“Mistak pulled up stakes and mushed on when we made it too hot for him on the glacier,” Corporal McCarthy finally managed to explain. “We picked up his trail again three days ago and have been traveling fast ever since.”
“Well, his camp can’t be more than five miles from here,” Dick hastened to say. “But Mistak won’t stay there now, Corporal. He’s a mighty clever criminal, and now he knows you’re this close he’ll work a trick to get you off the trail.”
“Well, we can’t let him get away if there’s half a chance nabbing him,” Corporal McCarthy replied determinedly. “But Sloan and I need a few hours’ rest, and we might as well look over those bodies you boys say you found.”
The dogs were unharnessed outside the cavern entrance, and left in charge of Constable Sloan, while Corporal McCarthy crawled into the cave after Dick and Sandy. The officer was as amazed as the boys had been when he first laid eyes upon the frozen figures. His opinion was that of Dick—that the men had slid or stepped over the precipitous wall of the amphitheater while blinded by a snow storm. Though the policeman searched fully an hour for something by which to identify the bodies, he had no luck, and at last gave up after making a brief entry in a small notebook he carried.
“The best we can do is give them an Eskimo burial,” the Corporal concluded his inspection. “If you fellows will help me gather a few stones we’ll soon have the sad business over with.”
A few minutes later, as gently as possible, they deposited the bodies in their last resting place, and built over each a substantial cairn of stones.
From the wrecked sledge, Corporal McCarthy then tore some strips of wood, and lashing two together with leather thongs, he fashioned a cross for each. On the horizontal cross-pieces he carved this inscription:
“Found Sept. 19, 1925.Identity Unknown.Corporal Lake McCarthy, R.N.W.M.P.”
As soon as the crosses were planted and they had bowed their heads in silent prayer for the unknown victims of the north, they quitted the cavern and rejoined Constable Sloan.
A temporary camp was made, tea boiled, and bedding spread out, and while the boys thirstily gulped the hot beverage, the policemen discussed plans for the apprehension of Fred Mistak.
Among many other things the boys learned that they were upward of forty miles from the base of supplies Toma had been left alone to guard. The island upon which they thought they had landed when they left the mainland, seemed to stretch endlessly to the northeast, widening constantly until it disappeared under a solid ice cap.
Fuel oil for the special camp stoves was very low, and the policemen had only about three days’ provisions left, which was largely fresh musk-ox which Constable Sloan had shot during the man hunt. Also several of the dogs had died from piblockto, a sort of madness peculiar to the polar regions.
“According to what the policemen say,” Dick confided to Sandy, “we’ll have to make quick work of Mistak. With the supplies as low as they say they are, we’ll have to start for our base mighty soon or the north will do for us what it did for those two fellows at the end of the cave.”
“We can’t get back any too soon to suit me,” said Sandy earnestly.
The policemen rested the dogs and themselves for nearly two hours, when they harnessed up and once more set out upon the trail of Fred Mistak. Half a mile from the white Eskimo’s rendezvous the snowshoe tracks led on steadily, then there were signs of a delay in the trampled snow. One man had gone on from there, obviously to warn whoever had been left at the igloos of the proximity of the police. Beside the undeviating snowshoe prints leading toward Mistak’s igloos, there was a bewildering maze of tracks leading in all directions.
“They’ve scattered out, every man for himself,” was Constable Sloan’s opinion. “But if we hurry on to the camp we might catch a few of them.”
Corporal McCarthy thought this good counsel, and they set out immediately for the encampment from which Dick and Sandy had so recently escaped. But they found the igloos deserted, their round, white domes crushed and destroyed.
Constable Sloan explained to the boys that the igloos had been broken down by the superstitious Eskimos in Mistak’s band, who believed that if they left the igloos intact, evil spirits would come and live in them.
The policemen were considerably disappointed to find that Mistak’s band had once more given them the slip. The scattering of the band had made it impossible to tell just which trail was Mistak’s, and there was nothing more to do but return to the base of operations for more dogs and supplies.
After a scanty meal at Mistak’s deserted camp, they set out upon the forty-mile dash to the home camp, praying for fair weather, and hoping no more of the dogs would contract the dreaded piblockto.
Five days of fair weather and the half-famished company came in sight of their base to find considerable changes in evidence. In place of the three igloos they had built, there were ten of the neat snow houses. A host of dogs hung about the little village, and out at sea they could see two kayacks bobbing about, manned by as many Eskimos.
“What is this!” exclaimed Corporal McCarthy. “Visitors, eh!”
“I’ll bet I know how they came here!” Dick exclaimed.
“I think I know, too,” Sandy added.
