THE SKI POLICE
Snow started falling in Centerville on Friday night and continued with the aid of a forty mile gale until late Monday. “A regular old-fashioned blizzard,” old settlers declared, as telephone lines were swept down and roads made impassable. For the first time in years schools were closed and inhabitants set themselves to the prodigious task of digging out.
“Greatest weather in the world for skiing!” Bill Stewart announced gleefully to his two chums.
“Yes,” said Phil Black, grinning, “with snow ten and fifteen feet deep in spots. If you ever fall off your skis, you’re apt to disappear for good!”
“Snowshoes would really be the thing,” replied Max, “but there’s seldom such a snow as this. I doubt if there’s a couple pair of snowshoes in all Centerville.”
“Skis will be okay if we’re careful,” urged Bill. “I’d like to ski up to our shack on Mountain Ridge. What do you say?”
The two chums looked at one another consultingly. The hill that was known as Mountain Ridge could be seen to the west. It towered majestically among the lesser hills which bounded the valley in which Centerville reposed.
“We might make an all day outing of it,” considered Max. “Take our packs and lunch and eat in the shack. Too bad we can’t just cut across country and save a couple miles but the climbing’s too steep. There’ll be some great natural slides coming back. I’m game to go. How about you, Phil?”
“Majority rules,” smiled Phil. “Count me in. When do we start?”
“How’s ten o’clock tomorrow morning?” Bill proposed.
“Suits us,” Phil and Max responded.
The woods after the great snow were a gorgeous sight. Fir trees plastered white; bare trees coated limb for limb; shrubbery weighted down and all but the highest buried from view; hillsides lost in a glossy expanse; tips of telephone poles all that could be seen in drifted sections; occasionally a glimpse of old Mother Earth in windswept areas; everything in the crisp out-of-doors bearing mute or glowing testimony of the storm’s handiwork.
Reaching the top of Mountain Ridge after a leisurely trip of three hours, the chums gazed about in spellbound admiration of the spectacle.
“Never saw anything like this!” Max exclaimed, finally. “It gives me the feeling of being somewhere that no one else has been before ... as though we’re members of an exploring party. Look—our ski tracks are the only sign of any humans about. No one has broken a trail up through here since Thursday!”
“Naturally not,” said Bill. “This is a little used road we’re standing on anyway. It probably won’t be cleared for several weeks yet.”
“Yes, but the main road was the same,” reminded Phil. “There weren’t any tracks a mile after we left town.”
“I guess you’re right,” Bill was forced to admit. “Well, then—we are alone! Pioneers, you might say ... blizzard trail blazers!”
The three chums laughed, directing their glances toward the town of Centerville, a black and white patch three miles below them. Their shack commanded an even better view, located as it was upon a ledge just beneath the brow of Mountain Ridge.
“Let’s get on to the shack,” urged Bill. “I’m cold. We could stand a good fire in that makeshift fireplace of ours.”
“Hold on!” cried Max, excitedly. “Did you say a minute ago that we were standing on the road?”
“Well, I should have said we were standing some eight feet above the road,” corrected Bill, “the snow’s sure filled in this bank here.”
“I’ll say it has!” Max rejoined, scraping with his ski across a blackened surface, “and it’s completely covered an automobile!”
“What?”
Unbelievingly, the two chums knelt down beside Max and felt with their hands.
“Good grief!” cried Phil. “We’re actually standing on the top!”
“Say—maybe this party got lost in the storm and froze to death in the car!” suggested Bill.
It was an unpleasant thought. Each chum felt his spine tingle uncomfortably.
“We’d better dig down and investigate,” decided Max. “Good thing I brought this collapsible snow shovel along!”
Unslinging the shovel, Max straightened out the handle and snapped it in place.
“We’ll take turns,” prompted Bill. “Boy, what do you know about this? Talk about a thrill!”
“It’s a sedan,” Max announced, a few minutes later. “Whew! Take the shovel, Phil!”
Quickly uncovering one side, the boys soon found themselves standing on the running board and scraping the snow from the ice-glazed windows.
“I almost hate to look in,” said Max. “It gives me the creeps.”
“Got to do it,” insisted Bill, and pressed his nose against the glass opposite the driver’s seat. “Pretty hard to see anything. The snow on the other side makes it dark in here. Pass us your flashlight, Phil.”
“Here you are!”
Max and Phil awaited Bill’s findings.
