At this point they made a halt while Corporal McCarthy went ahead to look over the land before they advanced. The reason for this move was quickly evident, for towering over them, at a distance of less than half a mile, was a mass of ice that marked the beginning of a glacier, probably miles and miles in extent.
Dick and Sandy were awed by the very immensity of the towering ice. The fact that they might find it necessary to brave those treacherous heights on the trail of the “white Eskimo” tested their courage to the utmost. But the boys were not the sort that back down when danger is close at hand. Truth to tell, they loved action and danger more than was good for their own safety.
“There comes the Corporal,” Dick called out presently, his sharp eyes having caught sight of a fur parka behind an ice hummock.
Presently the policeman came fully into view and waved for them to come on.
“The trail leads over the glacier,” called the Corporal when they were within hearing distance.
Dick and Sandy hurried forward after the dogs, their hearts hammering at the promise of the excitement ahead.
Immediately upon approaching the foot of the glacier Dick and Sandy could see what a dangerous struggle was to be theirs in attempting to scale the mountain of ice. For hundreds of years the ice had frozen there, layer upon layer, filled with great holes and cracks, its own great weight forcing it to move toward sea level.
“I don’t see how we’re ever going to climb it,” Sandy gasped.
“Well, I don’t either,” admitted Dick, “but Mistak must have got to the top, and anything he can do, the King’s policemen can do.”
“Heap big mountain ice,” commented Toma. “Ketchum sore head if slide down to bottom.”
“You’re right,” Dick could not help but laugh at Toma’s remark in spite of the seriousness of the task ahead of them.
“Well, boys,” Constable Sloan came forward, interrupting them, “we’ll have to use man power now. Here’s a good chance for you fellows to test your biceps. There are six of us, so that leaves three to a sled. Sipsa, Toma and myself will take the first sledge—that leaves you boys and the Corporal for the second. It won’t take much head work, but lots of backbone. Let’s go!”
Dick and Sandy watched, with interest, the starting of the first sledge up the steep incline, men and dogs straining with every ounce of strength in them. When at last they disappeared around a huge knob of ice and snow, they sent a lusty cheer after them, and set to work themselves to push their sledge up.
It took a half hour of pushing and hauling before they reached a point that was level enough for them to rest comfortably.
“Much more of this and I’ll turn to water,” panted Sandy, throwing back his parka and revealing the perspiration standing out in huge drops that froze almost as soon as they came in contact with the air.
“Better keep that parka over your head,” cautioned Corporal McCarthy. “A little too much of this air when you’re overheated will frost your lungs, and you know what that means.”
Sandy remembered that frost bitten lungs often brought on more serious ailments, and hurriedly bundled up his face.
An hour more of strenuous climbing brought them to a point half way up the wall of the glacier. They could see the first sledge going up far above them, like a caterpillar tank, the dogs and men pushing and pulling it appearing like so many ants hauling a gram of wheat to their home hill.
Dick took a deep breath and looked down, grasping Sandy’s arm to call his attention to the vast scene that lay below them. Far away they could see the mainland which they had left the day before. The open water glittered like diamonds where the floating ice lay, and the beach of the island seemed more like a ribbon than a piece of land.
“It makes me dizzy,” said Sandy.
“Yes, but there’s something inspiring about it,” returned Dick. “It’s desolate and frozen and lonely, but just the same it’s beautiful because it’s so clean and white and still.”
“I guess you just about hit the nail on the head that time,” spoke up Corporal McCarthy, who was standing just behind them. “But there’s death in that beauty. I hope you boys never have to see all of what I mean. Now let’s get to work on this sledge.”
Refreshed by their rest, the boys buckled down to the job with a will, and for considerable distance all went well as before. Then, when they were just reaching a point where they might breathe again, the rope which the policeman was pulling on broke loose from the sledge, and with the shock of the freed weight, Dick slipped, the sledge sliding back upon Sandy who was pushing from behind. For an instant the sturdy Scotch lad held the full weight of the heavy sledge, then with a faint cry of dismay, he started down, the sledge on top of him.
“Oh, Sandy!” Dick gave a shout of anguish, as, slipping and sliding, he held on to the rope he had been pulling on.
Corporal McCarthy leaped down to Dick’s aid, but the sledge had gained momentum and, white faced, they could only hang on hoping the sledge would catch on the rough ice before it began to turn over.