“Well, what do you think accounts for all these uninvited guests?” asked Constable Sloan.
“Sipsa brought them,” Dick replied. “Remember, I told you how he left us and that his trail led over the back trail? Well, just as Sandy and I had it figured out, he went after some of his people on account of the good seal hunting here.”
Just then the appearance of Toma changed the subject, and the boys hastened forward to greet their young Indian friend. Though Toma must have been filled with great joy upon seeing Dick and Sandy safe and sound, he did not express it except with a broad grin and an added brightness in his black eyes.
Shortly, proof appeared that Dick had been right in his surmise as to the reason for the coming of the Eskimos. It was in the form of Sipsa’s moon face, split by a huge smile. The guide showed himself while Toma and the policemen were unharnessing the dogs and unpacking the sledge. Constable Sloan spoke to the native, reprimanding him for deserting the boys, but Sipsa did not quite understand that his offense had been so serious.
“Sipsa says the hunting was good here, and he could not resist carrying the news to his people,” Constable Sloan interpreted. “He adds that he had trouble in convincing them that the glacier was not haunted by bad spirits. The drivers who deserted us carried the news back to the village that the ‘white Eskimo’ had changed all of us to ice.”
“It wouldn’t take an evil spirit to do that in this country,” Dick remarked to Sandy, recalling the frozen bodies they had found so recently.
Having eaten their fill and had a few hours’ nap, Dick and Sandy crawled out of their igloo and commenced a detailed inspection of their native visitors. While most of the men and women were out hunting, a few old women and children had remained behind.
The old women were making boots and shirts of sealskin and caribou hide, using an ivory needle and thread of caribou sinews. They did not seem to mind having Dick and Sandy watch them, and so the boys satisfied their curiosity to the utmost.
At one of the igloos a woman was cleaning a fur rug or robe by an interesting method. She poured melted snow water upon the fur, and shook it in the cold air until the tiny drops of moisture clinging to the hairs froze into globules of ice. It seemed that the particles of dirt in the fur were imprisoned in the little balls of ice. When the fur seemed well covered with the ice crust, the women lay it fur-side down in clean snow and beat it for a long time. This done, she hung up the robe and beat the fur side, the ice particles flying to right and left. When the last of the ice balls had disappeared from the fur, the robe seemed as dry and glossy as if it still was on the animal that first had borne it.
The boys were called away from the Eskimos by Corporal McCarthy who wished them to explain to him again just what they had heard regarding Corporal Thalman, the lost officer, while they were prisoners at Mistak’s rendezvous.
Certain, now, through the chance discoveries of Dick and Sandy, that Corporal Thalman was alive somewhere in the frozen land, the policemen hastened to prepare for another venture into Mistak’s outlaw fastnesses. The nearness of the polar winter, or period of complete darkness, also served to hasten them in their work, for without the sun to light the trail and under the terrible cold that accompanied the long night, they could not hope to accomplish anything.
Two days after pulling into their base of supplies from their first long and unsuccessful man hunt, the policemen once more set out in the direction they had lost Mistak, leaving Dick and Sandy with plenty of good advice and many precautions for them to avoid the dangers which they had fallen into when first left to take care of themselves.
Dick and Sandy put in the first twelve hours following the departure of the officers, in cleaning and oiling extra rifles from the supplies, to replace those taken by Mistak, and in practicing with a harpoon. Sipsa proved a willing teacher in the art of handling this death dealing weapon effectively, and while the boys could not begin to equal the accuracy of the life-time trained natives, they were attentive students and soon became fair marksmen.
After nearly a week of practice with the harpoon the boys decided to commandeer a kayack each and try their luck at sea, along with the Eskimo hunters. Sipsa had begun to pick up some English words, and the boys had managed to master a little Eskimo, so that when the day came for their first try at hunting with a harpoon, there was more of an understanding between them and their Eskimo friend than there had been formerly.
A narwhal had been sighted several times in the vicinity of the seal herd, Sipsa said, and the boys took added interest in the hunt with the promise of such big game as a whale to lead them on.
“I’ll bet I get my harpoon into that narwhal before you do,” sang out Sandy, as they put off shore in the waterproofed kayacks.
“Well, if you do, it may be my lucky day,” Dick came back. “Those narwhals are mean fellows and if you don’t get them in a vital spot they can smash your kayack with their tail or long spear tusk and drown you.”
“I’ll take a chance on that,” Sandy replied, not quite so enthusiastically as he deftly guided his craft toward the hunters at work in the seal herd.
