“And you didn’t see the thief at all?” asked Dick, gravely concerned.
Toma shook his head vigorously. “Him come an’ go like bad spirit. No hear, no see. I no like that kind thief.”
Dick was puzzled at first, then spoke: “Sandy, I have an idea this is more of the white Eskimo’s work. He could have got away pretty quietly if he was a good hand with dogs, as I suppose he is. I’m certain now that Fred Mistak and the ‘white Eskimo’ are the same person. We’ll find out.”
“In the meantime, let’s eat,” said Sandy.
Dick discovered that he had as keen an appetite as Sandy when in their cozy igloo he found a tasty meal prepared by Toma. Both boys were too tired to join the Eskimos, who in spite of the theft of the dog team, set out to skin and cut up the polar bears, leaving the camp deserted except for the three boys. Dick and Sandy were later to learn that not even a funeral could stand between an Eskimo and his hunting. When there was meat to be had the natives dropped everything until the last bit of it was safely stored away. For wild meat was their only staple diet—all that kept them from starving to death, and during the real winter they could hunt but little.
The boys had finished their supper and were relating to Toma, in detail, their narrow escape from the mad polar bear, when the barking dogs and the sound of familiar voices interrupted them. They tumbled out of the igloo to find Corporal McCarthy and Constable Sloan. The policemen had just returned from a long, fruitless trek eastward, and the Corporal had frosted his feet.
What the boys had to say about the stolen dog team was of especial interest to the officers.
“Without a doubt Fred Mistak is hiding near here,” commented Corporal McCarthy, when comfortably seated in the boys’ igloo, with his bare feet in a pan of snow to draw out the frost. “So far, I’ll have to admit we’ve done little better than nothing, but we’ll hope for better luck tomorrow——” Corporal McCarthy did not finish his sentence.
A hoarse cry at the entrance of the igloo was the interruption, and into their midst tumbled an Eskimo, gibbering in a frightful manner, and groveling on the floor as if he had lost his mind.
In the jumble of native words was audible the frequent ejaculation: “Angekok! Angekok!”
“Him one them three go after fella what steal dog team!” Toma suddenly exclaimed.
“What!” cried Corporal McCarthy. “Sloan,” he wheeled toward the Constable, “go out and see if the other two have returned alright.”
Constable Sloan was out and back in a few moments. “Not a sign of anyone around—no dog team either,” the Constable reported quietly.
McCarthy’s face took on a grave expression, and his jaws hardened. “Ask the Eskimo what scared him?” he directed Constable Sloan.
By this time the Eskimo had somewhat recovered his natural calm, yet he frequently looked fearfully toward the igloo entrance, as if he feared something was coming in to get him.
The Constable’s questions were brief and the Eskimo’s answers prompt, though his voice trembled from fright.
“The Eskimo says it was the ‘white Eskimo’ that attacked them,” Constable Sloan reported presently. “He says his two companions were killed and the dogs taken.”
A deep silence fell upon all who had heard Constable Sloan’s words. It was several seconds before Corporal McCarthy spoke rapidly:
“Get ready for the trail. We leave here just as soon as we get a few hours’ sleep. I’m going to enlist Sipsa as a guide, and I’ll get my man if I have to trail him clear to the North Pole!”
It was thirty below zero the following morning when two teams of twelve dogs, each drawing sledges, loaded with supplies, departed from the little village of igloos. The warm breath from man and dog turned to vapor in the freezing air, and all were enveloped in a cloud of steam as they trekked eastward along the coastline.
Corporal McCarthy had found Sipsa willing to lead the party and had also enlisted the aid of two Eskimo dog drivers, Okewah and Ootanega. The policeman had promised all of them large rewards in tools, rifles, and tents, provided they served him faithfully in pursuit of the “white Eskimo.”
“I wonder how soon we’ll pick up the trail,” Sandy spoke from the depths of his frost-rimmed parka.
“No telling,” replied Dick through a cloud of steam, “we’re now following the tracks made by the Eskimo who came in last half scared to death. Corporal McCarthy believes these tracks will lead to the place where the white Eskimo and his men attacked those three Eskimos who went after the stolen dog team.”