Faster and faster the sledge began to slide, pushing Sandy before it, his shirt pinched under the runners, and dragging the frantically struggling two after it.
“We’ve got to stop it before it reaches the edge of that shelf!” cried Corporal McCarthy. “If it ever goes over the edge, Sandy is gone!”
But they had started a miniature avalanche of ice and snow by their struggles and this rolling along underfoot made firm footing impossible to find.
One last heave they gave backward on the remaining rope as the sledge struck the edge of the ice shelf. They heard a heavy crash, then silence.
Dick looked up from where he clung to the steep incline, the sledge rope clutched in his hands. Stunned by fear for what had happened to Sandy, who had disappeared, he watched Corporal McCarthy pick his way cautiously down to the sledge. The rear end of the runners had stuck in a fissure, bringing the sledge to a stop not more than a foot from the edge of the shelf below which they knew not how far the drop was.
As if it were all a bad dream, Dick watched the policeman look over the sledge, under it, and all about, then lie down on his stomach and peer over the shelf. The significance of that move and what it might mean in regard to Sandy’s fate, brought Dick to his feet, and in two agile leaps he was at the policeman’s side.
The drop under the shelf was only about twenty feet, provided an object falling from it caught on a second projection of ice and snow. Beyond that there was a frightful depth to a small plateau.
“Sandy! Sandy!” Dick called at the top of his voice.
Corporal McCarthy’s somber expression showed that he thought there was little use in shouting, but he presently uttered an exclamation of astonishment.
The snow on the lower shelf directly below the point where the sledge had lodged, had moved!
“Look!” cried Dick, in a glad shout.
From the snow on the shelf protruded one arm, then another, and a moment later the snow plastered figure of Sandy rose up, hip deep in soft snow.
“Hold on while I get a rope!” shouted the Corporal.
“We’ll haul you back up,” seconded Dick. “Are you hurt much?”
“I’m alright,” came Sandy’s shout, a bit faint, but welcomely spirited. “Got a few bruises is all.”
Then Corporal McCarthy was back with a rope, and was paying it out over the shelf. Sandy quickly got hold of his end and fastened it about his waist. In a moment the combined strength of the two on the ledge had hauled Sandy to the safety of the shelf where the sledge had lodged.
“Gee, I was never so glad to see anybody in my life!” exclaimed Dick, banging his chum on the back with a lusty hand.
“Hey, watch out where you are hitting me,” complained Sandy. “That sledge made me sore all over when it shoved me down that bank. And, say, I thought I was gone when I rolled over that shelf.”
“Lad, you’re one of the luckiest fellows that ever lived,” Corporal McCarthy put in, “but now let’s tie into this sledge again and not let those fellows ahead of us beat us to the top too far.”
An hour more of back-bending toil and they joined Constable Sloan and the others, who already had reached the top of the glacier.
While they all rested, Dick and Sandy looked curiously about them. Level ice, covered with snow, stretched for considerable distance on either hand. Long, zigzag cracks, or fissures, formed curious designs on the glacier’s summit; while now and again they could hear a deep rumble, like distant thunder, which, Constable Sloan said, was due to new cracks forming in the ice, and sometimes caused by a fragment of the glacier breaking off and falling into a fissure or into the sea far away across the island.
Corporal McCarthy was not long in locating the trail made by Fred Mistak’s dog team. They had taken virtually the same path up the wall of the glacier that the fugitive had taken, and so were not far off the trail.
Soon they were hurrying onward, carefully avoiding the deep, dangerous chasms in the ice whenever possible, and when necessary, bridging the narrow cracks with their sledges.
“I’d hate to fall into one of those cracks,” Dick said in a low voice to Sandy.
“Me, too,” Sandy agreed. “I wonder what’s at the bottom of them.”
“I’ve heard there are rivers of running water under these glaciers,” replied Dick, “and that scientists have found the fossils of ancient animals in the huge caves which the water forms.”
“Gee, just think! The land under this glacier must be just like it was a hundred years ago. Makes me feel creepy to think of those giant reptiles that used to wander around right under where we’re walking.”
Dick was about to reply when Corporal McCarthy stopped the teams at the edge of an expanse of ice that had been swept clear of soft snow by water and wind.