But the boys did not join in the seal hunt. For a time they amused themselves by running races in the kayacks which handled a good deal like canoes. Gradually they drifted further out to sea and away from the Eskimos, busily dodging icebergs and casting and recasting their harpoons into the water to accustom themselves to throwing from a rocking kayack.
About a quarter of a mile from the seal herd Dick paused to rest and to permit Sandy, whom he had outdistanced, to overtake him. The sea seemed to him particularly clear of floating ice at this point, he having noticed but one small fragment of ice about twenty feet ahead of him.
For probably a minute Dick watched Sandy paddling forward, and then he faced the front again only to receive a distinct shock. The low-lying berg had moved by some power other than the ocean current. Eyes widened, Dick watched what he had thought to be an inanimate piece of ice. His heart hammered against his breast. Again the ice moved, and this time it surged upward, the water seething and foaming about it. One glimpse Dick got of a white belly, a long pointed snout, and a huge slashing tail, and then the whole vision vanished in a whirl of waves that rocked his frail craft crazily.
Dick knew now that what he had thought to be a fragment of mottled ice, was the narwhal Sipsa had told them was haunting the vicinity. His hand tightened on his harpoon as he turned to shout the news of his discovery to Sandy.
“The narwhal! The narwhal!” cried Dick.
Sandy redoubled his efforts at the thrilling words, but Dick suddenly had other business to attract his attention. For the narwhal had again come to the surface near his canoe.
Holding his breath until the great mammal turned broadside to him, Dick waited heedless of Sandy’s repeated cries for him to wait until he had joined him. The right moment came as the huge, grayish body rolled with the waves. Dick cast with all the strength of his right arm. The harpoon darted across the water with a hiss, the coil of thong attaching it securely to the kayack paying out after it. The cast had not missed. Not far back of the head the heavy harpoon imbedded itself in the narwhal and with a swiftness surprising in so cumbersome an animal, the great body went into action.
The harpoon line had been tied securely to the kayack and as the narwhal lunged forward, the stout thong tightened with a snap. Dick and the kayack shot completely out of the water, and when the boat landed it was traveling at the rate of about thirty miles an hour.
Grim and white-faced, Dick hung on. He could have severed the harpoon line with a stroke of his keen hunting knife, yet this he did not intend to do while the kayack still remained afloat.
Spray flying in all directions, the narwhal headed due northeast, toward the open sea. Had it not been for the submarine-like build of the kayack and the waterproofed jacket enclosing its passenger, the craft might have sunk in the first hundred yards of that swift dash. As it was, Dick experienced a sensation much like that felt by a bather riding a surfboard which is being towed by a gasoline speed-boat.
Every minute during the breath-taking ride behind the harpooned narwhal, Dick hoped the monster might either weaken from his wound, or change his course and swim to a point where Sandy or the Eskimo hunters might lend a hand in finishing the battle with their harpoons. If the narwhal took a notion to dive, Dick knew all was lost, and his only means of saving himself that of quickly severing the harpoon line.
Dick had almost lost hope and was about ready to cut the line, when the narwhal changed his course suddenly. The line slackened as the huge gray and black body propelling the kayack swerved in a shower of spray, and doubled on its course. The kayack shot on by its own momentum, until with a powerful jerk the line hauled it about. The sudden turn tipped the kayack over as if it had been a feather, then the same force righted it again, while Dick blew the water out of his mouth and nose.
Maddened by his wound, the narwhal seemed not to know or care where it went. Like a mighty propeller his fan-like tail lashed the water to a frenzy, as it headed straight toward Sandy’s bobbing kayack.
“Let him have your harpoon as he goes by,” Dick screamed to Sandy through a cupped palm.
Sandy shook his harpoon in the air in reply, and Dick could see him settle for a cast as he rushed on.
At first the narwhal seemed to be headed at an angle that would bring him past Sandy’s kayack across the prow at a distance of about ten yards, close enough for a good cast with the harpoon. But, less than a hundred yards from Sandy’s kayack, the big mammal changed course slightly, and with a hoarse shout of dismay, Dick saw that if the narwhal kept on he would ram Sandy’s kayack squarely in the middle.
“Get out of the way!” shouted Dick frantically.
But Sandy was already making all haste with his paddle, and so well did he handle his kayack that the rushing sea-giant failed to run him down by several inches. As the big body whizzed by, Sandy made a quick throw with his harpoon, but missed, his line dropping over Dick’s taut one, narrowly escaping entanglement as Dick’s kayack collided with it.
“Hang on, Dick!” Sandy shouted as his chum shot past him. “You’re headed straight toward Sipsa and the other hunters.”
