They had made half the distance to the village. Hopes were running high, when something occurred which threatened disaster.
Far up on the side of the hill along the base of which they were traveling, there stood here and there a clump of scraggly, wind-torn fir trees. Suddenly there appeared from out one of these clumps of scrub trees, a gray streak. Another appeared, then another and another, until there were six. They did not pause at the edge of the bush, but rushed with swift, gliding motion down the steep hillside, and their course led them directly toward the little caravan. Six gaunt gray wolves they were, a pack of brigands in the Arctic desert.
Perhaps Marian, who rode on the last sled, saw them first. Perhaps Ad-loo-at, the native, did. At any rate, before she could scream a warning to him he had slapped his reindeer on the back and the sled on which Marian rode shot forward so suddenly that she was nearly thrown from her seat. In driving in the north they do not travel single file, but each deer runs beside the sled of the one before it. The driver who is to occupy the foremost position chooses the best trained deer and attaches two reins to his halter that he may guide him. The drivers who follow use but one rein. By jerking this they can cause the reindeer to go faster, but they have no power to guide him. He simply trots along in his place beside the other sled.
Marian had thought this an admirable arrangement until now. It left her free to admire the sharp triangles of deep purple and light yellow which lay away in the distance, a massive mountain range whose tops at times smoked with the snow of an oncoming blizzard. Or, if she tired of this, she might sit and dream of many things as they glided over the snow. But now with a wolf-pack on their trail, with the nearest human habitation many miles away, with her reindeer doing his utmost to keep up with the racing lead-deer, that slender jerk-line with which she could do so little seemed a fragile "life-line" in case of emergency.
With wrinkled brow she watched the pack which now had made its way down the hillside and was following in full cry on their trail. They were not gaining; her heart was cheered by that. At least she did not think they were, yet, yes, there was one, a giant wolf, a third larger than his fellows, outstripping the others. Now he appeared to be ten yards ahead of them, now twenty, now thirty. The rest were only holding the pace of the reindeer, but this one was gaining, there was no mistaking that. She shivered at the thought.
It was a perilous moment, and she felt so helpless. She longed to urge her deer to go faster. She could not do that. He was keeping his place with difficulty. She could only sit and hope that somehow the wolf-leader would tire of the chase.
Even now she was not sorry they had come, but it was unfortunate, she thought, that there were no rifles on their sleds. Ad-loo-at had taken with him only an old-fashioned native lance, a sharp steel point set upon a long wooden handle. That was all the weapon they had and, foot by foot, yard by yard, the gaunt, gray marauder was coming closer. Marian fancied she could hear the chop-chop of his frothing jaws.
Then, suddenly came catastrophe. With the mad perversity of his kind, her sled deer, suddenly turning from his position beside the sled, whirled about in a wide, sweeping circle which threatened to overturn her sled and leave her alone, defenseless against the hungry pack.
It was a terrible moment. Gripping the ropings of the sled with one hand, she tugged at the jerk-rein with the other.
"It's no use," she cried in despair; "I can't turn him."
One glance down the trail turned her heart faint; her sled-deer was now racing almost directly toward the oncoming pack, the gray leader not a hundred yards away.
In desperation, she threw herself from the sled, and, grasping at some dwarf willows as she slid, attempted to check the career of the mad deer. Twice her grip was broken, but the third time it held; the deer was brought round with a wrench which nearly dislocated her shoulder.
And now the deer for the first time scented danger. With a wild snort he turned to face the oncoming foe. A large deer with all his scraggly antlers might hold a single wolf at bay, but this deer's antlers had been cut to mere stubs that he might travel more lightly. With such weapons he must quickly come to grief.
It was a tragic moment. Marian searched her brain for a plan. Flight was now out of the question, yet defense seemed impossible; there was not a weapon on her sled.
Suddenly her heart leaped for joy. The fight was to be taken from her hand. Ad-loo-at, with the faithful oversight which he exercised over those entrusted to his care, having seen all that had happened had whirled his deer about, tied it to Lucile's sled and now came racing over the snow. He swung above his head the trusty native lance which had meant defeat to so many wild beasts in the days of long ago.
But what was this? Instead of dashing right at the enemy, the Eskimo boy was coming straight for the reindeer and on the opposite side from that on which the wolf was approaching.
"He doesn't see the leader," Marian groaned. "He thinks the rest of the pack are all there are."
But in another second she knew this to be untrue, for, stooping low, the boy appeared to go on all fours as he glided over the snow; he was stalking the wolf even as the wolf was stalking the deer.
Realizing that the wolf was planning to attack the deer and not her, Marian set herself to watch a spectacle such as she would seldom witness in a lifetime.
She had often seen the antics of the Eskimo and Chukche hunters as they performed in the cosgy (common workroom) during the long Arctic nights. She had seen them go through this gliding motion which Ad-loo-at practiced now. She had seen them turn, leap in the air and kick as high as their heads with both feet, landing again on their feet with a smile. She had admired these feats, which no white boy could do, but had thought them only a form of play. Now she was beginning to realize that they were part of the training for just such emergencies as this.
Now her eyes were on the wolf, and now on the boy. As the wolf approached she cringed back to the very end of her jerk-line. She saw his red tongue lolling, heard the chop-chop of his iron jaws and caught the wicked gleam of his eyes.
The boy appeared to time his pace, for he came on more slowly. The deer, still facing the wolf, gave forth a wild snort of rage. He appeared to be unconscious of the fact that he was as defenseless as his driver.
Now the wolf was but a few yards away. Suddenly, pausing, he sprang quickly to the right, to the left, then to the right again. Before the deer could recover his bewildered senses, the wolf leaped full for his side.