The boys said no more then for the fast pace at which they were traveling took all their breath. For two hours they drove eastward across the snowfields under a gray cloud filmed sky. At the end of this time they came to a narrow defile between huge blocks of ice that had been thrown up by the waves at high tide. They threaded their way among the ice cakes for about a hundred yards when they came upon the scene of a terrible tragedy.
“It’s the two Eskimos that failed to come back last night!” Dick’s horrified exclamation was echoed by Sandy while the two policemen and the Eskimos bent over the two huddled forms in the snow.
The Eskimos had been killed, and all about them were signs of a deadly struggle. One sledge had been crushed, and its packing torn up and rifled of supplies. Two dogs lay dead, and prowling foxes had torn them to bits.
“If this isn’t the work of Fred Mistak, then I don’t know my name!” Corporal McCarthy cried, shaking his fist at the white silent hills. “But we’ll get him, we’ll get him, and he’ll pay a big price!”
Dick and Sandy thrilled at the words, and hastened to lend a hand to the burial of the bodies.
Two typical Eskimo graves were made by heaping small boulders upon the dead natives in a cairn-like mound, which would keep away the foxes, which had as yet scarcely harmed them, probably because the dogs had satisfied them for the present. To agree with the superstitions of the Eskimos the sledges, weapons and other paraphernalia of the deceased were buried with the dead.
“Now that sorry business is over,” Corporal McCarthy addressed the somber company, “we’ll pick up Mistak’s trail and see how fast we can mush. Every man of you keep watch for an ambush. This fellow is about as desperate as they make them, and we’ve already had a taste of his treachery. It’s our hide or his and let’s be careful it’s his. Mush on!”
Once more the dogs buckled into the harness and the long Eskimo whips lashed and crackled over many bobbing, white tails.
But it was a weary, half-frozen company that camped late that night without sighting the mysterious person they pursued. Dick and Sandy were almost too tired to be hungry once they had thrown up their tupik, or Eskimo tent made of sealskins. Not until they had drunk several cups of hot tea, an indispensable drink in the far north, did they feel anywhere near themselves, and could discuss the doings of the day while munching hard biscuit and pemmican.
“I wonder where this trail will end?” Sandy ventured dubiously.
“Wish I knew,” rejoined Dick, “but I think the ‘white Eskimo’ will lead us on a real old wild goose chase. He knows more about this country than any of us, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he knew the lay of the land better than any of these Eskimo guides. Anyway the Eskimos can’t be of much use in tracking that fellow because they believe the ‘white Eskimo’ is an Angekok, or devil. They’re so superstitious that if we once got very close to the fellow we’re chasing, they’d probably lead us astray or run off and leave us alone.”
“I guess they believe in ghosts alright,” agreed Sandy, pouring another cup of tea.
Dick was about to continue the discussion, when he chanced to look through the opening of their tupik.
“Look at that!” he grasped Sandy’s arm tensely.
What Dick saw was their three Eskimo hands gathered before their tupik in a private council of some secret purpose. The native drivers were gesturing excitedly with their hands and heads, evidently arguing with Sipsa, the guide.
“The drivers seem to be ready to quit right now, the way they act,” observed Sandy.
“Well, we can’t go far without them, at least, without a guide. I ought to tell Corporal McCarthy about this.”
However, no more were the words out of Dick’s mouth than the police Corporal approached the three Eskimos and scattered them to various tasks.
Presently the Corporal joined the boys in their tent and confirmed their fears. “I’m afraid these Eskimos will desert us if we don’t keep close watch of them,” said the policeman. “We’ll all have to take turns on watch tonight, tired as we are. I think Sipsa still is loyal, but the other two are doing their best to make him desert. The ‘white Eskimo’ certainly has them scared.”
It was twelve o’clock when Dick Kent’s turn came to stand watch, and it was with some difficulty that he shook the sleep out of his eyes when Constable Sloan spoke to him.
“Don’t think we’ll have any trouble tonight after all,” the Constable reassured him. “The Eskimos seem pretty quiet, but be ready for anything and don’t hesitate to call McCarthy and me if anything unusual turns up. Good night.”
Dick shivered as he took his post at the entrance of the tupik with rifle in his mittened hands. The dogs were quarreling among themselves where they were leashed to the sledges, and from the Eskimos’ tupik came the muffled sound of voices. They did not seem as quiet now as Constable Sloan had reported them. They were speaking in their native tongue and Dick could not understand what they were talking about.