“Huh!” he grunted, finally. “It’s abandoned! Funny place to leave a car. There’s not a decent shelter within several miles of this spot. I wouldn’t be surprised if, when the snow disappears, some bodies will be found on old Mountain Ridge.”
“We’d better uncover the license number so we can report it when we get back to town,” suggested Max.
“Good idea!” approved Bill.
“It’s M-617-503,” Phil announced, after more digging and kicking the crusted snow off the plate. “Better make a note of it.”
“That’s what I’m doing,” said Max, producing pencil and paper. “I’ll bet this wasn’t the only car that was stalled by the storm and has been buried in drifts. We’ll probably hear of plenty of others when we get news from outside.”
“Yeah,” grinned Bill, “the farmers are probably entertaining a lot of stranded tourists along the main roads. Well, I’m glad we didn’t find anybody in the car. It would have sort of put a damper on our outing.”
“You said it,” agreed Phil. “Well, the sooner we hit the shack now, the better I’ll like it. I’m chilled through myself.”
Arrived at the highest point on the ridge, the chums gazed down upon the ledge below which supported their shack. This ledge sloped off steeply as the hill descended into the valley with several smaller hills serving to diminish the sharp decline. The hillside was sparsely covered with trees and underbrush and presented a picturesque sight at the moment.
“Look!” cried Phil. “The snow’s cleared away in front of our shack ... and there’s smoke coming out the chimney!”
The discovery left the two chums temporarily spellbound.
“It’s the automobile party without a doubt!” Bill gasped, finally. “They’ve found our shack and they’ve been snowed in. Lucky thing for them they could get under cover!”
“They must have about burned up our wood supply by now,” ruminated Max.
“And I’ll be surprised if they’re not close to starving,” added Phil. “Let’s go around and down to the ledge. Careful your skis don’t get away with you ... this is dangerous business along here.”
Edging down with great caution, the three chums skied onto the ledge and breathlessly approached the door of their shack which had been freed of snow as well as one window.
“Maybe they won’t be glad to be reached by someone!” whispered Max. “Shall I rap, Bill?”
“Sure,” grinned Bill, “it’s our shack but it’s occupied, so we’re just visitors.”
Max lifted his hand and tapped lightly on the door with the backs of his knuckles. There was an immediate stir inside and muffled voices. The chums glanced at each other questioningly as the door opened a crack and the gaunt figure of a man was disclosed who covered them with a revolver. When the stranger saw who it was, he gave vent to a hollow laugh and lowered the weapon.
“It’s just three kids,” he said to evident companions behind him. “Hello, boys—how the devil did you find this place?”
“It happens to be our shack,” replied Bill, nudging Phil and Max, warningly.
“Oh, ho! It does, eh?” said the man, eyeing them shrewdly and opening the door that his two roughly dressed comrades could see the visitors. “Well, we’re much obliged for a hideaway out of the storm!”
“You said it!” echoed the short, stocky man, bluntly.
“Been skiing, eh?” observed the third of the trio, a dark-skinned, dark-eyed individual. “I wondered how you got up here. Road open yet?”
“Everything’s closed,” Phil reported. “Worst storm in history. Don’t look like things would be really cleared for three or four days yet.”
The men were seen to be exchanging meaningful glances.
“Come in, boys!” invited the man who had opened the door. “Sorry we have to mess your place up.”
“We no can help,” apologized the stubby stranger.
“That’s all right,” assured Bill, warily. “We won’t come in, thanks. We just thought we’d have a look at the shack to see if it was okay before we went back to town.”
“You didn’t happen to bring any food with you, did you?” asked the first man.
“N-no,” Bill started.
“Yes, we did!” Phil piped up, and went into his knapsack, taking out a tissue-papered package, which he tossed to the man. “Here you are.”
Ravenously, the stranger tore the paper from the sandwiches and divided the food between his two companions.
“Thanks, Buddy!” he cried, amid a mouthful. “That just about saves our lives!”
“You goof!” whispered Bill, as the men attacked the food. “These birds are robbers! See those money bags in the corner?”
“Sure,” returned Phil. “I just did that to give us a chance to beat it. Come on—right down over the hillside!”
Taking advantage of the trio’s hunger for food, the three chums made a sudden, unexpected break for it. They whirled about on their skis, glided to the edge of the ledge and took-off down the slope, a hazardous venture.