Dick had already foreseen this and his hopes were rising when, without any warning whatsoever, the narwhal dived. Had he gone far down Dick would, no doubt, have been dragged under water and drowned before he could slash free the harpoon line. As it was, the narwhal dived up and down alternately, drawing the prow of the kayack under water with a rush and bringing it up again with giddy speed.
Choking and gasping as the icy water trickled into his parka above the waterproof covering on the kayack, Dick had almost given up hope while blindly slashing at the harpoon line, when the narwhal ceased diving and began darting this way and that over the surface of the water. Desisting in his attempts to sever the line, Dick saw that the Eskimo hunters were paddling fast toward him and that they would soon reach a point where their harpoons could finish the narwhal.
Completely maddened by the pain of his wound, and the constant drag of the kayack, the narwhal seemed to have lost all fear of man, for when his short-sighted eyes caught sight of the Eskimo hunters he made straight toward them, his great mouth wide open and revealing a frightful toothless cavern under the long sword-like tusk.
But the hunters did not give way save to give the narwhal room to pass between them. Seven harpoons impaled the narwhal as he dashed in among the kayacks, and his speed was lessened by half. Soon the monster was floundering about in a welter of blood, growing weaker and weaker.
As soon as the Eskimos had the situation well in hand, Dick cut away his harpoon line and made all haste to paddle to shore. The icy water that had splashed into his shirt through his hood was already numbing him with cold. Before he got to shore his nose lost all sense of feeling, then suffered a burning sensation as if it had come in contact with a hot iron. Dick knew then that he had frozen his nose. Beaching the kayack, he grabbed up his mittens full of snow and buried his face in this frost absorbing application as he ran for the igloo and an oil stove.
A half hour later Sandy burst through the round door of their igloo to find his chum nursing a badly frosted face. Dick’s nose and cheeks were as white as tallow and he was writhing with pain as the blood commenced to circulate again in the frozen tissues.
“Gee, you got it bad, didn’t you,” Sandy sympathized. “But, say, when you see that big narwhal laid out on the shore, you’ll think it was worth it. It was sure game of you to hang on to that fellow when you could as easily as not cut loose your line.” Dick smiled bravely through his burning pains. “I don’t know as I deserve all that flattery, Sandy. When that whale started to dive, I’d have slashed the rope if I could have located it. But the water blinded me.”
The following day Dick’s face was well enough for him to go out into the outside air, so long as he kept bundled up to his eyes. He walked down to the beach with Sandy where the narwhal had been towed in.
Though not nearly so large as the common species of whale inhabiting the seas further south, the narwhal was fully sixteen feet long, not including the six-foot tusk of twisted ivory that extended from his blunt nose, and must have weighed several thousand pounds. The Eskimos had already begun to cut up the enormous masses of blubber and to extract the whalebone from the jaws. Dick procured a small piece of the bone as a keep-sake, though for the present his frosted nose was enough to keep the episode in his memory for several weeks to come.
Dick felt that his face was in no condition for him to stay out long that day, and so after the mid-day meal Sandy ventured out alone with his rifle to see if he could not knock down a few eider ducks and gather more of their eggs.
Sandy wandered along the sea shore in the direction of the cairn they had erected near the meteorite. He shot two eider ducks and located a dozen fresh eggs in the nests, which he collected in a leather bag. This done, he walked down to the shore ice and sat down upon a lump, his feet hanging over the lapping water.
He had sat there idly gazing to sea for about five minutes when he noticed a queer object bobbing about in the water about twenty feet from shore. It was dark and round, attracting Sandy’s curiosity immediately. After considerable maneuvering he managed to fish it out with the muzzle of his rifle.
What Sandy picked up in his hands was a large canteen or thermos bottle, used on expeditions in the polar regions. It was covered with sodden leather and evidently had been afloat for a long period of time.
Slowly turning the bottle over in his hands, Sandy found carved in the leather this inscription:
“Look InsideC. T.R.N.W.M.P.”
An ejaculation of amazement and of triumph burst from Sandy’s lips, and forgetting all about his ducks and eggs, he set out at a run for the camp, the canteen hugged tightly under one arm.
When Sandy burst into the igloo with his precious find clutched to his breast he found Dick asleep. He shook his chum out of the sleeping bag in a hurry.
“What’s all the excitement about?” Dick mumbled rubbing the sleep out of his eyes.
“Something from Corporal Thalman,” Sandy cried, thrusting the canteen under Dick’s eyes.
Dick started forward as he read the words carved in the leather, and uttered a cry of astonishment.
“Where’s an axe? Let’s break the bottle open and see what’s inside! Won’t Corporal McCarthy open his eyes when he sees this!” Dick was even more excited than Sandy.
