Boy Aviators Polar Dash | Page 5

expression.
"It seems curious that while we were talking of Jap secret service men that your man should have been right behind us," commented Frank. "I don't know that I ought to ask such a question--but can you trust him?"
The captain laughed.
"Oh, implicitly," he said easily, "Oyama was with me in the Philippines, and has always been a model of all that a good servant should be."
Soon after this the conference broke up, the boys having promised to have their aeroplane on board early the next day. Frank explained that the machine was all ready and in shape for shipping and all that remained to do was to "knock it down," encase it in its boxes and get a wagon to haul it to the pier.
"Say, Harry," said Frank earnestly, as the boys, having bade their leave of Captain Hazzard, who remained on board owing to press of business on the ship, made their way along the maze of wharves and toward a street car.
"Say it," responded Harry cheerfully, his spirits at the tip-top of excitement at the idea of an almost immediate start for the polar regions.
"Well, it's about that Jap."
"Oh that yellow-faced bit of soft-footed putty--well, what about him?"
"Well, that 'yellow-faced bit of putty,' as you call him, is not so easily dismissed from my mind as all that. I'm pretty sure that he had some stronger reason than the one he gave for coming up behind us as silently as a cat while we were talking."
"But Captain Hazzard says that he has had him for years. That he can trust him implicitly," protested Harry.
"Just the same I can't get it out of my mind that there is something wrong about the fellow. I wish he hadn't seen that map and the proposed route of our expedition."
"Oh bosh, you are thinking of what Captain Hazzard said about the Jap secret service. Our friend Oyama is much too thick to be a secret service man."
"He simply looks unimpressive," rejoined Frank. "For that reason alone he would make a good man for any such purpose."
"Well, here comes a car," interrupted Harry, "so let's board it and forget our Japanese friend. Depend upon it you'll find out that he is all O. K. long before we sight an iceberg."
"I hope so, I'm sure," agreed Frank; but there was a troubled look on his face as he spoke.
However, not later than the next morning, as they were screwing up the last of the big blue cases that contained the various parts of the Golden Eagle, Billy Barnes, the young reporter who had accompanied the two boys in all of their expeditions, including the one to Nicaragua, where, with their aeroplane they helped make Central American history, as related in The Boy Aviators in Nicaragua; or, Leagued with the Insurgents,--Billy Barnes, the irrepressible, bounced into the garage which they used as a workshop, and which was situated in the rear of their house on Madison Avenue, with what proved to be important news of the Jap.
"Aha, my young Scotts and Shackletons, I behold you on the verge of your departure for the land of perpetual ice, polar bears and Esquimaux," exclaimed the reporter, striking an attitude like that assumed by Commander Peary in some of his pictures.
"Hullo, Billy Barnes," exclaimed both boys, continuing their work, as they were pretty well used to the young reporter's unceremonious calls, "What brings you out so early?"
"Oh, a little story to cover in the Yorkville Court and I thought as I was up this way I'd drop off and pay my respects. Say, bring me back a polar bear skin, will you?"
"A polar bear skin?" laughed Frank, "why there aren't any polar bears at the South Pole."
"No polar bears," repeated Billy lugubriously, "what's the good of a pole without polar bears. Me for the frozen north then. I suppose you'll tell me next there are no natives at the South Pole either."
"Well, there are not," rejoined Frank.
"But there are sea-elephants and ice-leopards and--" began Harry.
"And sea-cats, I suppose," interrupted Billy.
"No," exclaimed Harry, rather nettled at the young reporter's joking tone, "but there is the ship of Olaf--"
Frank was up like a shot.
"Didn't we give our word to the Captain not to mention a word about that?" he demanded.
"That's so," assented Harry, abashed, "but I just wanted to show this young person here that he can't treat our expedition with levity."
"The ship of Olaf, eh?" mused the young reporter, "sounds like a story. Who was Olaf, if I may ask?"
"You may not ask," was Frank's rejoinder. "As you know, Billy, we have been frank with you, of course under the pledge of secrecy which we know you too well to dream of your breaking. You know we are bound for the South Polar regions. You know also that the