“I’ll just keep close watch of their tent,” he murmured to himself. “If any of them try to sneak away I’ll call the policemen.”
An hour passed, the Eskimos quieting down and apparently falling asleep. The vast silence of the far north brooded over the little encampment, when Dick detected, out of the corner of his eye, a movement beyond the huddled dogs. It was like a small animal that had moved across the top of a snowdrift. Dick’s heart skipped a beat as he strained his eyes to catch sight of whatever had appeared.
A dog growled, and Dick spoke quietly to the big huskies, getting up and going to them. The leader of the team, a giant malemute, was sitting up, his ears alert, and his nose wriggling as he sniffed the air uneasily.
“What is it, old boy?” whispered Dick. “What do you see?”
The malemute growled ominously in answer, his hair rising along his back as he scented some sort of danger.
Dick looked carefully about camp again, seeking the cause for the dog’s uneasiness, but all seemed peaceful enough. Impulsively, he decided to walk out to the drift where he had seen the suspicious movement, thinking he would find there the tracks of some animal.
The drift was only about fifty yards from the sledges where the dogs were tied, and Dick soon reached it. About to go around the drift and investigate, a weird, low call from behind him brought him to an abrupt halt, the blood congealing in his veins at the strangeness of the sound. He turned and looked back at camp. There came a soft swishing sound from the snowdrift he had been about to inspect, and he whirled to see a dark form bearing down upon him. His startled cry was cut off sharply as something hard descended forcefully upon his head and he went down in the snow, thousands of stars blazing before his eyes.
But Dick had not been knocked entirely unconscious. He lay still a moment until his senses came back to him, feeling the person who had attacked him leap over him and toward camp. Then came the cries of the aroused camp, mingled with the barking dogs, and above all the shriek of a frightened Eskimo, followed by a wail of fear.
Struggling to his feet, Dick saw Corporal McCarthy taking aim at two fleeing figures, and heard his rifle crack. But the policeman was firing into the air, merely to frighten the attackers.
Sipsa was struggling in the strong arms of Constable Sloan, and from the mouthings of the frightened native Dick could make out that Sipsa had seen the “white Eskimo.”
“Where are the drivers?” Dick shouted to Sandy who was standing as if stunned, his rifle held in his hands.
Sandy seemed to regain his wits at that and dived for the Eskimos’ tupik along with Dick. They almost collided with Toma coming out of the tent.
“Um gone,” said Toma, “Um run away when seen um ‘white Eskimo.’”
The truth of Toma’s statement was soon revealed when a search of the camp and the vicinity revealed no sign of the two drivers, other than their tracks in the snow.
“Well,” said Corporal McCarthy, “I guess the ‘white Eskimo’ knows how to scare the wits out of the natives. I don’t suppose there’s any use for us to chase our guides. They’d be of no further use anyway. I hope Sipsa doesn’t take it into his head to follow them when he gets a chance to break away.”
“We’re lucky to have whole skins,” Constable Sloan remarked.
“My head feels as if it was too big for my parka,” said Dick, manfully fighting off a dizzy spell.
“Hurry into your tent and I’ll get the medicine kit,” said Corporal McCarthy. “I want to get going again in an hour anyway. We ought to locate some more drivers tomorrow, and if possible, overtake Mistak, the ‘white Eskimo,’ before he gets another lead on us.”
Dick’s head wound proved not serious. His heavy parka had protected his scalp from the blow, which had probably been made with a spear butt. There was, however, a large lump about the size of an egg over his left temple, and it was rather sore. But the young northman would not think of delaying the pursuit, and speedily forgot his slight wound as he hustled about making tea, while Sandy and Toma lent willing hands with the packs and dog harnesses.
Within an hour dog and man had partaken of an early breakfast and were mushing grimly along a fresh trail under the midnight sun.
“This was a wise move on our part,” Dick told Sandy as they woddled along on their snowshoes. “Mistak won’t expect us to start out so soon and we’ve a good chance to overtake him.”
“I get the creeps whenever I think of that Eskimo stealing into camp that way,” rejoined Sandy. “Suppose he is a kind of a devil.”