The boys quickly saw that Mistak’s trail vanished here, as if it had gone up in smoke. The ice was as hard as flint, and sledge, dogs, and men had passed over it without leaving a mark.
“Toma, you stay with the dog team,” ordered Corporal McCarthy, “the rest of us will scatter out and circle this expanse of smooth ice. We can pick up Mistak’s trail where he strikes soft snow or brittle ice.”
The plan was carried out but after an hour’s fruitless search the Corporal called them all back to the sledge.
“It looks as if we’ve lost Mistak’s trail for the present. He must have made directly for this spot knowing he could throw off the scent.”
“The hard ice ends up in a lot of fissures and ice caverns,” spoke up Constable Sloan. “It’s possible the Eskimo may be hiding out in one of the caves, waiting for us to go on.”
“Well, if he is we’ll fix that. I’ll go on a little way with you and when we get in among the ice hummocks on the other side of this level stretch, I’ll drop out and watch for him to come out. The rest of you go on across the glacier, and make camp at some convenient spot. If I have any luck, I’ll overtake you and let you know.”
After Corporal McCarthy had left them Dick and Sandy found themselves following the sledge along a ridge of snow covered stones and gravel which ran along the ice cap farther than they could see. Following this, they found the ice sloping steadily downward, while the ridge, or moraine, rose steadily higher. Presently they could see on the distant horizon the blackish blue of the open sea, broken by the massive crests of floating bergs.
The sky had become overcast in the last hour and the temperature had fallen considerably.
“We’re in for a bad storm,” Constable Sloan announced, his voice betraying some anxiety. “As soon as we get down to the seashore we’ll build some tight igloos. Tents won’t stand the wind that’s coming.”
A little later they eased the sledge down a last steep incline and found easier going at the foot of the long ridge of glacial drift that had now grown to massive proportions. The glacier proper was now behind and on their left, beyond the ridge. They had crossed only a fragment of it in reaching what they believed to be the northern shore of a large island.
“Look, Sandy, over there on that big floe to the northeast!” exclaimed Dick, pointing.
Sandy’s eyes followed Dick’s directing finger and widened at what he saw. A large herd of seals dotted the ice and adjacent water. Now and again the animals dived into the water, throwing up a shower of spray. Faintly, as they drew nearer, they could hear the grunting barks of the adult seals.
Sipsa seemed excited at the proximity of the seal herd, and began jabbering to himself.
“What is he saying?” Dick asked Constable Sloan.
“He means that here is good hunting, and that he ought to tell his people about it. The Eskimos depend altogether for their food upon hunting, and when there’s game and good weather they consider it the same as sacrilege to procrastinate. They can’t figure out why a white man wastes his time doing anything else.”
The first signs of the coming storm interrupted Constable Sloan. A fine hard sleet came sifting down out of the leaden sky, cutting their faces like hundreds of tiny knives.
Reaching a large drift that appeared ideal for making igloo blocks, Constable Sloan called a halt, and everyone set to work cutting snow blocks with the long knives brought along for that purpose.
By the time they had completed two igloos, a wind had sprung up and the sleet had thickened. Though the huge glacial ridge shielded them from the full force of the wind, still it shipped and whirled with such force that they had to seek the shelter of their lately built snow houses.
“I hope McCarthy doesn’t get caught out in this blizzard,” said Constable Sloan when they were squatted about a camp stove, crowded into one igloo for added warmth. “He ought to be coming in any time now.”
They were in considerable suspense for several minutes, until, outside, above the howling of the wind, they heard Corporal McCarthy’s booming shout. Constable Sloan hurried out and helped into the igloo an almost unrecognizable figure. The Corporal was covered with clinging ice from head to foot and resembled some gigantic snow man.
“Well, Mistak didn’t show himself if he really was in hiding on the glacier,” reported the Corporal. “The storm drove me in or I’d have waited longer. Tomorrow, if the storm lulls, we’ll look again. The trouble is all traces of his sledge will be covered up by this storm.”
“We’d better establish a base of supplies here,” advised Constable Sloan. “The boys can do some hunting to help out on the meat problem, while we comb the island for Mistak.”
Sandy’s face took on a disappointed expression at this announcement, and he looked at Dick as if he wanted him to do something. But Dick shook his head, and presently whispered mysteriously:
“I have a hunch we’re not going to lose out on the man hunt.”