But someone else leaped too. With a marvelous spring, the Eskimo boy landed full upon the reindeer's back. Coming face to face with the surprised and enraged wolf, he poised his lance for the fatal thrust. But at that instant, with a bellow of fear, the deer bolted.
In wild consternation Marian tugged at the skin-rope. In another moment she had the deer under control and turned to witness a battle royal. The Eskimo had been thrown from the deer's back, but, agile as a cat, he had landed upon his feet and had turned to face the enemy. He was not a moment too soon, for with a snarl of fury the wolf was upon him.
For a fraction of a second the lance gleamed. Came a snarl, half of rage, half of fear, as the wolf fell backward. But he was on his feet again. It was to no purpose. All was over in an instant. Long practice with the lance had given the boy power to baffle his enemy and send the lance straight to the wild beast's heart.
"Come," Marian was startled by the sound of his voice at her side. She had managed to retain her hold on the jerk-rein. She now felt it being taken from her, knew that she was being lifted onto the sled and, the next moment, sensed the cool breeze that fanned her cheek. They were racing away to join Lucile and to continue their journey.
As she looked back, she saw the cowardly pack snarling over the bones of their fallen leader, and realizing that all danger was past, settled down in her place with a sigh as she said:
"That—that was a very close one."
"Too much close," Ad-loo-at smiled back. "In north we must go—how you say it—pre—pre—"
"Prepared," supplemented Marian. "We'll never travel again without rifles."
"Oh! yes. Mebby," the boy smiled back. "Mebby all right. Mebby rifle miss fire. Him never miss fire." He patted first his lance, then the muscles of his strong right arm. "Better prepared think mine."
Marian smiled as the brown boy ran ahead to free his own deer and prepare to continue the journey. "Surely," she thought, "physical fitness is a great thing. The boy has paid us well for fighting his battles for him on Puget Sound."
No further adventures befell them on their journey, but it was with thankful hearts that they saw the familiar outlines of the village at East Cape. As the reindeer came to a stop they sprang from their sled, but Ad-loo-at made no move to follow them. "Me—I go back," he said gravely. "You safe—I no stay."
"But you must rest—and eat," remonstrated Lucile. "And the reindeers, they need rest."
"Huh," came the answer, with a shrug. "Better time to rest when all work is done. Me young; reindeers young—we rest at camp."
"But you must wait till I—I—well, there is something that I—that you—" Lucile fumbled for the right words. She sensed that the boy, for all his youth, had a grown-up way of looking at things. There was that talisman she had carried ever since that night he had left them there on the island of Puget Sound—the three elk teeth set with jade and an uncut diamond. "Don't let him go, Marian, till I come back."
She darted into their igloo, to return an instant later, the odd jewel gleaming in her hand. At sight of it a smile spread over Ad-loo-at's face. "Ch—k!" he chuckled.
"You must take it back," Lucile demanded.
The boy threw back his head and laughed boisterously. "It is a charm," he said. "Can one Chukche take back a charm? It will keep you—what you say?—safe, yes. Me, I have this." He held up his lance.
"But you must," urged Marian in turn.
"Must—hear you that, reindeer. Heya! let us go!" He waved his lance aloft in farewell. "Heya—mush!" he commanded, and the three reindeer broke into the untiring stride that would soon carry them from sight. The two girls stood watching him till, with a last wave of his hand, he disappeared around a hill. Then, alone again, they thought of Phi.
"I wonder if he has gone on without us," said Marian.
"I wonder. No, there he is!" exclaimed Lucile. "He's coming down the hill to meet us."
"Are—are we too late?" Lucile faltered as he reached their side.
"About six hours, I should say," Phi grinned.
"Six hours?"
"His nibs, the old Chukche guide, left for Cape Prince of Wales and all suburban points some six hours ago. Some one offered him more money than I did. I have a fancy it was your friend, the bearded miner who wanted my mail."
"And—and you waited for us?"
"Naturally, since the guide left."
"But you could have gone sooner?"
"Some three days, I'm told."
"But you didn't?"
He smiled and shrugged his shoulders.
Marian's head whirled. She was torn between conflicting emotions. Most of all, she felt terribly ashamed. Here was a boy she had not fully trusted, yet he had given up a chance to escape to freedom and had waited for them.
"I—I beg your pardon," she said weakly. She sat down rather unsteadily on the reindeer sled.
"We couldn't help it," she said presently. "They just wouldn't bring us back. Isn't there some other way?"
"I've thought of a possible one. I'll make a little try-out. Be back in an hour."
Phi was off like a flash. A few minutes later the girls thought they heard him calling old Rover, who had been left in his care.
"Wonder what he wants of him?" said Lucile.
"I don't know," said Marian. "But I do know I'm powerful hungry.Let's go find something to eat."
"I think we can go." Phi smiled as he spoke. His hour for a try-out had expired. He was back.
"Can—can we cross the Straits?" Marian asked, breathless with emotion.
"I think so."
"How?"
"Got a new guide. I'll show you. Be ready in a half-hour. Bring your pictures and a little food. Not much. Wear snowshoes. Ice is terribly piled up."
He disappeared in the direction of his own igloo.
Marian looked about the cozy deerskin home where were stored their few belongings, then gazed away at the masses of deep purple shadows that stretched across the imprisoned ocean. For a moment courage failed her.
"Perhaps," she said to herself, "it would be better to try to winter here."
But even as she thought this, she caught a vision of that time when she and her companion had been crowded out of a native village to shift for themselves. Then, too, she thought of the possible starving-time in the spring, after the white bear had gone north and before walrus would come, or trading schooners.
"No," she said out loud, "no, we'd better try it."
When the girls joined Phi on the edge of the ice-floe, they looked about for the guide but saw none. Only Rover barked them a welcome.
"Where's the guide?" asked Lucile.