“Nonsense,” replied Dick, “just because these poor, superstitious Eskimos are frightened is no sign you should be. I’ll admit he’s a dangerous character, but he’s no more than a human being, and the mounted will get him in the end.”
Sandy was about to reply when an exclamation from one of the policemen silenced him.
They had come out on the rim of an ice-bound ridge and below them stretched a vast valley bounded by the sea on the north and filled with age-old ice formations.
Directly below them were two dog teams, the drivers of which had apparently not yet detected the mounted police.
Dick and Sandy could not forbear a cheer as Corporal McCarthy called for full speed ahead and they drove the dogs yelping down the slope toward the fugitives from justice. At that moment it looked very much as if Fred Mistak’s career of outlawry were doomed already, and the boys prepared themselves for a battle.
When Dick and Sandy sighted the dog team of what they believed to be the “white Eskimo,” it could not have been more than a half a mile away, though distances in the north are deceptive.
“We ought to catch up with them in twenty minutes,” Constable Sloan had said.
But they were not so fortunate. Either the “white Eskimo” had seen his pursuers and was therefore driving faster, or his dogs were faster at a normal pace of travel than the police dogs. At any rate, after thirty minutes, fast driving they were bumping along over a rough ice floor, the team ahead nowhere in sight.
“It can’t be far to the sea shore now, can it?” panted Sandy.
“No,” Dick replied, “we are probably traveling across a frozen bay now. The ice may be hundreds of feet thick here, you know, and the sun never gets warm enough to melt that much ice.”
“It takes awfully cold weather to freeze salt water,” Sandy opined.
“I should say it does!” agreed Dick emphatically, “but you know most of the ice around here is from old glaciers, and is fresh water ice. The glaciers slide down to the sea shore and break off, making ice-bergs and huge ice floes.”
“Hey! Look out!” Sandy’s cry of warning came too late. Dick had been so interested in his explanation of the ice formations that he had not noticed how close he was to a treacherous slope of glassy ice. He slipped, and before he could catch himself he had whizzed down, flat on his back, to come up with a bump in a hard snowdrift at the bottom of the slope.
“Are you hurt?” called Sandy anxiously, as Dick crawled out of the snow, sat up and began shaking himself.
“No, but I’ve got my parka full of snow,” Dick called back, “and it’s not a very pleasant feeling with melted snow trickling down your chest.”
The policemen had stopped upon seeing Dick’s accident, and they now waited until he had climbed back up the slippery slope before they went on.
Dick was not much the worse for the spill in the snow, since the heat of his body under the warm clothing soon dried up the snow that had seeped in. He forgot the accident in anticipation of the excitement ahead, for at any moment all hands expected to sight the dog team of Fred Mistak.
A breeze had sprung up, blowing in their faces, and they all could feel the nearness of the sea by the dampness in the air. Then, suddenly, they rounded a huge heap of snow-covered ice to come upon a vast bay of open water and a most discouraging sight. A mile out to sea, in native boats, they could see their quarry vanishing toward a snow-capped, rocky island.
Even as they watched they saw one tiny figure raise up and wave a defiant hand at them.
“Well, he’s flown the coop this time,” said Corporal McCarthy through his teeth, “but we’re not beaten yet—not by a long shot. Sloan, bring Sipsa here.”
Dick and Sandy followed the Constable and the Eskimo guide to Corporal McCarthy’s side.
“Tell Sipsa we must get Eskimo boats immediately,” was the policeman’s command. “Enough boats to carry all of us along with our provisions, dogs, and sledges.”
When Sloan had explained this to Sipsa, the Eskimo shook his head at first, but finally seemed to offer some encouragement.
“He says he’s not sure he can find any Eskimos very near here,” Sloan turned to Corporal McCarthy. “But he’ll try. He says we’ll have to take a chance following the coast line.”
“Alright, then, we’ll take the chance. We’ve got to have boats.”
But luck was with them, for they had not gone on a mile when they came upon a dozen igloos in a sheltered nook. The tribesmen were at sea, hunting seals, and the women were scattered along the shore skinning and cutting up the meat.
“We are in luck in some ways,” called Constable Sloan, cheerfully, as they drew up at the igloos. “Now if we can only trade these fellows out of a few native boats, we’ll be luckier still. Here comes a couple of men.”