Sandy had to be satisfied with that until he got Dick alone and pumped him for details.
That night the boys slept the sleep of utter weariness, while the storm beat and buffeted futilely at the dome of their warm igloo.
It was two days before the blizzard died down and the little snowbound company were permitted to leave their Eskimo houses for any length of time. Dick and Sandy found almost a new world awaiting them when they burrowed like two badgers out of their snug retreat into the polar sunlight.
“Where are the sledges and dogs?” Sandy wanted to know.
“Can’t you see everything has been buried?” Dick retorted. “We’ve got some tall snow shoveling to do before we can get at our supplies.”
Constable Sloan soon found the dogs. Each of the faithful creatures was deep in a nest of snow, with only a tiny hole to breathe through. The beasts were gaunt with hunger, and whined and slavered at the mouth while the policeman began digging out the supplies.
It took several hours of hard work to dig out the camp, and when everything was in good shape, Corporal McCarthy drew the boys aside:
“Constable Sloan and myself are going back on the glacier with ten days’ supplies to see if we can’t pick up Mistak’s trail again. We’ll leave you with Sipsa to take care of the camp and do some hunting. Sipsa will show you how to kill and cut up seals and walruses, which we’ll need for dog meat if we don’t have to eat them ourselves before we finish our job up here. Don’t overlook the musk-oxen. We saw signs of them on the island and they’re about the best eating a white man can find up here.”
“Suppose we see Mistak. What do you want us to do?”
“Lay low and keep out of trouble,” cautioned the policeman. “We’ll be back in ten days at least and whatever you’ve discovered about Mistak’s whereabouts we’ll put to good use.”
The policemen soon had a sledge of supplies and one dog team ready for the trail. Waving farewell to the boys they started out, disappearing up the long slope that led to the glacier. In one way Dick and Sandy were glad to be free to command their own movements, yet again, with the experienced policemen gone, the vast frozen land presented an even more sinister appearance. A hundred forebodings surged up in the breasts of Dick and Sandy, but they manfully fought them down, preparing immediately to go seal hunting.
Sipsa had brought along several harpoons, and he began working on these diligently. He made the boys understand by signs that he was not yet ready to go seal hunting, and they left him alone after growing tired of watching the Eskimo’s deft fingers manipulating a whetting stone.
Dick suggested that they go down to the sea shore, and all three of the boys set off in that direction. They found the tide rising, and for half an hour amused themselves by skipping stones across the shallow water, and throwing at the small ice cakes floating farther out. Dick and Toma were about tied at hitting their mark, but Sandy was far the more expert at skipping stones. The Scotch lad could skip a choice flat stone as far again as he could throw it, and though Dick and Toma tried again and again to equal Sandy’s prowess, they finally were forced to give up, so tired were their arms.
“Let’s walk along the shore a ways,” said Dick. “We may find something interesting.”
A hundred yards farther on they passed out of sight of the camp, and ran into a flock of eider ducks who took to the water upon their approach with the prettiest nose dives they had ever seen. Toma’s sharp eyes located some nests on the shore, and they procured a few fresh eggs and a good many old ones.
“Leave the old eggs where they are,” Dick said, as Sandy was about to see how far he could throw one. “We don’t want to destroy what will be little eider ducks some day.”
“You’re right, Dick,” Sandy agreed. “I just didn’t think.”
“Him nice an’ soft—make um warm nest,” Toma spoke up, running his fingers around in one of the duck nests.
Dick picked up some of the fine, white feathers with which the nest was lined. “Yes, these are about as soft feathers as are known. The Eskimos gather and trade them to the white men for tools and things. In the United States we call it eiderdown.”
They wandered on down the shore to the point where the great glacial ridge west of their camp extended into the sea. The ridge sloped off into the water in a long slope at the foot of which the waves rumbled and thundered, dashing the huge icebergs this way and that as if they were toys. Occasionally they could hear the distant noises of the glacier as fragments of it fell into the sea, or when its slow movements caused huge cracks to form in its depths.
Dick led the way a short distance up the slope toward a dark knob that was sticking up through the snow and ice.
“I wonder if that isn’t one of the meteors they say are in the polar regions,” he said. “Robert Peary, the great explorer, brought back some fine specimens to American museums. This does look like it might be a very small one.”
