“It’s his wireless station,” breathed the Major.  “No further doubt remains.”

He stepped to the door and found himself gazing into a well-arranged room—­electric generator, storage batteries in rows and instruments of every description along the walls and the floor.

But what caught Bruce’s eye was two rows of ten-gallon cans piled in the rear.  With a cry of joy he sprang toward them.  But his joyful look changed to an anxious one, as he lifted can after can and found it empty.  Only one contained gasoline, and that was but half-full.

“Not enough to give our Thunder-bird a drink,” he groaned disgustedly.

“Well, at any rate,” said the Major, “we’ve found a place that won’t make a bad shelter from Arctic blizzards.  I suggest that we bring the plane up to the edge of the woods nearest this point and camp here.”

“What’s that?” exclaimed Bruce in a startled whisper, as he detected some noise outside.

He pushed the door open fearlessly, then laughed.  There stood a dog.

“Not a bad find,” said the Major.  “He may be a lot of help to us.  And, look!  There are four others!  They’re the trader’s dogs.  Ran away when the place burned, I haven’t a doubt.  Barney, run and get some wolf meat.  We’ll have a team at once.  And we’ll need it.  Can’t move the plane without it.”

They were soon on good terms with the strange dogs.  The Major, who appeared to know all there was to know about Arctic life, fashioned some Eskimo style harness from wolfskin, and before many hours they had their plane by the edge of the woods, and were settled in their new home.

That night, after they had enjoyed reindeer steak as a special treat, the Major rather playfully put the receiving piece of the wireless over his head and clicked the machine.  Almost instantly, he exclaimed: 

“Jove!  I’m getting something!  Give me a note-book and pencil.”

For fifteen minutes he scratched strange dots and dashes across innumerable pages.  At last he paused and removed the receiver.

“Guess that’s about all for this time.  Let’s see what we’ve got.”

Three heads bent over the message.  But, after hours of study, the only conclusion they could come to was that the message had been sent in a secret code, which they might never be able to decipher.

“Well,” said the Major, with a sigh.  “Station’s closed for to-night.  Tell the gentleman to call again in the morning.”  At that he crept into his sleeping-bag and was soon snoring.  The two boys gladly followed his example.

Barney made the first announcement in the morning.  He was going caribou hunting.  He had had quite enough “dog meat.”  Bruce offered to go with him, but, on second thought, decided to try fishing through the ice.  Barney was soon lost in the wilderness of scrub spruce.  But, though he hunted far, he found no fresh caribou tracks.  It was on his return trip that he received the first surprise of the day.  The wind was blowing fine snow along the surface and he found his out-going trail half-buried.  Then, suddenly, he came upon strange footprints.  The person apparently had been going North, but upon seeing the white boy’s track he had turned and retreated.  The tracks were fresh and had been made by a heelless skin-shoe.