A moment later they had split the bottle as carefully as they could and from the inside extracted a tightly rolled strip of leather, about the width of an ordinary sheet of writing paper.
The leather apparently had been cut from an old shirt. Unrolled, it presented a mass of words and a crude map, carved in the leather by something in the nature of a sharp stone.
“It’s a message from Corporal Thalman!” exclaimed Dick, deciphering the initials, “C. T.” and the abbreviation for “Royal Northwest Mounted Police.”
“And that map shows where he is!” Sandy cried.
“Right now it looks the same as Greek to me,” Dick admitted, frowning over the wandering lines, crosses and data. “Let’s read the script and see if that will help.”
The following is what the boys read from the strange manuscript:
“If Fate is kind and this bottle and message fall into friendly hands, I desire the nearest post of the R.N.W. M.P. be notified that the undersigned is now being unlawfully held a prisoner on a glacial island several miles off the northern coast of Grant Land, about half way between Cape Columbia and Cape Richards.“Detailed to apprehend a half-breed Eskimo murderer, I picked up his trail on the barrens and followed him to this island where a band of outlaws, led by Mistak, surprised and captured me.“I calculate I have been imprisoned about six months in an ice-sealed pit at the bottom of a glacier, which seems to have been formed by an eruption ages ago. The pit has an outlet above my head into one of the large fissures in the top strata of the glacier, which I have tried to locate by means of the accompanying map. One side of the pit is formed of ice many feet thick. By weeks of work I cut my way through this into a series of grottoes or caverns lined with crystallized ice. However, I have so far been unable to find any outlet to the surface of the glacier and the caverns are so cold that I cannot spend much time in them.“The pit is warmer due to what I believe to be hot springs miles beneath me. A small underground stream of tepid, fresh water, tasting slightly of sulphur, runs across the floor of the pit, out of one wall into another, and upon this I shall set this canteen afloat, hoping by some miracle of good fortune that it will reach the sea and there be discovered.“Mistak furnishes me every so often with a supply of seal blubber which he drops down from the top of the pit. I do not know why he keeps me alive, except out of fiendish desire to see me suffer.“Anyone attempting to locate me may do so in two ways—by means of the fissure into which this pit opens, or from the crystal grottoes. Since I have been unable to find an outlet to the grottoes, that method of reaching the pit seems impractical, and I have directed all my efforts on this map toward guiding a rescuing party to the fissure.“Provided Mistak does not neglect bringing me food for too long a period, I shall be alive when this is read, though I notice some symptoms of scurvy.“I now set this canteen adrift with its message, trusting in Providence to guide it into the hands of those who will understand the suffering and peril of my plight, and act accordingly.“Corporal James E. Thalman,“R.N.W.M.P.“August 15 (?) 1925.”
“If Fate is kind and this bottle and message fall into friendly hands, I desire the nearest post of the R.N.W. M.P. be notified that the undersigned is now being unlawfully held a prisoner on a glacial island several miles off the northern coast of Grant Land, about half way between Cape Columbia and Cape Richards.
“Detailed to apprehend a half-breed Eskimo murderer, I picked up his trail on the barrens and followed him to this island where a band of outlaws, led by Mistak, surprised and captured me.
“I calculate I have been imprisoned about six months in an ice-sealed pit at the bottom of a glacier, which seems to have been formed by an eruption ages ago. The pit has an outlet above my head into one of the large fissures in the top strata of the glacier, which I have tried to locate by means of the accompanying map. One side of the pit is formed of ice many feet thick. By weeks of work I cut my way through this into a series of grottoes or caverns lined with crystallized ice. However, I have so far been unable to find any outlet to the surface of the glacier and the caverns are so cold that I cannot spend much time in them.
“The pit is warmer due to what I believe to be hot springs miles beneath me. A small underground stream of tepid, fresh water, tasting slightly of sulphur, runs across the floor of the pit, out of one wall into another, and upon this I shall set this canteen afloat, hoping by some miracle of good fortune that it will reach the sea and there be discovered.
“Mistak furnishes me every so often with a supply of seal blubber which he drops down from the top of the pit. I do not know why he keeps me alive, except out of fiendish desire to see me suffer.
“Anyone attempting to locate me may do so in two ways—by means of the fissure into which this pit opens, or from the crystal grottoes. Since I have been unable to find an outlet to the grottoes, that method of reaching the pit seems impractical, and I have directed all my efforts on this map toward guiding a rescuing party to the fissure.
“Provided Mistak does not neglect bringing me food for too long a period, I shall be alive when this is read, though I notice some symptoms of scurvy.