"You'll see. C'm'on," said the boy, leading the way.
For a mile they traveled over the solid shore-ice. They then came to a stretch of water, dark as midnight. At the edge of this was a two-seated kiak.
Phi motioned Lucile to a seat. Deftly, he paddled her across to the other side. It was with a sinking feeling that she felt herself silently carried toward the north by the gigantic ice-floe.
Marian and the dog were quickly ferried over. Then, after drawing the kiak upon the ice, the boy turned directly north and began walking rapidly. At times he broke into a run.
"Have to make good time," he explained as he snatched Marian's roll of sketches from her hand. "Got to get the trail."
They did make good time. Alternately running and walking, they kept up a pace of some six or seven miles an hour.
"Why, I thought—thought we were going to go east," puffed Marian."We're just going down the beach."
Phi did not answer.
They had raced on for nearly an hour when they suddenly came upon a kiak drawn up as theirs had been on the ice.
"Ah! I thought so," said the boy. "Now's the time for a guide. Here,Rover!"
He seized the dog by his collar and set him on the invisible trail of the men who had deserted that kiak. The dog walked slowly away, sniffing the ice as he went. His course was due east. The three followed him in silence. Presently his speed increased. He took on an air of confidence. With tail up, ears back, he sniffed the ice only now and then as he dashed over great, flat pans, then over little mountains of broken ice, to emerge again upon flat surfaces.
Marian understood, and her admiration for Phi grew. He had found the trail of the men who had crossed the Straits before them. He had put Rover on that trail. Rover could not fail to follow. The trail was fresh, only seven hours old. Rover could have followed one as many days old.
"Good old Rover," Marian murmured, "good old Rover, a white man's dog."
All at once a question came to her mind. They had been obliged to go several miles north to pick up the trail. This was due to the movement of the floe. This movement still continued. It was carrying them still farther to the north. The Diomede Islands, halfway station of the Straits, were small; they offered a goal only two or three miles in length. If they were carried much farther north, would they not miss the islands?
She confided her fears to Phi.
"I thought of that," he smiled. "There is a little danger of that, but not much, I guess. You see, I'll try to time our rate of travel, and figure out as closely as I can when we have covered the eighteen miles that should bring us even with the islands. Then, too, old Rover will be losing the trail about that time. When that bearded friend of yours and his guide leave the floe to go upon the solid shore ice of the islands, the floe is going to keep right on moving north. That breaks the trail, see? When we strike the end of that trail we can go due south and hit the islands. If the air is at all clear, we can see them. It's a clumsy arrangement, but better than going it without a trail."
Marian did "see," but this did not entirely still the wild beating of her heart as she leaped a yawning chasm between giant up-ended cakes of ice, or felt her way cautiously across a strip of newly-formed ice that bent under her weight as if it were made of rubber.
It was with a strange, wild thrill that she realized they were far out over the conquered sea. Hundreds of feet below was the bed of Bering Straits. Above that bed a wild, swirling current of frigid salt water raced.
Once, as they were about to cross a stretch of new ice, Phi threw himself flat and hacked a hole through the ice. Water bubbled up, while Marian caught the wild surging rush of the current.
For a second her knees trembled, her face blanched. Phi saw and smiled.
"Never fear," he exclaimed; "we'll make it all right. And when you get back home you'll have a story to tell that will make Eliza's crossing on the ice seem like a picnic party crossing a trout stream on stepping-stones."
It was not long after that, however, when even this daring boy's face sobered. Old Rover, who had been following the trail unhesitatingly, suddenly came to a halt. He turned to the right, sniffing the ice. Then he turned to the left. After that he looked up into the face of the boy, as if to say:
"Where's the trail gone?"
Phi examined the ice carefully.
"Been a sudden jam here," he muttered; "then the ice has slid along, some north, some south. It has all happened since our friends passed this way. You just wait here. I'll take Rover to the north and let him pick up the trail. When I find it, I'll come back far enough to call to you. May be to the south, though, but we'll soon see."
He disappeared around a giant ice-pile and, in a twinkling, was lost to view.
The two girls, placing their burdens of food and Marian's sketches on an up-ended ice-cake, sat down to wait. They were growing weary. The strain of the adventure into this puzzling, unknown ice-field was telling on their nerves.
"I wish we were safe at Cape Prince of Wales," sighed Marian.
"Yes, or even East Cape," said Lucile. "I think I'd be content to stay there and chance the year with the natives."
"Anyway, Phi's doing his best," said Marian. "Isn't he a strange one, though? Do you think he has the blue envelope?"
"I don't know."
"Well, I think he has."
"I don't know," Lucile said sleepily. Fatigue and the keen Arctic air were making her drowsy.
Presently, she leaned back against an ice-cake and fell asleep.
"I'll let her sleep," Marian mused. "It'll give her strength for what comes next, whatever that is."
An hour passed, but no call echoed across the silent white expanse. Marian, now pacing back and forth across a narrow ice-pan, now pausing to listen, felt her anxiety redoubled by every succeeding moment. What could have happened to Phi? Had some mishap befallen him? Had a slip thrown him into some dangerous crevice? Had thin ice dropped him to sure death in the surging undercurrent? Or had he merely wandered too far and lost his way?
Whatever may have happened, he did not return.
At length, with patience exhausted, she climbed the highest ice-pile and gazed away to the north. The first glance brought forth a cry of dismay. A narrow lane of dark water, stretching from east to west, extended as far as eye could see in each direction. It lay not a quarter of a mile from the spot where she stood.
"He's across and can never recross to us," she moaned in despair. "No creature could brave that undercurrent and live. And there is no other way."
Then, as the full terror of their situation flashed upon her, she sank down in a heap and buried her face in her hands.