The two Eskimos approaching from the beach, were evidently not at all afraid of the white men, for they came up smiling, perfectly unconscious that they put forth a bad appearance with their clothing covered with seal blubber, grease and blood.
Sipsa immediately began talking with them, Sloan permitting him to do the dickering for the boats.
When the policemen had opened one of the packs and revealed some fine, shiney knives, kettles, and axes, the Eskimos became greatly interested, and one of them ran off to call the rest of the tribe.
Presently they were all down at the sea shore looking over the native boats, or kayacks. Corporal McCarthy picked out one serviceable looking kayack, and two umiacks, or large boats, for the dogs and supplies. The kayack was about twenty feet long and twenty inches wide, covered with water proofed skins, and made to seat one person in a hole in the center, over which was a flap that could be buttoned around the chin, making the boat almost water tight, even though it were capsized. The umiacks were, however, flat-bottomed, hollow, and were ordinarily used in transporting women, children, and household goods by water. Corporal McCarthy gave the Eskimo owners a large collection of knives, pots and hatchets for the boats and they seemed very well pleased with the trade.
“I’ll take the kayack,” instructed Corporal McCarthy. “Sloan, you and the Indian lad take one of the umiacks and Dick, Sandy, and Sipsa the other. If we get a move on we can get our equipment loaded before Mistak gets too much of a start. He took his dogs so we’ll have to take ours.”
Not more than a half hour later Dick and Sandy and the Eskimo guide put to sea in their umiack, a crude sail of caribou hide stiffening in the breeze, while they plied a paddle to add to their speed. Constable Sloan and Toma followed immediately in the other umiack, while the Corporal settled himself in the kayack, the last of the three.
Corporal McCarthy soon passed the heavily loaded umiacks in his faster and lighter boat and signaled them to follow him.
“Watch out for the ice bergs and floes,” called the corporal. “If you see a walrus, don’t shoot unless you’re attacked.”
The three boats strung out in a line headed toward the glacial island where they believed Mistak would land. In Dick and Sandy’s boat were half the dogs and the two sledges, along with the stoves and liquid fuel. It was a heavy load for the unwieldy umiack, and Dick was not long in discovering that the dangers in arctic navigation were not to be scoffed at. Though from a distance the water seemed free from ice, close at hand the bergs could be seen rolling along, either submerged, or just above the water. Sipsa took a position in the prow of the umiack, where, with a long pole, he fended off the larger ice blocks. In the stern Dick plied a paddle, while in the center Sandy took care of the dogs and saw that the cargo did not slip to one side and capsize the craft.
All went well until they reached rougher water a quarter mile from the shore. Here an ocean current carried them eastward in spite of all they could do. Sandy fashioned himself a paddle from a snow shoe covered with a piece of seal skin, and did all he could to help Dick in the uneven struggle, but they moved steadily eastward toward a low headland that marked that boundary of the bay. The island that was their destination now lay several miles northwest of them, and a floe separated the two umiacks. Corporal McCarthy was having all he could do to manage his kayack, which was being considerably buffeted about by the waves and ice.
“Maybe we’ll strike another current when we get close to that headland east of us,” called Dick from the stern.
“I hope so,” replied Sandy dubiously. “This sail isn’t doing us much good now though. The wind seems to have gone down suddenly.”
At that moment Sipsa, the Eskimo guide, rammed his pole at a submerged ice berg, and the pole slipped down into the water, forcing Sipsa to lose his balance.
Dick’s cry of warning did no good. The Eskimo did the best he could to keep his balance, then toppled head foremost into the chilly water.
“Quick, help him in, Sandy!” cried Dick, “while I hold the boat as steady as I can.”
Sandy dropped his paddle and hurried to the prow where Sipsa was struggling about in the water. The Eskimo still retained a tight grip on his pole, which had been the cause of his fall, and Sandy got a grip on this. Soon Sipsa crawled, gasping and gurgling, into the umiack.
“Whew, close shave that!” exclaimed Sandy.
“And maybe he’ll freeze to death from that wetting,” Dick added. “Sandy, you’d better get one of the heaters started so he can dry off.”
But Sipsa, hardy Eskimo that he was, made it known, by various signs, that he needed no heater, and took up his former position as if nothing had happened. While the ducking might have been fatal for Dick or Sandy, it meant little to the guide since the season was what he called summer.