“I now set this canteen adrift with its message, trusting in Providence to guide it into the hands of those who will understand the suffering and peril of my plight, and act accordingly.“Corporal James E. Thalman,“R.N.W.M.P.“August 15 (?) 1925.”
Dick and Sandy finished reading the message at about the same time, yet they did not draw from it quite the same conclusions.
“Then I found the canteen after it had been floating and drifting for nearly two months,” Sandy spoke, still awed by the importance of his discovery.
“Yes, as Corporal Thalman hoped, his message found its way to the sea from some underground stream,” Dick rejoined.
Upon re-examining the map they satisfied themselves that the glacial island drawn there was the one they were now camping upon. They traced the trail by which they had come along the east side of the ridge, and rejoiced to find that the meteor stone indicated by the cross must be identical with the one they had found. Estimating on a basis of the scale of miles drawn by Corporal Thalman, they found they were encamped not more than five miles from the point at which the Corporal had been captured eight months before, and hardly thirty miles, allowing for detours, from the actual prison pit.
“Oh, boy! This is more thrilling than looking for lost mines!” Sandy cried exuberantly.
“It’s even more risky,” Dick returned, “and in this case it’s just as difficult. There must be a lot of inaccuracies in this map. The location here may be pretty near ten miles off. I wish the policemen were here to help. This is really too big a job for us.”
“Wouldn’t it be a feather in our caps if we found Corporal Thalman all by ourselves!” Sandy puffed out his chest.
Dick admitted that it would, though he reprimanded Sandy for his exaggeration of their capabilities.
“Before we get ready to hunt for the Corporal we must draw a copy of this map and leave it for Corporal McCarthy,” Dick directed. “If they don’t return before we leave on a search for the fissure, the copy will give them all the information they need to work on their own accord.”
An hour later the boys had completed a copy of the map and message, detail by detail, and prepared for a few hours rest before they started for the glacier.
Map
The boys awakened after nearly eight hours sleep, to find that the policemen had not yet returned. They immediately set about harnessing a dog team and loading a sledge with a few days’ supplies. They intended to hunt musk-oxen also on their trip inland, and in that way kill two birds with one stone. Provided they failed to locate Corporal Thalman’s prison, they could at least bring back a sledge load of musk-ox meat.
Since Sipsa and his Eskimos could be depended upon to take care of the camp, Dick decided that Toma should go with them if he liked, and found the Indian boy overjoyed at the opportunity to escape the dullness of life at the supply base.
After bidding the grinning, moon-faced Sipsa good-bye, the boys started out, driving their dog team at a gallop. It was not long before they reached a point below the head of the glacial ridge from which they could see the meteor stone near which they had built the cairn.
From there they began to count their strides—approximately 1,760 to a mile, and three miles to the spot where Corporal Thalman had been attacked and captured by Mistak and his band. Dick and Sandy both counted their steps so they might check against each other when the required distance was covered.
At last they reached a mass of boulders sticking up out of the snow which was within a quarter mile of the distance on the map.
“This looks like a likely place for a man to be surprised and captured,” said Dick, signaling them to halt. He referred to the map. “According to the route laid out here, Mistak bore slightly to the left when he went on with his captive.”
With this in mind they passed the boulders and came out on a broad, snow-covered tundra stretching for several miles inland from the sea and ending abruptly some miles south in towering walls of ice that marked the position of the glacier.
Driving southwest, the three boys began the long trek across the tundra, hoping they might soon sight the abandoned igloos indicated on the map as the next landmark.
But two hours of steady mushing failed to raise anything resembling a habitation. The tundra still stretched monotonously ahead of them, the countless acres of snow glaring in their eyes as it reflected the sun’s rays.
Dick called a halt and the three boys gathered about the sledge, permitting the dogs to lie down and rest their tired legs.
“We’ll have to use our heads now,” said Dick. “Corporal Thalman has either underestimated the distance from the point of his capture to the igloos, or else we’re traveling in the wrong direction.”
“Well, I’d say,” put in Sandy, “that no Eskimo would build an igloo out on this level plain where it would catch the full force of all the storms that blew down from the pole.”
“You’re right, Sandy,” announced Dick. “Those igloos must have been built where there was some sort of wind break. Suppose we swing around due south until we get into the rough country on the outskirts of the glacier.”
“That seems to be about the best plan,” Sandy rejoined. “It’s a cinch there’s nothing north of us as far as the sea.”
“Me no savvy,” Toma muttered, and Dick promised to explain the map more thoroughly when they pitched camp.
