The young pilot’s mind became a battle field of conflicting emotions. Safety, sure reward, the good of his company, his own personal glory seemed to lie upon the side of his nature that whispered: “Keep straight on. Let them go their way.”
“And there is the pitchblende, the radium,” he said aloud.
At the same time he appeared to hear a voice say, “Times come in our lives when the good of scores, hundreds, perhaps thousands we have never seen, may never see, drives from our minds that which seems good for us and those best known to us. When that time comes we must act for the good of all.”
“Who said that?” he asked himself. He could not answer. Somewhere in the past it had been stowed away in the recesses of his mind. Now here it was. It was as if God had spoken.
“Jerry,” he shouted, “we’ve got to go after them! Follow them to the end. Find their hide-out. Bring them to justice!”
“Absolutely!” Jerry turned his face about to display a broad grin. “Absolutely, son!”
CHAPTER III
TRAILING THE GRAY STREAK
Still endeavoring to think through the things which Johnny Thompson had revealed to her, Joyce Mills rode home beneath the great, golden Arctic moon.
More than once she murmured: “One of them is a thief. But how could he be?”
Three weeks spent in the company of very few persons in the lonely land of the North reveals much. In three weeks, under such conditions, he is a sly person indeed who does not reveal his true nature. Joyce had believed that by this time she knew the young men of her camp as well as she did Johnny Thompson, Drew Lane, or any other person with whom she had been closely associated.