They stopped at the protuberance and inspected it curiously.
“It looks like melted iron to me,” Sandy declared. “Is that what meteors are made of?”
“Yes, a form of iron,” Dick replied. “It’s called meteoric iron. Scientists claim it is about the hardest iron which has been found in a natural state. In the sky it is heated to a liquid state by the friction of falling through the air, then when it strikes the earth’s atmosphere it cools suddenly and explodes with a loud report, lighting up the country for miles and miles.”
“Why do more meteors fall in the polar regions than in the other zones?” inquired Sandy, meditatively fingering the meteoric rock.
“I don’t remember having read the exact reason, and I’m not sure that more do fall up here, but if there are more it must be because the atmosphere is so much colder. The meteors explode much higher in the sky, then lose their velocity and so fall to the earth’s surface near the pole.”
“Well, the glacier seems to have pushed this meteor up here,” said Sandy, “so there’s no telling where it actually fell.”
“That’s true,” replied Dick, “but say, this big stone gives me an idea. Let’s gather some big rocks and build a monument here, leaving some kind of record inside of it. That’s the way all the Arctic explorers did. They called them cairns.”
Sandy and Toma quickly showed how enthusiastic they were by starting to gather stones of a good size. These they built up in a solid circle near the meteor until they had an erection about a foot high.
“Now for the record,” said Dick, and drew from his pocket a small calendar with which he had been keeping track of the days. Sandy dug down in the ample pockets of his caribou hide shirt and found a soft-nosed rifle cartridge. With a hunting knife they trimmed this to a point, improvising a crude lead pencil. Then on the back of the card board that had supported the calendar leaves, Dick wrote under the day and year:
“We are on an uncharted island, a few hundred miles west of Greenland, near the Arctic Circle. This is the farthest north we have ever been in the service of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police, or the Hudson’s Bay Company. If something happens and we never return, anyone who reads this will know just about where we were when we disappeared.”
“We are on an uncharted island, a few hundred miles west of Greenland, near the Arctic Circle. This is the farthest north we have ever been in the service of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police, or the Hudson’s Bay Company. If something happens and we never return, anyone who reads this will know just about where we were when we disappeared.”
Under this, all three of the boys proudly signed their names, Toma painfully inscribing his to the accompaniment of a twisting tongue, which he chewed industriously at every move of the pencil.
When the record was finished Dick folded it carefully and stowed it in the center of the cairn, placing a heavy stone upon it. Then they gathered more stones and built up the cairn to a height of about five feet, rounding it off nicely at the top, forming a receptacle for the record that would stand for years and years.
“It’s about time we were getting back to camp the way my stomach feels,” Dick said when they had finished, and were standing off at a distance appraising their handiwork.
Sandy’s and Toma’s stomachs seemed to agree perfectly with Dick’s and so they started off on the back trail, glancing over their shoulders every now and then at the cairn.
By the time they reached camp their appetites had grown immensely, and they voiced the hope that Sipsa would have something prepared to eat. But there was no smell of hot tea or frying meat. In fact, as they approached they could see no sign whatever of the Eskimo guide.
“He must be in one of the igloos,” Dick hazarded.
But a search of the igloos disclosed no Sipsa. The boys shouted his name, but only a faint echo from the wall of the ridge answered them.
“Here are the harpoons he was working on when we left,” Sandy announced presently, after they had looked more carefully about the camp.
“Yes, he must not be far away, but still——” Dick’s mind turned to the trouble they had had with Okewah and Ootanega. “I wonder if he found some sign of the white Eskimo and was frightened away like the others.”
“But Sipsa didn’t seem so superstitious as those two,” Sandy contended.
“I thought so, too, until now. Anyway, we’ll not worry about it until we get something under our belts to worry on.”
Sandy volunteered to act as cook and with the addition of the fresh eider duck eggs he had gathered, a very satisfying meal was prepared.
Sipsa had not yet put in an appearance when the boys finished the last scrap of food, and Dick suggested they search farther for him.
“Maybe um white Eskimo git him,” Toma suggested gruesomely.
“You might be right,” Dick replied. “It would be just like that villain to ambush our guide. But I believe Sipsa was pretty well able to take care of himself. He seemed much smarter than the average native, and I believe he’s more civilized.”