They were two lone girls ten miles from any land, on the bosom of a vast ice-floe, which was slowly but surely creeping toward the unknown northern sea. They had no chart, no compass, no trail to follow and no guide. To move seemed futile, yet to remain where they were meant sure disaster.
As if to complete the tragedy of the whole situation, a snow-fog drifted down upon them. Blotting out the black ribbon of water and every ice-pile that was more than a stone's throw from them, it swept on to the south with a silence that was more appalling than had been the grinding scream of a tidal wave beneath the ice.
"Lucile! Lucile!" she fairly screamed as she came down to the surface of the pan. "Lucile! Wake up! We are lost! He is lost!"
* * * * * *
What had happened to the young college boy had been this: He had hastened to the north in search of the trail. Rover, with nose close to the ice, had searched diligently for the scent. For a long time his search had been unrewarded, but at last, with a joyous bark, he sprang away across an ice-pan.
The boy followed him far enough to make sure that he had truly found the trail, then, calling him back, turned to retrace his steps.
Great was his consternation when he discovered the cleavage in the floe. Hopefully he had at first gone east along the channel in search of a possible passage. He found none. After racing for a mile, he turned and retraced his steps to the point where he had first come upon open water. From there he hurried west along the channel. Another twenty minutes was wasted. No possible crossing-place could be found.
He then sat down to think. He thought first of his companions. That they were in a dire plight, he realized well. That they would be able to devise any plan by which they could find their way to any shore, he doubted; yet, as he thought of it, his own position seemed more critical. The trail he had found would now be useless. He was north of the break in the floe. Land lay to the south of it. He had no way to cross. In such circumstances, the dog with his keen sense of smell, and his compass with its unerring finger, were equally useless.
"Nothing to do but wait," he mumbled, so he sat down patiently to wait.
And, as he waited, the snow-fog settled down over all.
It was with a staggering sense of hopelessness that the two girls on the bosom of the Arctic floe saw the snow-fog settle down.
"It's likely to last for days, and by that time—" Marian's lips refused to frame the words that expressed their condition when the snow-fog lifted.
"By that time—" echoed Lucile. "But no, we must do something.Surely, there is some way!"
"Without compass or guide?" Marian smiled at the impossibility of there being a solution.
Unconsciously, she had repeated the first line of an old song. Lucile said over the verse:
"Without compass or guide.On the crest of the tide.Oh! Light of the stars,Pray pilot me home."
Involuntarily, her glance stole skyward. Instantly an exclamation escaped her lips:
"Oh, Marian! We can see them! We can! We can!"
"What can we see?" asked Marian.
"The stars!"
It was true. The snow-fog, though spread over the vast surface of the ice, was shallow. The stars gleamed through it as if there were no fog at all.
Wildly their hearts beat now with hope.
"If we can locate the big dipper," said Lucile, whose astronomical research had been of a practical sort, "we can follow the line made by the two stars at the lower edge of the dipper and find the North Star. All we have to do then is to let the North Star guide us home."
This was quickly done. And in a short while they had mapped out a course for themselves which would certainly come nearer bringing them to the desired haven than would the north-ward drift of the ice-floe.
"But Phi?" exclaimed Lucile.
Marian stood for a moment undecided. Should they leave this spot without him? She believed he would make a faithful attempt to rejoin them. What if they were gone when he came? Suddenly she laughed.
"Rover!" she exclaimed. "He can follow our trail. If Phi comes, he will have only to follow us. He can travel faster than we shall. He may catch up with us."
So with many a backward glance at the gleaming North Star, the two girls set their course south by east, a course which in time should bring them in the vicinity of the Diomede Islands.
In their minds, however, were many questions. Would further tide-cracks impede their progress? Would the snow-fog continue? If it did, would they ever be able to locate the two tiny islands which were, after all, mere rocky pillars jutting from a sea of ice?
* * * * * *
Phi did not sit long on the ice-pile under the snow-fog. He was born for action. Something must be done. Quickly he was on the run.
As he rushed back over the way in which he had come, something caught his eye.
An immense ice-pan had been up-ended by the press of the drift. It had toppled half over and lodged across the edge of a smaller cake. Now, like an ancient drawbridge, it hung suspended over the black moat of the salt water channel.
The boy's quick eye had detected a very slight movement downward. As he remembered it now, the cake had made a far more obtuse angle with the surface of the pool a half-hour before than it did now.
Was there hope in this? Hastily he arranged three bits of ice in one pile, then two in another. By dropping on his stomach and squinting across these, he could just see the tip of the up-ended cake. If it were in motion the tip would soon disappear. Eagerly he strained his eyes for a few seconds. Then, in disgust, he closed his eyes. The cake did not seem to move.
For some time he lay there in deep thought. He was searching in his mind for a way out.
After a while he opened his eyes. More from curiosity than hope, he squinted once more along the line. Then, with a wild shout, he sprang into the air. The natural drawbridge was falling. Its point had dropped out of line.
The shout died on his lips. His eyes had warned him that the channel of water was widening. If it widened too rapidly, if the drawbridge fell too slowly, or ceased to fall at all, hope would die.
Moment by moment he measured the two distances with his eye. Rover, sitting by his side, now and again peered up into his eyes as if to say: "What's it all about?"
Now the drawbridge took a sudden drop of a foot. Hope rose. Then, again, it appeared wedged solidly in place. It did not move. The channel widened a foot, two feet, three. Hope seemed vain.
But now came a sudden tide tremor across the floe. With a crunching sound the massive cake toppled and fell.
The boy was on his feet in an instant. The chasm was bridged. But the cake had broken in two. Could he make it?
Calling to his dog, he leaped upon the slippery surface. An ever-widening river of water flowed where the cake had split. With one wild bound, he cleared it. The dog followed. In another moment they were safe on the other side.