“Hey! Stop! Come back here!” the ringleader yelled after them.
Bang! Bang! ... Bang! Bang! ... Bang!
Bullets sung past their ears, spotted tiny holes in the crusted snow, clipped branches off trees. Phil, losing his balance, toppled over and broke through the snow. Max, wavering in a wild attempt to avoid underbrush, crashed into a tree. Bill alone avoided mishap and continued on down the steep hillside.
“Go on Bill! Go on!” Max shrieked.
The men, raging mad, scrambled over the ledge and down the hillside in snow up to their armpits, endeavoring to overtake the two chums who had met with disaster.
“Don’t let ’em get our skis!” Phil cried to Max. “They can get away if you do! Shove ’em down the hill!”
With almost one motion, two pairs of skis were sent sliding, riderless, down the hillside. One of them caught against a log but the other three shot on and on, too far down to retrieve.
The short, stubby man was forced to call for help, with snow too deep for him. Extricated by the tall ringleader, he floundered back to the ledge while his two companions plunged on to capture Phil and Max.
“You boys will pay for this!” gasped the bandit chief as he grabbed them savagely by the collars. “What’s the idea of running away, huh? Go to tell on us, eh?”
Back on the ledge, the short, stubby man rushed into the shack and came out with a high-powered long range rifle. He knelt on one knee and sighted it after the diminishing figure of Bill Stewart who was descending the hill at a breakneck pace and just about to rush up an incline where his body would be a good target against the white snow.
“I get him!” cried the stocky bandit.
Max, heart palpitating, made a megaphone of his hands.
“Look out, Bill!” he shouted. “Stay off that hill! Stay off!”
His voice reverberated out over the hillside before his words were cut short by his being cuffed head first into the snow. Bill, hearing, swerved his skis to the side, turned them up on edge and took a tumbling, skidding spill. As he did so a rifle spat fire ... rat-tat-tat-tat ... but he dropped down out of sight behind a snow-covered clump of bushes. The bandit’s rifle shook snow from these bushes but Phil and Max, now mutely watching, saw Bill’s body appear as he crawled along on hands and knees, around rather than over the hill, pushing his skis ahead of him and offering the smallest kind of a target.
“He got away!” Phil murmured. “As soon as he gets on the other side the hill he’ll put his skis back on and keep right on toward town. He ought to be there in twenty minutes. What do you really think they’ll do to us?”
Max shook his head and glanced solemnly at the three desperadoes.
“I don’t know,” he said, in an undertone, “if this isn’t a swell outcome to a skiing party...!”
Reaching the outskirts of Centerville, Bill Stewart pushed forward toward the County Jail where police and sheriff offices were located. Arrived at the Jail, breathless and near exhaustion, he gasped out his story to an astounded sheriff.
“Wire service has just been resumed,” the sheriff informed. “Our first report was word from Boulder, fifty miles above, that just before the storm Friday, three men robbed the State Bank there....”
“Did anyone get the license number of the car?” asked Bill.
“Yes,” said the sheriff, “it’s....”
“M-617-503,” supplied Bill, from memory.
“That’s it!” cried the sheriff. “Say!... But the roads aren’t open yet. How are we going to get out to them?”
Bill thought a moment. “On skis!” he said. “There’s a lot of them in Slawson’s Hardware and Sporting Goods Store. Why don’t you...?”
“Now there’s an idea!” broke in Sheriff Marston. “You go inside and get a cup of hot coffee while I round up a posse ... because we’ll need you to lead the way!”
In fifteen minutes, thirty grim-faced men, all heavily armed with rifles and revolvers, trooped from the hardware store, each bearing a pair of brand new skis. An excited crowd of townspeople saw them off as they fell in behind Bill for the five mile winding trek up through the western hills to the top of Mountain Ridge.
“If the men are still in the shack,” Bill asked of Sheriff Marston, as he skied alongside, “how are you going to get at ’em without injuring Phil and Max?”
“It’s going to be ticklish business,” the sheriff admitted. “From all reports, these bandits will stop at nothing. But I’ve got a little object here that may help considerable.”
“What’s that?” asked Bill, curiously.
“That,” said Sheriff Marston, “is a tear gas bomb!”
“Here we are,” a tired Bill Stewart finally announced as he paused beside the half-buried bandit car. “See our ski tracks leading up to the ridge? The shack’s just below there. Some of you can go around the ridge one way and down to the ledge, some the other. If they’re still in the shack, and it looks like they are, their only chance of escape is straight down the hill and that’s no chance at all unless they have skis.”
