“Did he say how many?” Sandy asked.
“Maybe six.”
Jerry clapped his mittened hands together. “And there are five of us. Those aren’t bad odds.”
“In a fair fight,” Sandy corrected him. “But from what I’ve heard and seen of these guys, they probably have no idea of fighting fair.”
The sun went down early, but this night was clear and the sky was full of stars, so they drove on for quite a while after dark. At five-thirty they came to a weather station near Lake Muncho. It was a small place, manned by three technicians, and although the five guests really crowded their quarters, the weathermen were very hospitable.
“You chaps are lucky,” the man in charge told them. “This high-pressure area should be with us for the rest of the week. You’ll have fine weather all the way to Alaska.”
“Gosh,” said Jerry, when he saw the small pine tree trimmed with tinsel and colored balls and lights that stood in one corner of the shack’s main room. “I almost forgot—this is Christmas Eve.”
“It doesn’t seem like it, somehow,” Sandy said, feeling a slight twinge of homesickness. “Not without Mom’s turkey dinner and presents and Christmas carols.”
“Christmas isn’t turkey and presents and chimes,” Professor Crowell observed. “It’s what you feel in the heart.”
“You’re right, sir,” Sandy admitted. Then he grinned. “I guess Jerry and I are still kids at heart.”