Sandy chose to stay behind when Dick announced that someone must watch the camp while they sought the whereabouts of Sipsa, and Dick and Toma started off with their rifles. At first they circled the entire camp, looking for the prints of Eskimo sealskin boots or his snowshoes. They found no signs, however, and came to a halt on the sledge trail made by the policemen hours before.
“Maybe Sipsa followed the sledge path,” Dick said, as Toma and he stood there contemplating the next move. “You’re good at trailing, Toma; see if you can’t find out whether three instead of two pairs of snowshoes followed this sledge.”
Toma bent over, his keen eyes glancing hither and thither along the packed snow. Only a moment he studied, then he straightened up. “Three pair snowshoes go long here,” he declared positively.
Dick had perfect confidence in Toma’s judgment, and was sure they had found just the direction taken by Sipsa when he left the camp. As the policemen had departed over the same path over which they had crossed the island, Dick believed it possible that Sipsa might have taken it into his head to return to his people.
“We’ll follow his tracks for a ways,” he voiced his decision at last. “I want to make sure that Sipsa stuck to the back trail. If he hasn’t turned off half way up the glacier, then I’m pretty certain he’s decided to go back to his people. In that case he has such a start on us that about all we can do is let him go.”
With this purpose in mind Dick and Toma started out along the sledge trail. An hour’s steady travel without mishap failed to discover any deviation in Sipsa’s progress.
“He may run into the policemen,” Dick finally spoke. “If he does, they’ll send him back in a hurry.”
“I think him go home alright,” was Toma’s brief reply. “Mebbe him no like work for white man.”
“Well, that was a good one, Toma,” Dick grinned. “I suppose you’ll be quitting us next.”
The young Indian turned a pair of black inscrutable eyes upon the white lad, for whom he had risked his life so often. Dick could feel that he was rebuked without hearing Toma say a word. He stretched out his hand and placed it on the Indian boy’s shoulder. “I didn’t mean it, Toma, honest I didn’t. I was only joking. I know you’d never desert Sandy and me.”
The ghost of a smile traced the young Indian’s dark face and Dick knew that Toma had forgiven.
“I don’t think there’s much use going any further,” Dick resumed after an interval of silence. “I don’t want to leave Sandy alone too long.”
They were just about to turn back when something attracted Toma’s keen eyes.
“Stop heap quick!” ejaculated Toma under his breath.
“What is it?”
“Think um fox. Him watch us from top big rock up there.”
“Oh, I see him now,” Dick replied eagerly. “He’s only about a hundred yards off, too. We need that pelt. Let’s both get a bead on him.”
Quietly the two knelt on their snowshoes and leveled their rifles. Crack! Crack! the rifle shots echoed in the hills.
The fox leaped high in the air, and ran like a streak toward the top of the slope where he had been sighted.
“Let him have it again!” cried Dick, firing rapidly.
Toma’s reloading lever was working as fast as Dick’s and a veritable hail of lead was kicking up the snow about the fleeing fox.
Just when the young hunters felt they had failed to bring down the fox, the animal whirled and began to bite himself, as if something had stung him.
“We got um,” grunted Toma.
Sure enough, the fox dropped to his side and after kicking spasmodically for a few seconds remained still. One or more of their bullets had reached the mark and together the boys hastened up the slope to examine their kill.
They found the animal to be a fine specimen of the northern blue fox, with whose skin the Eskimos trimmed many of their warmest fur garments.
Toma drew his hunting knife from its sheath and began methodically to skin the fox, while Dick stood by admiring the beauty of the fur.
“I wish I could take that pelt home to mother,” he said half to himself.
Toma looked up and sniffed. “Huh, why you take um blue fox for your mother? Wait till you ketch um seal. Him worth heap more. I give my sister black fox skin robe one time. She use um for wipe feet on by door. She like um red wool blanket best.”
Dick had a hearty laugh at Toma’s expense, but the young Indian could not see anything funny in what he had said.
However, the lads started back to camp on the best of terms, carrying the blue fox pelt with them.
When they came in sight of the igloos they were wholly unprepared for what met their eyes. Speechless and terror stricken they stood and stared.
Two huge polar bears were mauling and crushing the igloos and camp paraphernalia, and Sandy was nowhere to be seen!
