Dubious activities of Junior Woodchucks? (Re: Barks quiz)

[Daniel van Eijmeren]

BERNARD SLAA to NILS SMEBY, 23-11-2003:

>> "I see the eastbound bus from Duckburg is pulling in." Which
>> Barks story?
 
> Is it W WDC 221-01 ("Tracking Sandy"). The story where Donald 
> and the nephews are following a JW general for his goldmine? 

Indeed, it's panel 4.7. I would never have guessed this quote.

I find this story a bit strange. It seems to me that general Sandy is 
using gold dust that belongs to Scrooge. That sounds like an *illegal* 
activity to me.

Did Barks base this story on an existant real-life law, or something?
A law that makes it possible to collect material that someone else is 
losing? That would seem to me like I can keep everything, as long as 
it happens to fall onto my property, in this case a mine. 

Even if there's such a law, I would expect an Junior Woodchuck officer 
to be wiser than raising money in a dubious way. Wouldn't a honorable 
Junior Woodchuck have felt obliged to find out where the gold dust is 
coming from, and then honestly tell the owner about the leak? Instead, 
this officer is secretly collecting the gold dust, using lots of tricks.

At the end of the story, Donald tells Daisy that the Junior Woodchuck 
science hall has been built from Scrooge's money. This information 
seems to suggest that Scrooge kept his promise of paying for the 
science hall, as reward for learning more about Sandy's mine. And 
maybe Scrooge gladly paid, because at the same time, he learns that he 
is losing lots of gold dust through a leak.

But if this is what happened, it isn't really very obvious. I think 
it's easy to conclude that the Junior Woodchuck science hall has been 
paid with Scrooge gold dust *directly*, without telling Scrooge 
anything about Sandy's "mine". 

And, at least, this is exactly what would have happened if Scrooge 
would *not* have promised a reward for finding Sandy's mine.

I'm very curious for comments.

--- Daniël

"In a few minutes I'll be GONE without a trace!"
Which Barks story?