Once off the headland the current swept them northward as they had hoped, and also a breeze sprang up from the open sea. The sail filled and they began to make time toward the island. The floe which had separated the umiacks had passed on and Dick and Sandy could see Toma and Constable Sloan coming along safely a quarter mile behind. Corporal McCarthy was within speaking distance again and his voice boomed out over the water.
“Watch out for walrus! There’s a big bull in here somewhere. Steer clear of him if you can.”
The moment was a tense one for Dick and Sandy. Many a story they had heard of these giant inhabitants of the Polar Sea, and to meet one in his native haunts was something they feared, yet hoped to experience.
Dick’s eyes were fixed upon the water near at hand when something dark welled up out of the clear blue depths and shot past the boat.
“There he is!” he cried.
“Sure it was a walrus?” Sandy hazarded breathlessly.
“It must have been. It had big flippers and I think I saw tusks like an elephant’s.”
“Maybe it was your imagination.”
But what happened next assured Sandy that Dick had not been using his imagination. A dark form heaved up out of the water almost under Sipsa’s ice pole. The umiack rocked dangerously and nearly upset the Eskimo. The boys got a clear look at the walrus this time for just a moment as the huge creature reared out of the water and looked at them before it sunk out of sight in a whirlpool of bubbles.
Sandy snatched up his rifle, but Dick warned him to hold fire until it was absolutely necessary.
“Was that the walrus?” called Corporal McCarthy backing water with his paddle.
“You bet it was,” Dick shouted, “and if he’d been two feet nearer he’d have turned us over—hey!”
Dick said no more for at that instant the umiack, with its heavy load, was hoisted upward out of the water from the impact of a powerful body underneath. Sipsa tumbled backward from the prow, falling in among the whimpering dogs. Sandy and Dick clung to their seats while the boat dropped back to the water with a heave and splash. Fortunately, the umiack settled to an even keel without taking in too much water. But scarcely had they recovered from the nearly disastrous effects of the walrus’s first attack, when Sipsa shouted a warning from the stern.
“There he is again—coming at us from the front!” shouted Sandy, throwing up his rifle as Dick snatched up his own.
As Dick took aim at the rushing mass of fur, tusks, and flippers, he saw Corporal McCarthy level his rifle from the kayack. The three rifles boomed almost as one. The walrus, hit hard, swerved and rolled in his mad attack, and in a whirl of water sank out of sight, leaving a red blot in the water behind him.
“He’s been wounded badly, if not killed,” said Sandy pointing at the blood in the water.
“I hope he’ll leave us alone anyway, but if he don’t——” Dick tightened his grip on his rifle.
For several minutes they watched, guns ready, for a renewal of the bull walrus’s attack, but the water disclosed no angry monster.
“I guess he’s had enough,” called Corporal McCarthy, “let’s get going. Do you see what’s coming up from the east?”
Dick and Sandy looked as the policeman directed, and their hearts jumped as if a hundred walruses were bearing down upon them, for, not a mile distant, a dense Arctic fog was floating swiftly toward them, like a wall of gray smoke.
“A fog!” cried Dick. “Get that paddle, Sandy! If we ever get caught in that fog we’ll be lost sure!”
After they had first sighted the fog it did not seem more than five minutes before they were enveloped in it. They could not see ten feet ahead of them, and the only way they had of knowing they were near one another was by shouting. The wind lulled almost immediately and the umiack began to drift straight north. In a few moments all hands were wet to the skin. All around them the icebergs and floes ground together with growling, grating noises, like so many fierce animals.
“Ahoy, there!” came the muffled bellow of Corporal McCarthy through the heavy mist.
“Here!” shouted Dick at the top of his lungs, the fog seeming to throw the sound of his voice back into his face.
“Keep paddling to the right—against the current,” came the Corporal’s command. “Sing out every few minutes so we can keep track of each other.”
“Alright,” shouted Dick, and behind came the fainter sound of Constable Sloan’s voice from the other umiack.
Progress now became dangerous indeed. The boats seemed to have floated into a patch of broken ice that threatened every minute to crush the frail umiacks like so much match wood. Then, too, Corporal McCarthy’s shouts were growing fainter at every repetition.
