“Went to San Francisco with an idea of going to China, or around the world, or something like that, to forget. Met him in the Palace barroom. Saved me. He’d just come back from the North, where he’d lost his sealing vessel. He said: ‘Why don’t you buy the Wanderer and do some exploring?’ ‘What’s the Wanderer,’ says I. ‘Strongest gasoline yacht in the world,’ he says. I began to pick up; life held interest, you know. Went to see the Wanderer. Belonged to old Harrison, the steel man, who’d done a world tour in her and wanted to sell. ‘Where’s a good place to explore if I do buy her?’ says I, and Brack told me about Petroff Sound. Ever hear of it before this, Gardy?”
“I’ve seen the name some place, nothing more.”
“I wired old Doc Harper about it after Brack had talked to me about the place. Asked if it would be a good stunt to go up there; credit to the old school to have a ‘grad’ get the bones, you know.”
“Bones?” I exclaimed.
“Bones,” said Chanler. “Read that,” and he handed me a long letter signed by the venerable president of our school.
The Petroff Sound territory unquestionably is a district which science demands be explored. Mikal Petroff, the Russian who in 1889 brought out the tibea of a mammoth, (elephas primigenius) and several bone fragments which certainly had belonged to an animal of characteristics similar to the extinct elephant species, was an illiterate fur-trader and therefore his report of a field of similar bones frozen in the never-thawing ice of the Sound must not be accepted as positive information.
In 1892, however, Sturlasson, the Norwegian captain, who reached the Sound after the wreck of his sealing vessel, made entries in his diary before dying which substantiate Petroff’s story. As the location of the Sound, as recorded by Sturlasson, is three minutes west of the location as given by your informant, it is certain that the latter knows of Petroff Sound. No nobler use could be found for your activity and wealth than the expedition you are considering. Before expressing myself further, I will give such data as is obtainable from sources at my command.
Dr. Harper’s data on Petroff Sound was deadly dry scientific matter which explained that while the possible discovery of frozen mammoth bones would be of great interest to the scientific world, the study of the terrain and of conditions surrounding these bones would be of infinitely greater value.
“Then it’s purely a scientific affair,” I said. “To be of any value it must be scientific.”
“Positively, dear boy, positively. I’ll give you a lot of stuff to read up on after luncheon. Old Harper took trouble to wire me to be sure to have an authentic, coherent report made of the expedition’s findings. Well, that’s where you came in. I haven’t got brains, but you have, Gardy, and you’re going to help me out. We sail tonight, by the way, and we won’t be back until cold weather, so ye who have tears prepare to shed them between now and midnight.”
“But who is the scientist of the expedition?”