all eyes were turned toward the smouldering piles of ashes.

“The place was wired all right,” said the Major, pointing to a mass of tangled lighting wire.

“Say!  What’s that out in the center?” exclaimed Barney.  “Looks like the bones of a man?”

“So it does,” said the Major, “and surely is.  Well, there can’t be any further doubt about the rascal being burned in the ruins of his own house.”

Then there came a shout from Barney.  He had been tracing out the masses of blackened wire.

“Look!” he exclaimed.  “Here’s where the lead-wires go into the ground.  Must be a separate power-house.  Three lead-wires instead of two.  What do you suppose that means?”

He clipped the soft wires off with his heavy knife, and bent them apart to avoid short circuits; then, closely followed by the others, went plowing away through the snow to search out the point where the wires left the ground.  They traced them through the scrub timber, and, almost at once, came upon a strange frame-like structure, ending in a tall pole, and having at its center a house built of logs.  The whole affair was quite invisible outside the timber.