"That's well over with," the boy sighed, patting the old dog on the head. "Now the question is, how can we find our friends?"
That, indeed, was a problem. They had covered considerable ground. The ice had been shifting. To pick up their back trail seemed impossible. An hour's search convinced him that it could not be done. He sat down in a brown study. He could not go away and leave these girls to drift north and perish, yet further search seemed futile.
Just as he was about to despair, Rover began to bark in the distance. Following the sound, he came to where the dog was apparently barking at nothing. But as the boy approached, the dog shot away over the ice.
"A trail!" he muttered, following on.
The ice was hard and smooth. A soft skin "muckluck" would leave no mark. Even the hard toes of a white bear would not scratch it.
When the boy had followed for a half-hour, he thought of these things, and paused to consider. What if he were following the meandering trail of a lumbering white bear? And if it happened to be a trail of a human being, was it his own trail, that of the girls, or of the bearded miner and his guide?
His compass would tell something. Studying his compass then, he walked forward slowly.
Fifteen minutes of this told him that this was no white bear's trail. It went too straight ahead for that. Neither could it be his own trail, for he would have come to a sudden turn before this. One thing more was certain: The person or persons who made this trail were headed due south by east. They would, if they did not change their course, in time reach the vicinity of the Diomede Islands. Were they his friends, or the unfaithful guide and his party? This he could not tell.
After a few moments' reflection he decided that there remained but one thing for him to do: to follow this trail.
"All right, old dog," he said, "let's see where this ends, and who's at the end. Might be an Eskimo hunter who has wandered far on the ice-floe, for all I know; but he'll end up sometime."
Moment by moment the scent of the trail they followed grew fresher. He could tell this by the old dog's growing eagerness. At every ice-pile they rounded, he expected to catch sight of human figures. Would it be two men or two girls? He could not tell. Not a chance footprint in soft snow had caught his eye.
When he had fairly given up hope of overtaking them, as he speeded around a gigantic ice-pile he came at once in sight of those he followed. So overjoyed was he at sight of human beings that, before determining their identity, he shouted cheerily:
"Hey, there!"
The figure nearest him wheeled in his track. Then, with the fierce growl of a beast, he sprang at the boy's throat.
So taken by surprise was Phi that he made no defense. He caught a vision of a pair of fiery eyes set in a mass of shaggy hair; the next instant he felt himself crashed to the hard surface of the ice.
The advantage was all with the man. Larger, stronger, older, with the handicap of the aggressor, he bade fare to finish his work quickly.
The native guide had passed beyond the next ice-pile. Rover had followed.
But the boy's college days had not been for naught; he knew a trick or two. As if stunned by the fall, he relaxed and lay motionless. Seeing this, the man took time to plant his knees on the boy's chest before moving his horny hands toward his throat.
The next instant, as if thrown by a springboard, the man flew into the air. Phi sprang to his feet, his one thought of escape. Turning, he dashed around an ice-pile, then another and another. But fate was not with him. Just at the moment when he felt that he could elude his pursuer, his foot struck a crevice in the ice, and he went sprawling. Again the wild terror was upon him.
But this time there came tearing over the ice a new wild terror, and this one his friend. Old Rover, silent and determined, sprang clean at the man's throat. The assailant went down, striking out with hands and feet, and roaring for mercy.
Phi dragged the dog off. "Get!" he said. The man looked surly, but one look at the determined boy and the eager jaws of the dog set him slouching away.
"You're some dog!" the boy laughed at the old leader. "Well, now, I'll say you are!"
When the man had gone, Phi sat down upon an up-ended ice-cake to rest and think. His logical course was evident enough; to wait for perhaps half an hour, allowing the man, who would doubtless be able to overtake his guide, to get a sufficient distance ahead to prevent any further unpleasant encounters. Still, he was glad now to have his rifle, small as it was. He had brought only a few cartridges for it, as they were an added weight. These had been spilled from his pocket in the scuffle, but by a diligent search he was able to find five. He was about to abandon the search when, with an exclamation of astonishment, he sprang forward, and bending, picked up an envelope.
"The blue envelope," he exclaimed. "My blue envelope. He must be the bearded miner the girls told me about. It was lucky he tried to assassinate me after all."
The envelope had been torn open, but the letter, though blurred with grime and dirt, was still in it. With eager fingers he pulled it out.
"Couldn't read our cipher, so he was going to Nome for help, I reckon," he muttered. "All I've got to say is, it's lucky he lost it and I found it."
He read the missive hastily, then a light of hope shone in his eye.
"If only I can make it back to the American shore," he exulted."Rover, old boy, get back on your job. We're going to the islands."
Hopefully he hurried forward. But they had tarried too long, for, not a hundred rods from their starting point, they came upon a broad, dark break in the floe, such a break as no draw-bridge of ice would ever span.
"And, like the other, it's endless," Phi groaned as his eye swept the line from left to right and from right to left again; then he sat down to think.
A half hour before this Lucile had said to Marian: "Listen, I think I hear a dog bark."
They listened and the bark came to them very distinctly.
"Is it Rover, or does it come from the island?" asked Lucile.
"I can't tell," whispered Marian.
For some time they listened. When at last they prepared to resume their journey, Lucile glanced upward again. Then a cry of consternation escaped her lips; the fog had thickened; the stars were lost to them. They were again adrift on the trackless floe without compass or guide.
At the moment when Phi sat down to think, they were just coming in sight of that same break in the floe, on the side of which he sat. They were not a mile apart, but the distance had as well been a hundred miles as, in this labyrinth of ice-floes, no person finds another, and, as it turned out later, Phi took the trail to the left and they the one to the right.
