In this thrilling adventure, Rick and Scotty travel up to Hudson Bay as guests of the Canadian Wildlife Service to test Rick's new tracking collar system on the famed Hudson Bay area polar bears. Strange events begin to plague the boys even before t...
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As the three dog sleds pulled closer to the observation tower, the teams of huskies began to bark furiously at the prostrate polar bear slumped at the foot of the steps. Rick and Scotty had side-stepped around it after descending the stairway, followed by Chess Rogers who had kept his gun aimed directly at them.
Rick grimaced now as he looked at the big bear. It appeared to be sleeping peacefully, its big snout pushed into the snow, back humped into the air, and hind legs squished against the bottom steps. The newly arrived men eyed it warily as they halted their sleds about fifteen feet away. Rick wished the bear would suddenly come to life, rear up and start roaring, and scare the living daylights out of them all.
Scotty was looking at the bear with grim annoyance, and then his gaze swept over to Rick and he shrugged his shoulders in desperation. Rick knew his friend was angry that they weren't right now gluing a Barby Bear Tracker collar around the animal's neck and painting a big bright number on its side. He felt the same way too, angry because they were missing out on their experiment and because it now seemed surely doomed - the Red Death had come once again to get them!
Chess Rogers, who had paid no attention at all to the sedated bear, not even giving it a cursory glance, greeted the three newcomers, big dark swarthy-faced men dressed in skins and furs with the adornments peculiar to the Metis. Rick found himself wondering if the man who was supposed to be their mentor really was Chess Rogers, the wildlife biologist, or perhaps only an impostor.
"Bon Dieu!" shouted one of the Metis men over the roar of the wind and the cries of the dogs. "Le Nanook! Will he awake, mon ami?"
"Non! Don't worry about it," Chess snapped back, impatiently. He stooped over to pick up the rifle he had dropped off the deck and tossed it to the man who had spoken. "We'll be long gone before this bear comes back to life. I put double doses in the darts." He laughed contemptuously. "Maybe it'll even kill the darn thing."
Rick and Scotty exchanged glances once again at the man's show of vitriol, then eyed all four of them, wondering what was to come next. The three men behind the sleds looked like the same ones who had chased after Pierre into the railroad restaurant at The Pas, but the boys couldn't be sure about it. Rick wondered where they had come from if they were indeed the same men from The Pas, how they had gotten up to the Churchill area so quickly. Or were they different men who had been staying in town, or in a cabin along the railroad line, or camping out in the bush awaiting the boys' arrival at the tower on the tundra?
Each sled was pulled by a team of a half-dozen dogs. One was laden with cargo covered by blankets and robes of fur, tied down tightly with colorful rope. The other two sleds were almost empty of cargo and it suddenly flashed into Rick's mind what would soon be loaded onto them.
His fists clenched and he narrowed his eyes at Chess Rogers, then shouted, "The bear tracking system! You're going to steal it. I bet you're not even a wildlife biologist. Just a .... a .... two-bit crook!"