Even the dogs had run away before the attack of the ferocious brutes, now apparently enjoying their game of destruction.
Several moments passed before Dick could recover his presence of mind, so great was the shock he had received upon discovering the savage marauders that were destroying their camp. A vision of Sandy’s mangled form sprang up in his mind, and he covered his eyes and groaned. But he was not one to let mere imagination long affect him when action was needed.
“Take the bear on the right, Toma,” his voice came clear and steady. “They’ll probably attack us as soon as we fire. Ready, aim, fire!”
The report of the rifles and the sting of the well placed bullets brought the polar bears back on their haunches, and they whirled to face whatever enemy had attacked them. But Dick and Toma had fallen on their stomachs in the snow immediately after firing, and the bears could not see them. The great beasts turned and renewed their wrecking of the camp dunnage, whereupon Dick gave the order to fire again.
Now badly wounded, and puzzled because they could not see where the burning missiles came from, the bears began lumbering around in a circle, growling savagely.
Dick and Toma fired once more from their prone and hidden position and the bears decided the territory was too hot for them. Leaving a trail of blood drops behind them, they trotted off up the slope of the glacial ridge, disappearing among the numerous boulders strewn upon the slope.
No more were the bears gone than Dick and Toma rushed to the torn up camp, calling Sandy’s name. At first there was no reply and in the death-like stillness Dick felt an icy chill of horror steal over him as once more he imagined what had befallen Sandy. Then, very faintly, there came an answering shout, seeming to come out of the snow-smothered earth itself.
“Sandy, where are you!” Dick cried gladly, looking everywhere but failing to see any sign of his chum.
“Just a minute, and I’ll be with you,” came the voice again, unmistakably Sandy’s but for some reason half-choked and indistinct.
Then, out of a big snowdrift a hundred yards from camp, popped Sandy, covered from head to foot with snow. Dick and Toma ran to meet him, overjoyed at his safety.
“I thought those bears had finished you sure,” Dick said, much relieved.
“Well, they weren’t far from doing just that,” Sandy retorted drily. “I was looking through the packs for a tin of tea, a little while ago, when I felt that something was behind me. I looked around and there were those two bears looking at me as if they were hungry. They weren’t more than thirty feet from me, and I’d left my rifle in the igloo. You can bet I didn’t stand in that spot very long. I made a flying start right straight ahead, and when I reached those holes in the snow where the dogs have been sleeping, I dived head first right into a big one, and dug myself further in. Maybe I wasn’t scared. I expected every minute to hear those bears digging in after me. About when I was pretty near smothered in the snow I heard you start shooting. Say, you came just in time. I’d have suffocated in that burrow in about two minutes more. And I believe I’d have passed out right there rather than show myself to those bears.”
“Don’t forget to keep your rifle close to you after this,” Dick cautioned, though now that the danger was over he was amused at Sandy’s excited relating of his unique escape from the bears.
“Bear meat heap good eat,” Toma spoke up. “Maybe one them bear die somewhere in rocks. We go see, huh?”
“Not on your life,” Sandy declared emphatically. “I’ve seen all the bears I want to for to-day. I’ll be dreaming about bears chewing on me for a month.”
Dick laughed. “I don’t blame you, Sandy, but I think Toma’s idea about following the bears is a good one. We need meat, you know, and you can see by the blood on the snow around here that one of them at least might have been wounded bad enough so that he’ll die later.”
“All right, you fellows go ahead. I think I’ve had about all the trouble I’m going to have today, so you needn’t worry about me.”
“I guess you have, alright,” Dick called over his shoulder as he set out after the bears. “We won’t be gone long.”
Toma and Dick followed the plain trail left by the bears clear up the ridge to the east of the camp. But they did not catch sight of their quarry until they were some distance out on the flank of the glacier on the other side of the ridge.
The young Indian then called Dick’s attention to a movement ahead of them. They saw one of the bears climbing to the top of a heap of ice, and crouched in hiding until the great beast had passed out of sight. Though they waited several minutes, a second bear did not appear, and so they thought it safe to go on.
Not far from where they had sighted the one bear they discovered why the other had not appeared. He lay stone dead in a little hollow in the ice. An examination showed that two of their bullets had pierced the animal’s lungs. Only an animal of iron stamina could have traveled so far with such serious wounds.