“Fine!” said the Sheriff. “You men station yourselves as this lad says. He and I will go up above on the ridge and I’ll call down to those eggs to surrender. Don’t start firing unless I signal. We don’t want to risk the lives of the two boys with ’em ... if we can help it.”
“Poor Max and Phil,” thought Bill. “They’re in a tough spot. My part of this business is soft.”
“Hello, down there!” the Sheriff shouted when his men were in place.
There was a moment of tingling silence. Fingers twitched nervously against triggers.
“Hel-lo!” the Sheriff repeated, as he and Bill peered cautiously over the ridge, down upon the snow-covered shack. There was now no sign of smoke from the chimney.
Z-z-z-ing.
The two instinctively ducked back as a bullet screamed skyward.
“Well, we got an answer!” said the Sheriff as Bill looked his concern. Then, to the barricaded bandits: “You men are surrounded. Better walk out with your hands over your heads and give up peaceable.”
Another long, palpitating moment followed. Then the door to the shack was heard to open and Bill bit his lips with anxiety as Phil and Max appeared, hands over their heads, standing on the edge of the ledge overlooking the valley. They glanced up, appealingly at the sheriff and Bill.
“We’re being covered,” Phil informed. “Unless you beat it and leave three pair of skis for them to use, they’re going to shoot us.”
“They mean business,” Max confirmed. “They’ve got lots of ammunition. We’ll be killed if you don’t....”
Suddenly seized with an idea, Bill raised up and motioned to his two chums, imitating a dive off the ledge. Such a dive, Bill reasoned, would take the bandits by complete surprise. The ledge was steep enough so that the chums would immediately disappear from the range of fire ... and with the guns now trained on the shack, the bandits would not dare rush out to execute their threat of murder. Phil and Max nodded to indicate that they understood, both edging backward. Bill grasped the sheriff’s arm and conveyed by gestures what was about to be attempted.
“Three pair of skis,” the sheriff repeated. “Where do they want them...?”
Pushing themselves simultaneously off the ledge in what closely resembled backward swan dives, Phil and Max landed squirming in the snow below. There were oaths and angry exclamations from the shack and a fusillade of shots, all too late and too misdirected to do any damage.
“Keep the shack covered!” roared the sheriff. “Don’t let any of ’em out to take pot shots at the boys!”
This was the danger now as Phil and Max floundered all but helplessly in snow up to their necks.
“How good a tosser are you?” Sheriff Marston asked of Bill.
“Pretty fair,” Bill rejoined, wonderingly.
“Here,” said the sheriff, handing him the tear gas bomb. “See if you can toss this thing down that chimney. If you can that’ll take all the fight out of those babies!”
Bill took careful aim. He had the ludicrous thought that he was back on a basketball floor, with the aperture in the chimney a basketball hoop. He let go the bomb; it skimmed over the top, struck the other side, rebounded and disappeared within the black interior.
“Good boy!” commended Sheriff Marston. “Now watch what happens!”
A vapor suddenly curled up from the chimney. There came sounds of coughing and spitting and more cursing.
“They can’t stick it out in that small shack,” said the sheriff, confidently. “If they do, they’ll suffocate! That tear gas bomb had enough strength to clear a hall.”
In less than five minutes the shack door was wrenched open and the ringleader of the bandits staggered out, tears streaming down his face, one hand to his throat, the other extended toward the grayish heavens. He was followed by two gasping, stumbling comrades who breathed in the clear, cold air sobbingly. The posse closed in with guns drawn. In another minute the three bandits were submitting to handcuffs as Bill, hurrying below, helped Phil and Max back up on the ledge.
“Quite a skiing party you brought back with you,” grinned Phil.
“Talk about the thrills of winter time!” Max added.
“Thrills!” whistled Bill. “Say—who knows—maybe we’ve started something! You’ve heard of the motorcycle squad, the armored car, the mounted police and the sky patrol ... but here’s a new one—the ski police!”
The two chums laughed.
“Ski police!” they repeated, amused. “Fine—but who’ll organize ’em?”
“I will!” Bill volunteered, in a jocular mood now that the excitement was over, “and all the assistance I want from you fellows is to arrange for another snow like this one so we’ll have something to work on!”