“We’re losing ground,” called Dick to Sandy. “Work harder. Keep moving to the right!”
“That’s what I’m trying to do,” called back Sandy from the center of the boat, “but there’s a big floe pushing us to the left. We can’t seem to get around it. Sipsa is doing all he can to keep us from getting smashed up from the left. Look out!”
Sandy’s warning shout was accompanied by a violent jar that shook the umiack from bow to stern.
“We’ve hit solid ice on the left!” cried Sandy. “We’ll be smashed between two floes.”
Dick leaped up and, leaning over the side of the umiack, pushed on the ice that was threatening to crush them against the floating ice on their right.
But his efforts were of no avail. The umiack shuddered as if about to collapse under the pressure, then seemed to rise out of the water.
“The ice has shoved under us!” cried Dick, much relieved.
Dick was right. Luckily, the flat bottomed umiack had grounded on the flat ice pushing against her starboard side, and the higher ice on the lee was pushing her farther over. Presently they were almost entirely out of the water, the umiack half on the ice floe and floating along with it.
“We can’t stay on this ice,” called Sandy. “It will carry us out to sea and we’ll be lost.”
Dick thought rapidly. It was a moment for quick decision and daring action.
“Sandy,” he cried, his mind made up, “stick by the boat. I’m going out on this floe and shove us off as soon as we get to open water on one side!”
“You’ll be drowned!” wailed Sandy.
“Got to take a chance,” was Dick’s exclamation as he leaped over the gunwale of the umiack to the slippery surface of the fragment of floe upon which they had been lifted.
“Tell me as soon as you see open water on the left,” shouted Dick to Sandy. “That’s the only way we can get off this floe. I can’t move the umiack to the other side.”
“Alright—wait,” Sandy replied tensely.
There followed many moments of suspense when each heart beat seemed painful. Little that Dick knew of the northern seas, it was enough to make the truth clear to him. If the floe they had grounded upon joined with the ice on the left, and the entire mass continued to move, they would be carried out to sea and lost on an ocean where few ships had ever navigated. It had been several minutes since they had heard the voice of Corporal McCarthy, and Constable Sloan’s shouts were barely audible behind and far to the east. Proof enough that the ice was carrying them out beyond the headland that marked the end of the bay. Tensely Dick waited, digging his boots into little chinks of ice, ready to push off at a word from Sandy.
“Watch out!” Sandy’s low exclamation steeled Dick’s muscles. “We’re breaking loose from the other ice. The crack is getting wider. Wait a minute! Alright, let her go!”
Dick drew a deep breath and bent all his strength upon the heavy umiack. There came a slight grating sound, a lurch and the umiack, with its heavy load, slid from the floe into the sea, as Dick leaped into the stern with a cry of relief.
But his relief was short lived, for when he lifted his voice to shout to the other boats, there was no reply. Again and again he shouted, until his voice was hoarse, listening intently in the intervals. Not even Sloan’s voice was audible now.
“We must be way out of the course,” Sandy said, discouraged.
Dick’s spirits fell also, then when he was about to give up shouting, he caught the sound of a voice again.
“There—that’s Constable Sloan,” Dick said tensely.
“But it’s funny—he seems to be on the left of us,” Sandy came back.
They listened again, often shouting together. This time they were amazed to hear the faint call from slightly to the right and ahead.
“That must be Corporal McCarthy,” Dick hazarded.
“No, I think it sounded like Constable Sloan,” Sandy disagreed. “But how could he get over on the right so soon?”
“It’s the fog, I guess,” Dick returned. “The sounds are deceiving. Anyway, we’re certain this floe on our right is between us and the island. We’ll have to keep on working ahead until we can get around it.”
“You know what I think, Dick?” Sandy’s voice was exceedingly sober.
“Well, what do you think? I’m at my wit’s end myself.”
“This floe has caught on a larger block of ice somewhere on the other side and it has been turning slowly. Dick, we don’t know where we’re at now.”
“I hope you’re wrong,” Dick hastily rejoined, renewing his efforts at the paddle.
The boys now proceeded to bury their misgivings in hard work on the paddles. Sipsa continued his work at the prow of the craft, his expert handling of the pole avoiding many a dangerous ice jam. Yet as the minutes passed and they failed again and again to raise even a faint shout from the balance of the company, they became certain that they were floating out to sea.