Why the two girls chose to travel to the right along the break, they could not have told, nor why they traveled at all, unless because motion quieted their nerves and served to allay their fears. Perhaps there was something of Providence in it. Certainly it did bring them a bit of good fortune.
Lucile had rounded a gigantic ice-pile when suddenly she grippedMarian's arm.
"What's this?" she exclaimed.
A brown object lay some distance ahead of them. With bated breaths they crept cautiously forward; it might be a white bear or walrus.
Suddenly Marian threw up her head and laughed. "It's only a kiak.Some Eskimo has left it on the ice and the floe has carried it away."
"May be a valuable find. Let's hurry," exclaimed Lucile.
Breaking into a run, they soon reached its side.
"Let's explore it!" whispered Marian. "You take the forecastle and I'll take the after-cabin," she laughed, as she thrust her arm into the open space toward the stern of the kiak.
"Why, there is something there!" she exclaimed.
"Something here, too!" answered Lucile excitedly, as her slender white hand tugged away at a bundle which had been thrust into the prow of the boat.
"It's like going through your stocking Christmas morning!" laughed Marian, for the moment quite forgetting their dilemma in the excitement of discovery.
Marian drew forth a large sealskin sack. It was heavy and was tied tightly at the mouth. It gave forth a strange plop as she turned it over.
"Some sort of liquid," she announced. "Probably seal-oil."
With difficulty she untied the strings and opened the sack. Then quickly she pinched her nose. "Whew! What a smell!"
"Let's see," said Lucile, dropping the bundle she had just dragged forth. "Yes, it's seal-oil. That's a good find."
"Why? We can't use that stuff. It must be at least a year old and rotten. Talk about limburger cheese! Whew!"
She quickly tied the sack up again.
"Well," said Lucile, "we probably won't want to use it for food, but white people as fine-blooded as we have been compelled to. It's better than starving. But I was thinking about a fire. If we ever find any fuel where we're going—wherever that is—" she smiled a trifle uncertainly, "we'll need some oil to help start the fire if the fuel is damp, as most driftwood is."
"Driftwood? When do we go ashore?" laughed Marian.
"It's well to be prepared for anything," smiled Lucile. "Let's see what's in my prize package."
Marian leaned forward eagerly while Lucile untied a leather thong.
"Deerskins!" she cried exultantly. "Four of them! Enough for a sleeping-bag! And wrapped in a sealskin square which will protect us from the damp. I believe," she said thoughtfully, "that this native must have been planning a little trip up the coast, and if he was there must be other useful things in our ark, for an Eskimo never ventures far without being prepared for every emergency."
Once more they bent over the kiak, each one to search her corner.
"Another sack!" cried Lucile; "a hunting sack, with matches wrapped in oiled sealskin, a butcher knife, some skin-rope, a pair of boola balls with the strings, a fish line with hook and sinker; two big needles stuck in a bit of canvas. That's about all, but it's a lot."
"I've found a little circular wooden box," said Marian. "More food, I guess; probably the kind you can't eat without gagging. No," she cried, after a moment, "here's a big square of tea—the Russian kind, all pressed hard into a brick. There's enough for a dozen tea parties. Oh, joy! here are three pilot biscuits!"
"Pilot biscuits!" Lucile danced about on the ice.
These large brown disks of hardtack, so often despised, would not have been half so welcome had they been solid gold.
"Well, I guess that's about all," but Marian smiled. "I'm hungry already, but we daren't eat anything yet. We'll save these and eat the deer meat first that we brought along."
"We'll be pretty awful hungry, I am afraid," said Lucile, "before we leave the ocean. But what worries me just now is a drink. Do you suppose we could find an ice-pool of fresh water?"
A short search found them the desired pool, and each drank to her heart's content. They then sat down upon the top of the kiak for a brief consultation. After talking matters over they decided that the best thing they could do was to remain by the kiak until the fog cleared. It was true that the kiak, carefully managed, would carry them across the break in the floe, but, once across, they would be no better off than before, since they had no way of determining directions. Furthermore, neither of them had ever handled a kiak and they knew all too well what a spill meant in that stinging water.
"Guess we'd better stick right here," said Marian, and Lucile agreed.
"Now," suggested Lucile, "we'll put your middy on a paddle and set it up as a sign of distress; then, since the ice isn't piling, I think we might both sleep a little while."
The flag was soon hoisted, and the girls, with the sealskin square beneath them, lay down under the deerskins and attempted to sleep. But the deerskins were not large enough to cover them, and kept sliding off. They were chilled through and sleep was impossible.
"Lucile," said Marian at last, "I believe we could set the kiak up and bank it solidly into place, then creep into it and sleep there."
"We might," said Lucile doubtfully.
The kiak was soon set, and, after many doublings and twistings, with much laughter they managed to slide down into it, and there, with two of the deerskins for a mattress and two for covers, they at last fell asleep in one another's arms, as peacefully as children in a trundle-bed.
"Oh, Marian, you're too—too chubby!" Lucile laughed, as she attempted to struggle from the bean-pod-like bed, after they had slept for some time.
Their first glance at the break in the floe told them it had widened rather than narrowed. A look skyward showed them that the fog too had thickened. Lucile's brow wrinkled; her eyes were downcast.
"Cheer up!" said Marian. "You can never tell what will happen. Things change rapidly in this Arctic world. We'd better explore our ice-floe, hadn't we? And don't you think we could eat a bit before we go?"
Cheered by the very thought of something to be done, Lucile munched her half of the pilot biscuit and bit of reindeer meat contentedly.
Then, after they had seen to it that their white middy flag was properly fastened, for this must act as a guide back to camp, they prepared to go exploring.
Armed with the butcher knife, Lucile led the way. Marian carried the fishing tackle, and about her waist were wound the strings of the boola ball.