The distance to the glacier was deceiving. It was fully an hour after they changed their course before they struck the first break in the tundra and began to climb upward along the ravine down the trough of which the glacier had flung out a finger centuries before.
When they had climbed to a height nearly a hundred feet above the tundra they paused to reconnoiter. Approximating their position on Corporal Thalman’s map, they judged themselves to be in a big bend in the formation of the glacier. Far ahead, over the various hills and ridges, they could see where the vast mass of ice broadened and began its slide to the sea.
“You know what I think,” Dick broke a long silence, “those igloos are right under the walls of the glacier where it flows down to the sea.”
“I wouldn’t wonder but what you’re right,” Sandy replied dubiously, “but why not go on pretty slow so we can examine all the territory between us and where the glacier turns?”
“Better yet,” Dick sanctioned. “We can’t be too thorough. For all we know, every mistake we make in reading this map may be just like pounding another nail in Corporal Thalman’s coffin.”
“Ugh!” Sandy shivered at the thought, as they started out again.
With an interval of some hundred yards between them, the boys proceeded, Toma in the center driving the dog team. Almost any of the sheltered spots in the vicinity of the glacier might hide half a dozen igloos, and they were not going to pass up any likely places if they could help it.
The boys were growing weary, indeed, when Sandy, considerably in the lead, stopped dead still upon a mound of ice, and let out a cheer like an Indian war whoop.
“There they are! There they are!” his shout was faintly borne to the ears of Dick and Toma.
The two forced their tired legs into a staggering run, which soon brought them up with Sandy.
Below them, snug on the southern slope of a pyramid of glacial drift, were the abandoned igloos.
They had located the second landmark on the trail to Corporal Thalman’s prison!
After locating the six abandoned igloos, the boys were too tired to go on without a rest, and they immediately unharnessed the dogs and pitched their tupiks or tents. They soon were gathered about a tiny camp stove listening to the musical murmurings of a pot of tea.
“Well, so far so good,” said Dick, stretching his legs and lying back comfortably. “If we have no more trouble than this tracing Corporal Thalman’s route the rest of the way, we can pat ourselves on the back.”
“Yes, and we’d better make quick work of it,” Sandy rejoined. “Do you notice how low the sun is getting these days? Pretty soon we’ll begin to have twilight, and that means winter is about with us.”
“You mean the long night,” said Dick. “Well, in a way I hope we get our business done up here before winter sets in, and in a way I don’t.”
“Why?” Sandy asked, puzzled.
“It must be a wonderful experience,” Dick returned, “to live four months without seeing the sun, nothing but the stars and once in a while the moon to give any light. And not even the stars when it’s cloudy. They say it gets so dark during the long night up here that you can pretty near reach out of your igloos and bring in a handful of darkness.”
“That must be awful,” Sandy wagged his head ruefully. “I can’t see what you want to endure all that for. Think of the thermometer going down to 60 degrees below zero, and what if we ran out of food?”
“I guess we could winter up here alright if we had to do it,” Dick returned. “The Eskimos are laying up tons of walrus and seal blubber. Besides, there’s that narwhal, and we’re going to bag a few musk-oxen pretty soon.”
“Me no like um blubber,” Toma spoke up vehemently. “No eat um blubber all winter.”
“Me too,” Sandy agreed emphatically.
“I guess you fellows would think blubber was pretty good if there wasn’t anything else to chew on except sealskin boots.”
The conversation had grown unpleasant in this vein, so the boys changed the subject to the map, which Dick spread out in the snow and explained to Toma, as he had promised. But their eyes soon grew heavy with sleep, and after finishing their scanty rations of frozen bear meat, they retired, Dick standing the first watch.
When each of them had had about five hours’ rest, they ate more bear meat, drank a pot of tea and were ready for the trail. The problem now ahead of them was the scaling of the glacier, towering in a low range of mountains about two miles from the abandoned igloos. The map indicated no exact route to the top of the glacier, except that from the abandoned igloos there was a change of course somewhat to the southwest.
They had been on the trail only half an hour when Toma’s keen eyes detected signs of musk-oxen. The Indian boy showed Dick and Sandy the marks of the hoofs in the snow.
“We’d better see if we can’t shoot a few of the fellows that made these tracks,” Dick advised. “We can leave the meat cached in ice and covered with stones. Then when we return we can pick it up on an empty sledge.”
Sandy was eager for the hunt and so the boys swung off the course they had been following, and began trailing the musk-oxen. The tracks were quite fresh and they all looked at their rifles to see that they were ready for quick shooting. Since they never before had hunted musk-oxen, they did not know just what to expect.