“Oh, if this fog would only lift!” Dick prayed.
They worked on for what seemed to them an hour longer, but which actually could not have been more than fifteen minutes, when it seemed that Dick’s prayer was about to be answered.
“It’s getting lighter, isn’t it?” Sandy said hoarsely, almost afraid to believe his eyes.
“I believe you’re right,” Dick answered, cheering up.
Slowly the fog thinned until they could see almost a hundred feet around them, then, as swiftly as it had enveloped them, the fog bank passed over, leaving them half blinded by the sudden glare of sunlight. Dick and Sandy cried out with joy, and rose up in the umiack to look about.
“Thank heaven!” Dick ejaculated as he feasted his eyes on a welcome scene.
Sandy had been right. The floe which they had been following had touched upon some solider object. It had been the island!
There was but a few yards of open water between them and the barren, snow-piled shore, and the floe on their right made a strong bridge to land. Half a mile out to sea was the umiack of Constable Sloan and Toma, making good time toward land. Corporal McCarthy was waving his paddle to them a quarter mile to the left, and, now that the fog no longer deadened sound, his shout was borne to the ears of the happy boys.
Dick and Sandy immediately bent to the paddles and worked the umiack into the beach, where they pulled it upon dry land and commenced unloading it.
A half hour later the company was reunited, and Corporal McCarthy gave orders to make camp, and to stow the native boats high and dry on the shore for future use.
“We’ll have to take a rest after that hard pull across the bay,” the policeman explained. “But while you fellows fix something to eat, I’ll take a run along the shore and see if I can’t find where Mistak landed. I’d like to know more about this island we’ve landed on, too.”
When Corporal McCarthy was gone, Dick, Sandy and Toma set to work with alacrity to help Constable Sloan make camp. They were so hungry that their mouths watered when they fed the ravenous dogs their allotment of frozen fish.
“I could eat whalebone and like it,” Dick said to Sandy as he watched Constable Sloan pouring beans into the melted snow water, and listened to the simmering of the tea pot.
“That’s nothing,” Sandy retorted. “I know now why a goat can eat tin cans.”
Constable Sloan did not wait for Corporal McCarthy’s return before he called all hands to the food he had prepared. Perhaps he sympathized with the boys, but it was true he ate as hungrily as they did, all the while telling them stories of his experiences in the land of the long day and the long night.
“It hardly seems possible we’re actually seeing the midnight sun,” Dick said, when the edge was off his appetite.
“The way my eyes feel, I sure feel it’s a fact. Do your eyes feel strained and tired, Dick?”
“You bet they do. But how would it feel if we had as strong sunlight as they do in the south?”
“We’d probably go blind,” Sandy opined.
“There’s hardly a doubt about that,” said Constable Sloan. “But wait till you experience the long night, and see the moon go around and around in the sky, for day after day, not seeing anything but the stars, and then only when the sky is clear.”
“Do you think we’ll be up here that long?” asked Dick.
“Well, you never can tell,” Constable Sloan replied evasively, as if he had said more than he intended.
After the meal the boys immediately crawled into their sleeping bags and fell into a sound slumber. They did not awaken when Corporal McCarthy returned, several hours later, and did not know he had returned until they were awakened to find the dogs harnessed to the sledges and breakfast awaiting them.
“Why didn’t you wake us up so we could help get ready to start?” Dick asked the policemen.
“We’ve got a long hard trip ahead of us,” returned the Corporal, “and you fellows needed your rest. I found Mistak’s trail two miles east of here. He’s started inland and not only that, but it looks like he’s crossed a glacier which seems to cover part of the interior of the island.”
“Did you hear that?” Dick turned to Sandy. “We may have to cross a glacier.”
“That suits me better than floating around among these icebergs in a caribou hide boat,” Sandy replied with spirit. “I like to have my feet under me, and dry land under my feet.”
“In other words you’re a land lubber,” laughed Dick.
“I guess I am,” admitted Sandy, strapping on his snowshoes.
A little later the little company pulled out of camp, and set off at a good pace, Corporal McCarthy in the lead. After following the seashore a little way they cut inland at an angle, and after about an hour’s sledging struck the trail made by a dog team and three men.