"Quite some hunters," laughed Marian. "Regular Robinson Crusoettes!"
Several wide circles of the camp revealed nothing but ice, the whiteness of which was relieved here and there by spots of water, black as night.
"Might be fish in them," suggested Marian.
"Yes, but you couldn't catch them. You can only catch tomcod through a hole in the ice."
They were becoming tired, and had spoken of turning back, when Marian whispered:
"Down!"
She pulled her companion into the dark side of an ice-pile.
A shadow had passed over the ice. Now it passed again, and Lucile, looking up, saw a small flock of ducks circling for a pool of water not twenty yards away.
"Wha—what's the idea?" she whispered.
"Boola balls. Maybe we can catch one. They come from the north; not easily scared."
"Can you—"
"Yes, my brother showed me how to handle the boola balls. You whirl them about your head a few times, then you let them go. If the string strikes a duck's neck, it winds all about it; then the duck can't fly."
With eager fingers Marian straightened out the twelve feet of double-strand leather thong.
"There! There! They're down!" whispered Lucile.
"You stay here. If they rise and fly away, call me."
Creeping around two piles of ice, Marian threw herself flat and began to crawl the remaining distance across a flat pan of ice. Her heart was beating wildly, for in her veins there flowed a strain of the hunter's blood of her Briton ancestors of many generations back.
Now she was forty feet away, now twenty, now ten, and the ducks had not flown. Stretching out the thong, she rose on an elbow and set the balls whirling over her head. Once, twice, three times, then up she sprang and with one more whirl sent the string singing through the air.
The young ducks, craning their necks with curiosity, did not move until something came crashing at them, and a wildly frantic girl sprang toward them.
To the duck about whose neck the string had encircled, this move was too late, for Marian was upon him. And a moment later, looking very much like the old woman who went to market, with a dead gray duck dangling from her right arm, Marian returned in triumph.
"Oh, Lucile," she cried, "I got him! I got him!"
"Fine! You shall have a medal," said Lucile.
"But howwillwe cook him?"
"Well," said Lucile, after a moment's thought, "it's growing colder; going to freeze hard. They say freezing meat is almost as good as cooking it. I don't know—"
"Look!" cried Marian suddenly, balancing herself at the crest of a high pile of ice. "What's all that black a little way over there to the left? It's not like ice. Do you suppose it could be an island?"
"Is the ice piling there?" Lucile asked, clinging to her friend's side. "No, it isn't, so it can't be an island, for the island would stop the ice as it flows and make it pile up."
"But what can it be?"
"We can't go over there, for we can't see our flag from there."
"Yes, we can," said Marian. "I'll take off my petticoat and put it on this ice-pile. We can see it from there, and when we get back here we can see the flag."
This new beacon was soon established. Then, with trembling and eager footsteps, the girls hastened to what appeared to be an oasis in a desert of ice.
It was a strange sight that met the eyes of the two girls as they paused halfway to the dark patch on the surface of the ice which loomed like a giant's shadow in the snow-fog. With eager feet they dashed on, leaping narrow chasms and stumbling over ice barriers in their mad rush.
The revelation which came as they rounded the last pile of ice was both a surprise and a disappointment. Great heaps of ashes, piles of bottles and tin cans, frozen masses of garbage; junk of every description, from a rusty tin dipper to a discarded steel range, met their eyes.
"It's a graveyard," murmured Marian, "a graveyard of things people don't want."
"That some people didn't want!" corrected the more practical Lucile."Marian, we're rich!"
"Rich?" Marian stared.
"Why, yes! Don't you see? There's an old clothes wringer; that's got a lot of wood in it. And there's an old paper bucket. That'll burn. There's a lot of things like that. It won't take any time at all to get enough wood to cook our duck!"
"A fire! A fire!" exclaimed Marian, jumping up and down in a wild dance. Then, seized with Lucile's spell of practical philosophy, she grasped a rusty tin kettle.
"We can cook it in this. There's a hole in it, but we can draw a cloth into that, and we can scour it up with ashes."
The next few minutes echoed with glad exclamations: "Here's an old fork!" "Here's half a sack of salt!" "Here are two rusty spoons!" "Here's a broiler," and so it went on.
One would have believed they were in the greatest department store in the land, with the privilege of carrying away anything that would fit in their kitchen and that suited their fancy. Truth was, they were rummaging over the city of Nome's vast garbage pile. That garbage pile had been accumulated during the previous year, and was, at this time, several hundred miles from the city. During the long nine months of winter the water about Nome is frozen solid some two miles out to sea. All garbage and junk is hauled out upon the ice with dog-teams and dumped there. When spring comes the ice loosens from the shore, and, laden with its great cargo of unwanted things, carries it through Bering Straits to haunt the Arctic Ocean, perhaps for years to come. It is moved hither and yon until time and tide and many storms have at last ground it into oblivion.
The long Arctic twilight had begun to fall when the two girls, hungry and weary, but happily laden with many treasures which were to make life more possible on their floating palace of ice, made their way toward their camp.
Besides scraps of wood enough for two or three small fires, and cooking utensils of various sorts, they had found salt, a part of a box of pepper, and six cans of condensed milk which had doubtless been frozen several times but had never been opened.
"We could live a week," said Lucile exultantly, "even if we didn't have another bit of good luck."
"Yes-s," said Marian slowly, "but let's hope we don't have to; I'm afraid I'd get awful hungry."
They dined that night, quite happily, on a third of their duck, soup made of duck's broth and condensed milk, and half of a pilot biscuit.
"Oh, Marian," said Lucile, as she thought of sleep, "that kiak's so crowded when we sleep there."
"Yes-s," said Marian, thoughtfully, "it is. I wonder if we couldn't make a sleeping-bag?"