They had trailed the musk-oxen about half a mile when, climbing out of a ravine, they came suddenly upon them. There were five of the strange creatures huddled in a circle, tail to tail, save for one, who stood out from the rest facing the young hunters. For several minutes the boys stood still before the shaggy beasts, who seemed not to fear them in the least. Dick was first to shake off his attack of “buck fever.” Raising his rifle, he took careful aim at the animal nearest them. He chose a vulnerable spot, and at the crack of his rifle, the musk-ox sank to his knees, tried ineffectually to rise, and at last rolled over and expired.
Dick’s shot awakened Sandy and Toma from the trance into which the first sight of the creatures had thrown them, and each of them picked an animal from the band, bringing them down with a shot each. All fired again, and though the last of the five made an awkward attempt to run away, they brought it down together.
“It’s a shame to shoot such quiet, peaceful brutes,” said Sandy as they hurried up to the brownish forms in the snow.
“That meat means life for us,” replied Dick, “and maybe God put them here for just that purpose.”
Sandy’s feeling of remorse over the shooting of the musk-oxen soon disappeared after they reached the fallen herd. As zoological specimens the musk-oxen were food for thought, and when the boys had finished examining the huge gnarled horns and the broad, rounded backs, there was the cutting up of the meat to be performed. So intent did they become upon the latter task that for a time they forgot entirely their surroundings.
It was Toma whose sharp ears first sensed that they were not alone. He spoke a few guttural words to Dick and Sandy in an undertone, and all three reached for their rifles. When they turned to face the ravine up which they had climbed just before sighting the musk-oxen, they could hear the crunch of snowshoes. Prepared for the worst, they brought their rifles to their hips and cocked them.
A scowling, fur-bordered face appeared over the edge of the ravine, paused a moment, then finished the climb followed by two more unprepossessing individuals clad in worn, soiled furs. The three paused on the brow of the ravine, silently inspecting the boys.
Dick recognized the one who was in advance of the others as the white man he had seen in Mistak’s band. He was certain the other two were likewise outlaws.
“What do you want?” called Dick.
“Nothin’ pertic’lar, yonker,” replied the white man. “It just happens we’ve been a-huntin’ these here musk-ox you’se has shot.”
“It happens we saw them before you did,” returned Dick suspiciously.
“Wal, I guess you wuz luckier than we’ns, but that’s no call f’r us to hold a grudge against each other,” said the man, starting forward.
“That’s far enough!” Dick’s clear voice rang out in the icy air, as the rifle came to his shoulder. He was sure the three outlaws meant no good, and made sure he had some advantage if it came to open hostilities.
The white man paused and scowled. “Think y’r pretty sly, eh! I guess I oughta agreed with Mistak ’bout puttin’ you yonkers out of business while we had the chance.”
“It happens I overheard you talking to Mistak about that when you thought Sandy and I were asleep in the igloo. You suggested we be put with Corporal Thalman,” Dick replied sternly.
The white man started visibly. “Thalman!” his voice came hoarsely from his bearded lips. “What do you yonkers know ’bout Thalman?” There was plain menace in the man’s attitude now.
Dick was almost on the point of blurting out some valuable information, when he caught himself.
“Nothing,” he answered reservedly, “only the Mounted Police are looking for—er—his body.”
“I reckon that’s all they’ll find, an’ it’s pretty doubtful if they find that,” sneered Mistak’s man, seeming relieved that the boys apparently had no specific knowledge of Corporal Thalman’s fate.
Had the man dreamed of the manuscript that had floated into Sandy’s hands, of the map now reposing in Dick’s pocket, he probably would have signaled his companions to attack then and there. But he did not.
“You fellers ain’t goin’ to let us go away empty handed,” the outlaw resumed, wheedlingly, looking hungrily at the five dead musk-oxen.
“Shall we let them have some meat?” Dick asked Sandy, without taking his eyes from the outlaws, who were also covered by the rifles of Sandy and Toma.
“Yes,” Sandy replied. “Let them have one of the musk-oxen. They’ll go away and leave us alone then.”
Toma’s sanction to the gift was given by a mere grunt.
“We’ve decided to let you have one of the musk-oxen since you’re hungry,” Dick told the spokesman of the three. “But it’s not because we fear you or think we owe it to you.”
The white man turned to the half-breed Indians and muttered a few words in a foreign tongue. The boys indicated the musk-oxen farthest away from them as the one the men should take, and, keeping their rifles ready for any trickery that might be enacted, they watched the outlaws hasten forward and attack the meat with their knives.
Soon the men had the animal quartered and had slung the fresh meat to their backs. The two half-breeds turned and climbed back into the ravine with their load, but the white outlaw tarried for a parting word.