“Let’s go to One, and look over that data,” he said, striving to control his voice diaphragm. The pilot obeyed without comment.
Earth, really, is not as bad as all that. Some people are even quite fond of it. Ken, of course, was prejudiced, as anyone is likely to be against a world where water is a liquid — when he has grown up breathing gaseous sulfur and, at rare intervals, drinking molten copper chloride.
2
Roger Wing, for example, would probably have been slightly shocked at Ken’s attitude. He was strongly in favor of Earth, at least the rather small portion which he knew. He had some justification, for the country around Lake Pend’ Oreille is very much worth knowing, particularly in spring and summer. The first glimpse of the lake each June was something to look forward to; all the way up the highway from Hayden Lake the children maintained shrill rivalry over who would be the first to sight the Ear Drop. Even with only four of them this year, the noise was nearly as great as usual; for the absent Donald had never contributed too much to the racket. Roger, left the senior member by his older brother’s absence, was determined to make the most of the opportunity; the more so since it was to last only another forty miles or so. Don was expected to fly to Sandpoint with a friend and meet the family there.
It was, all in all, a hilarious group; and the parents in the front seat had only moderate success in maintaining order. However, the northbound highway from Coeur d’Alene is a good one, and the disturbance in the rear was never really dangerous. The principal interruption occurred when the right rear tire of the station wagon went flat near Cocolalla. John Wing was a little slow in stopping the heavily loaded vehicle, and Roger got the first whiff of the sulfurous odor of burning rubber. He was to became much more familiar with sulfur during the course of the summer.
The children were a little quieter after that — the expression on their father’s face suggested that his patience might not have much farther to go; but the journey was never really silent. The causeway across the tip of Pend’ Oreille was greeted with ringing cheers, which ceased only momentarily while Mr. Wing purchased a new tire in Sandpoint. Then they proceeded to the small airport at the edge of the town, and the noise increased again as the youngsters caught sight of their oldest brother standing beside a Cub on the grass parking area.
He was tall, and rather slim, with dark hair and eyes and a narrow face like his father’s. Roger, who had grown considerably since the last September, discovered to his chagrin that Donald still overtopped him by half a head; but he did not let the annoyance lessen the exuberance of his greeting. Don shook hands with his father and Roger, kissed his mother and sisters, and swung six-year-old Billy to his shoulder. No, the flight from Missoula had not been eventful. Yes, his final grades had been good, if not outstanding. No, he had no luggage except the little handbag beside him — a Cub has sharp load limitations. They might as well continue their journey, and he could answer questions on the way. He tossed the bag at Roger and moved toward the station wagon, Billy still on his shoulder; and with the crowd settled more or less comfortably, they rolled on.
North from Sandpoint; east fork to Kootenai; around the north end of the question-mark-shaped lake to Hope, and on to Clark Fork. There the car was left, in a building that partook of the characteristics of storehouse and garage.
Don and Roger disappeared, and returned with an imposing array of pack and saddle horses. These were accoutered with a speed which suggested the maneuver was not a new one to the family; and the Wings, waving farewell to their acquaintances who had gathered to see them off, headed northward into the woods.
Donald grinned at his father as the town vanished behind them.
“How many campers do you suppose we’ll have this year?”
“It’s hard to say. Most of the folks who know us have come to mind their own business pretty well, and I didn’t notice any strangers in the town; but prospectors seem to turn up when least expected. I don’t mind honest prospecting — it lends protective coloration. It’s the ones who expect to benefit from our ‘strike’ that bother me. You boys will have to scout as usual — though I may want Don with me this time. If you’ve really gotten something out of freshman chemistry, Son, you may be able to help solve a problem or two. If he does go with me, Roger, you’ll have a bigger responsibility than usual.” The boy nodded, eyes shining.
He had only gradually come to realize the tremendous difference between the way his family and those of his schoolmates spent their summers. At first, the tales of trips to ranches, seashores, and mountains had aroused his envy; then he had begun to boast of his own mountain trips. When he finally realized the atmosphere of secrecy that surrounded certain aspects of those trips, his pride had exceeded his powers of restraint — until he had realized that his schoolmates simply didn’t believe that his father had a “secret mine in the mountains.” Pique had silenced his boasts for a while and by the time he had developed a convincing argument he had realized that silence might be better for all concerned.
That had been the spring when he was ten years old. His father had somehow heard about the whole story, and seemed pleased for some reason; that summer he had extended to Roger the responsibility which Don had been carrying alone, of scouting the territory around their summer home before and during Mr. Wing’s trips into the mountains. The find, their father had told him, was his own secret; and for reasons he would explain later it must be kept that way.
That summer and the two following he had continued to make his trips alone; now it looked as though there might be a change. Don, Roger knew, had been told a little just before leaving for college the preceding fall; his courses had been partly selected on the basis of that information — chemistry, astronomy and mathematics. The first seemed logical, but Roger failed to see the point of the others. Certainly astronomy seemed of doubtful value in anything connected with mining.
Still, he would find that out in due course; perhaps sooner than Don had, since their father seemed to be letting down the bars. His problem for the moment was to figure out a way by which one boy could keep himself informed about every person who came within a mile of the summer house in any direction — and farther than that in some directions. Roger, of course, knew the topography of the neighborhood quite well; but he began right then planning a series of exploration jaunts to make more certain of some points. He was a young man who took things seriously, if they were presented to him in that light.
Like anyone else of his own age, however, he tended even more strongly to fly off on the interests of the moment; and he was easily aroused from his reverie when Edie caught him in the face with a fir cone slyly tossed over her shoulder. She burst into laughter as he looked around fruitlessly for a means of retaliation — there seemed to be no more cones within reach, and the trail at this point was too narrow for the horses to travel side by side. The pack horse the girl was leading formed, for the time being, an impassable barrier.
“Why don’t you wake up and join the party?” Edith finally gurgled out between spasms of laughter. “You looked as though you’d just remembered leaving your favorite fishpole in Spokane!” Roger assumed a mantle of superiority.
“Of course, you girls have nothing to do between now and September,” he said. “There’s a certain amount of men’s work to be done, though, and I was deciding how to go about it.”
“Men’s work?” The girl raised her eyebrows in mock surprise. “I know Dad will be busy, but what’s that to you?” She knew perfectly well what Roger’s summer duties were, but had reasons of her own for speaking as she did. “Does it take a man to stroll around the house on sentry-go a couple of times a day?” Roger stiffened.
“It takes more than a girl to do a good job of it,” he retorted. The words were hardly out when he regretted them; but he had no time to think of a way out of the corner into which he had talked himself.
“Evidence!” Edith responded quietly, and Roger mentally kicked himself. She had been playing for just that. Family rules required that any statement made by a member of the family be backed up with evidence if another member required it — a rule the elder Wing had instituted, with considerable foresight. He was seldom caught by it himself, being a thoughtful man by nature.
“You’ll have to let me try, now,” Edith remarked, “and you’ll have to give me a fair amount of teaching. To be really fair, you’ll have to let Margie try, too—” The last was an afterthought, uttered principally for its explosive effect. Roger almost left his saddle, but before he succeeded in expressing himself a thought struck him. After all, why couldn’t the girls help? He could show them what he and Don had done in the past, and they might very well have ideas of their own. Roger’s masculine pride did not blind him to the fact that girls in general, and his sisters