At once needles and some sinew thread found in the native's hunting bag were gotten out, the four deerskins were spread out, two on the bottom and two on top, with the fur side inside, and they went to work with a will to fashion a rude sleeping-bag.
Their fingers shook with the chill wind that swept across the ice and their eyelids drooped often in sleep, yet they persevered and at last the thing was complete.
"Are you sure it won't be cold?" said Lucile, who had never slept in a sleeping-bag.
"Oh, no, I know it won't," Marian assured her. "I've heard my father tell of spreading his on the frozen ground when it was thirty below zero, and sleeping snug as a 'possum in a hollow tree."
"All right; let's try it," and Lucile spread the bag on the sealskin square.
After removing their skirts and rolling them up for pillows, together they slid down into the soft, warm depths of their Arctic bed.
"Um-m," whispered Marian.
"Um-m," Lucile answered back. And the next moment they were both fast asleep.
All through the night they slept there with the Great Dipper circling around the North Star above them, and with the ice-floe carrying them, who could tell where?
The two following days were spent in fruitless hunting for wild duck and in making trips to the rubbish pile. These trips netted nothing of use save armfuls of wood which helped to add a cheery tone to their camp. Though the fog held on, the nights grew bitterly cold. They were glad enough to creep into their sleeping-bag as soon as it grew dark. There for hours they lay and talked of many things: Of the land to which the ice-floe might eventually bring them, the people who would be living there, and the things they would have to eat. Then, again, they would talk of school days, and the glad, good times that now seemed so far away. Of one subject they never spoke; never once did one wonder to the other what their families were doing in their far-away homes. They did not dare. It would have been like singing "Home Sweet Home" to the American soldiers on the fields of France.
The second day's tramp to the rubbish pile brought them a great surprise. They were busily searching through the piles of cans for a possible one that had not been opened, when Lucile, happening to hear a noise behind her, looked up. The next instant, with a startled whisper, which was almost a cry, "Marian! Quick!" she seized Marian by the arm and dragged her around an ice-pile.
"Wha—what is it?" whispered the startled Marian.
"Bear!"
* * * * * *
At this very moment, on another section of that same vast floe, Phi lay flat on his stomach, his eye traveling the length of his rifle barrel. His brow was wrinkled. He moved uneasily, as a gambler moves who would risk all on one throw of the dice but does not quite dare.
He shook the benumbed fingers of his right hand, then gripped the rifle once more. His forefinger was on the trigger. He had arrived at a crisis. He was half starved and freezing. For three days now he had wandered over the vast expanse of ice-pans that covered the waters of Bering Straits. During that three days he had secured only two small birds, dovekies they were, birds who linger all winter in the Arctic. These he had shared with Rover.
From the moment the snow-fog had settled down upon him and the break in the ice-floe had blocked his way so effectively, he had wandered about without knowing where he was going. The ice-floe constantly drifting, first this way, then that, may have carried him east, west, north, south. Who could tell where? Who could guess his position on the surface of the ocean at the present moment?
A brown seal was the cause of his excitement now. The seal, lying asleep upon the ice-pan before him, must weigh something like seventy pounds. This was meat enough to last him and his dog many days.
He was not a good shot and knew it. He had wandered over the ice-floes of the ocean at times with a rifle under his arm, yet never before had he stalked a seal. Only the grimmest necessity could have induced him to do so now. There was something altogether too human in those bobbing brown heads as they appeared above the water or lifted to gaze about them on the ice. But now his need and the need of the dog demanded prompt action.
Two things made a perfect shot a necessity: The seal was sleeping beside his hole; if he was not killed instantly he would drop into the hole and be lost to the hunter. And this was the last cartridge in the rifle. The two birds had cost him four shots. The seal must be secured by his last one. There seemed a certain irony about a fate which would allow him to waste his ammunition on small birds, then offer him such a prize as this with only one shot to win.
He knew well enough how to stalk a seal; he had watched the Eskimos do it many times. Lying flat on your stomach, you cautiously creep forward. Every moment or two you bob your head up and down in imitation of a seal awakened and looking about. If your seal is awake, since his eyesight is poor he will take you for a member of his own species and will go back to sleep again.
Knowing all this, Phi had dragged himself a hundred feet across the ice, without disturbing the seal. Only fifty feet remained, yet to his feverish brain this seemed too great a distance. Seeing his seal bobbing his head, he bobbed in turn, then, when the seal had dozed off again, continued his crawl.
He had made another six yards when, with a sudden resolve, he slid the rifle forward, lifted it to position, glanced steadily along its barrel, then pulled the trigger.
There followed a metallic snap, then a splash, The rifle had missed fire; the seal had dropped into its pool.
For a moment the boy lay there motionless, stunned by the realization that he was still without food and was now powerless to procure any.
"Well, anyway it was luck for the seal," he smiled uncertainly. "It sure was his lucky day!"
Rising unsteadily, he put two fingers to his mouth and uttered a shrill whistle. From behind a towering ice pile, Rover, gaunt and miserable yet unmistakably a white man's dog, and, by his bearing, a one time leader of the team, came limping toward him.
"Well," the boy said, patting the dog, "it's hard luck, but we don't eat. It's harder for you than for me, for you are old and I'm young, but somehow—somehow, we'll have to manage. If only we knew. If only—"
He stopped abruptly and his eyes opened wide. Off to the left of them, like a giant fist thrust through the fog, there had appeared the dark bulk of a granite cliff.
"Land, Rover, land!" he muttered hoarsely.
The next moment, utterly overcome with excitement, he sank weakly to the surface of the ice-pan.
"This won't do," he said cheerily, after a brief period of rest. "Rover, old boy, we must be traveling. If the ice is crowding that shore, which it must be from the feel of the wind, there's a chance for us yet."