Cutting a huge haunch of steak from the bear’s hindquarters, the young hunters started back, their mouths already watering in anticipation of fresh bear steak.
It was nearly eight o’clock by Dick’s watch when they reached the igloos once more, to find that Sandy had been busy in their absence and had repaired much of the damage done by the polar bears.
Two hours later, snug in a warm igloo, Sandy requested Toma to tell them a bedtime story from his stock of Indian lore. Toma acquiesced willingly, and began in his broken, yet simple expressive English:
“Long, long time ago, young Indian brave, by name Swift Foot, live by big water, by name Great Slave Lake. He very handsome brave. Him mother love him very much. His father great hunter. He have all food he can eat, warm wigwam in winter. No have to work. Him play all day, and when him tired he sleep. But him no happy. He look at stars and want know why the stars twinkle; him look at sun, want know why sun warm; him look at moon, want know why cannot reach it; him look at rainbow, want know why cannot catch him no matter how fast he run.
“Swift Foot ask mother questions. She say, ‘Big Eagle, your father, great hunter and very wise. He tell you, my son.’ Swift Foot ask father questions. Father say, ‘Your grandfather old and wise, maybe he can tell you.’ Swift Foot ask his grandfather questions, but old man say he not know these things.
“Bye an’ bye Swift Foot visit all old men in tribe, but none knew why stars twinkle, why sun shine, why he no can catch rainbow.
“Swift Foot, him get very unhappy. Him no eat, no sleep. His mother think him going die. One day she tell him, ‘Swift Foot, you follow big water north till you come to great river. There you find old, old medicine man. He tell you why stars twinkle, why sun shine, why no catch rainbow.’
“Swift Foot him very glad then. Him jump in birch canoe an’ paddle fast. Many days him paddle along lake shore till he come to great river. When he come to shore old, old man, all dried up, waiting there to meet him.
“When Indian boy ask old medicine man what he want know, old man ask him what he give to know all things. Swift Foot, he say he give everything he have. Medicine man ask him if he sure. Swift Foot say yes, he give everything to know, for he no want live longer if he can no catch rainbow.
“Then medicine man build big fire and boil something in pot, while he dance round and round Swift Foot. After while Swift Foot feel strange. He feel like he getting smaller; he cannot see far with his eyes; him hands shake like leaves.
“Pretty soon fire make big smoke—puff, puff. Smoke disappear, and old man, he gone. Swift Foot all alone on shore of big water, and he know all things. He know why stars twinkle, why sun shines, why he can no catch rainbow. He know so much he much afraid. He jump up, try to run to canoe. But he fall down hard. He get up, try to run again, but he no can run—he have to walk very slow.
“When he get down to big water it is like mirror. He bend over and look down. Old, old man look back at him from water, oldest an’ ugliest man he ever see. He know then him give youth for great wisdom. No more him run an’ jump, no more him eat deer meat, for he have no teeth. He begin weep, an’ say he no want know all things, him want be young again. All day, all night he cry, but he not grow young again.
“Then he paddle his canoe back to his mother, but she not know him. She laugh when he say he Swift Foot, her son. ‘My son beautiful young boy, you ugly, old man,’ she say. ‘Go ’way.’
“Swift Foot leave village then. Him go far away in forest where no man see him. One moon he no eat anything, but pray much to Great Spirit. Then him fall asleep. When wake up him feel strong again. He go down to pool of water and look in. Him jump up and make big, glad noise with mouth. Great Spirit answer prayer. Him young again. But he not remember why stars twinkle, why sun shines, why no can catch rainbow.
“Swift Foot go back to his mother. She very glad to see him. He say to his mother he very happy now; him no want know why stars twinkle, why sun shines, why no can catch rainbow. He say he love them just the same. Many years him live happy. Make big hunter like him father, but him never wish for what he no can get.”
“Gee, that was a great story!” Dick exclaimed. “Who told you that one?”
“My mother,” Toma replied briefly, and for an instant the boys thought they detected the sparkle of tears in the dark eyes of the stoical young Indian.
“That story had a moral to it just like one of Aesop’s Fables,” Dick said sleepily, as he crawled into his sleeping bag. “Guess we can’t have our cake and eat it too. Right, Sandy?”
But a long, tuneful snore was the only reply Dick heard from Sandy.