by Roy J. Snell
CHAPTER VI
THE DREAD WHITE LINE
Three days the blizzard raged about the cabin where Lucile and Marianhad found shelter. Such a storm at this season of the year had notbeen known on the Arctic for more than twenty years.
For three days the girls shivered by the galley range, husbanding theirlittle supply of food, and hoping for something to turn up when thestorm was over. Just what that something might be neither of themcould have told.
The third day broke clear and cold with the wind still blowing a gale.Lucile was the first to throw open the door. As it came back with abang, something fell from the beam above and rattled to the floor.
She stooped to pick it up.
"Look, Marian!" she exclaimed. "A key! A big brass key!"
Marian examined it closely.
"What can it belong to?"
"The wreck, perhaps."
"Probably."
"Looks like a steward's pass-key."
"But what would they save it for? You don't think--"
"If we could get out to the wreck we'd see."
"Yes, but we can't. There--"
"Look, Marian!" Lucile's eyes were large and wild.
"The white line!" gasped Marian, gripping her arm.
It was true. Before them lay the dark ocean still flecked with foam,but at the horizon gleaming whiter than burnished silver, straight,distinct, unmistakable, was a white line.
"And that means--"
"We're trapped!"
Lucile sank weakly into a chair. Marian began pacing the floor.
"Anyway," she exclaimed at last, "I can paint it. It will make awonderful study."
Suiting action to words, she sought out her paint-box and was soon busywith a sketch, which, developing bit by bit, or rather, seeming toevolve out of nothing, showed a native dressed in furs, shading hiseyes to scan the dark, tossing ocean. And beyond, the object of hisgaze, was the silvery line. When she had finished, she playfullyinscribed a title at the bottom:
"The Coming of the White Line."
As she put her paints away, something caught her eye. It was onecorner of the blue envelope with the strange address upon it.
"Ah, there you are still," she sighed. "And there you will remain fornine months unless I miss my guess. I wish I hadn't kept my promise tothe college boy; wish I'd left you in the pigeon-hole at Cape Prince ofWales."
Since the air was too chill, the wind too keen for travel, the girlsslept that night in the cabin. They awoke to a new world. The firstglimpse outside the cabin brought surprised exclamations to their lips.In a single night the world appeared to have been transformed. The"white line" was gone. So, too, was the ocean. Before them, as far asthe eye could reach, lay a mass of yellow lights and purple shadows,ice-fields that had buried the sea. Only one object stood out, black,bleak and bare before them--the hull of the wrecked and abandoned ship.
"Look!" said Lucile suddenly, "we can go out to the ship over theice-floe!"
"Let's do it," said Marian enthusiastically. "Perhaps there's somesort of a solution to our problem there."
They were soon threading their way in and out among the ice-piles whichwere already solidly attaching themselves to the sand beneath theshallow water.
And now they reached a spot where the water was deeper, whereice-cakes, some small as a kitchen floor, some large as a town lot,jostled and ground one upon another.
"Wo-oo, I don't like it!" exclaimed Lucile, as she leaped a narrowchasm of dark water.
"We'll soon be there," trilled her companion. "Just watch your step,that's all."
They pushed on, leaping from cake to cake. Racing across a broadice-pan, now skirting a dark pool, now clambering over a pile of iceground fine, they made their way slowly but surely toward their goal.
"Listen!" exclaimed Marian, stopping dead in her tracks.
"What is it?" asked Lucile, her voice quivering with alarm.
A strange, wild, weird sound came to them across the floe, a grinding,rushing, creaking, moaning sound that increased in volume as the voiceof a cyclone increases.
Only a second elapsed before they knew. Then with a cry of terrorMarian dragged her companion to the center of the ice-pan and pulledher flat to its surface. From somewhere, far out to sea, a giant tidalwave was sweeping through the ice-floe. Marian had seen it. Themountain of ice which it bore on its crest seemed as high as the solidridge of rock behind them on the land. And with its weird, wild,rushing scream of grinding and breaking ice, it was traveling towardthem. It had the speed of the wind, the force of an avalanche. Whenit came, what then?
With a rush the wild terror of the Arctic sea burst upon them. Itlifted the giant ice-pan weighing hundreds of tons, tilted it to adangerous angle, then dropped from beneath it. Marian's heart stoppedbeating as she felt the downward rush of the avalanche of ice. Thenext instant she felt it crumble like an egg-shell. It had broken atthe point where they lay. With a warning cry of terror she sprang toher feet and pitched forward.
The cry was too late. As she rose unsteadily to her knees, she saw adark brown bulk topple at the edge of the cake, then roll like a loginto the dark pool of water which appeared where the cake had parted.That object was Lucile. Dead or alive? Marian could not tell. Butwhether dead or alive she had fallen into the stinging Arctic brine.What chance could there be for her life?
For the time being the ice-field was quiet. The tidal wave had spentits force on the sandy beach.
That other, less violent disturbances, would follow the first, the girlknew right well. Hastily creeping to the brink of the dark pool, shestrained her eyes for sight of a floating bit of cloth, a waving hand.There was none. Despair gripped her heart. Still she waited, and asshe waited, there came the distant sound, growing ever louder, ofanother onrushing tide.
When Lucile went down into the dark pool she was not dead. She wasconscious and very much alive. Very conscious she was, too, of theperil of her situation. Should that chasm close before she rose, or asshe rose, she was doomed. In one case she would drown, in the othershe would be crushed.
Down, down she sank. But the water was salt and buoyant. Now she feltherself rising. Holding her breath she looked upward. A narrow ribbonof black was to the right of her.
"That will be the open water," was her mental comment. "Must swim forit."
She was a strong swimmer, but her heavy fur garments impeded her. Thesting of the water imperiled her power to remain conscious. Yet shestruggled even as she rose.
Just when Marian had given up hope, she saw a head shoot above thewater, then a pair of arms. The next instant she gripped both hercompanion's wrists and lifted as she never lifted before. There waswild terror in her eye. The roar of the second wave was drumming inher ears.
She was not a second too soon. Hardly had she dragged thehalf-unconscious girl from the pool than it closed with a grindingcrash, and the ice-pan again tilted high in air.
The strain of this onrush was not so great. The cake held together.Gradually it settled back to its place.
Marian glanced in the direction of the wreck. They were very muchnearer to it than to the shore. She thought she saw a small cabin inthe stern. Lucile must be relieved of her water soaked andfast-freezing garments at once.
"Can you walk?" she asked as Lucile staggered dizzily to her feet."I'll help you. The wreck--we must get there. You must struggle oryou'll freeze."
Lucile did try. She fought as she had never fought before, against thestiffening garments, the aching lungs and muscles, but most of allagainst the almost unconquerable desire to sleep.
Foot by foot, yard by yard, they made their way across the treacheroustangle of ice-piles which was still in restless motion.
Now they had covered a quarter of the distance, now half, nowthree-quarters. And now, with an exultant cry, Marian dragged herhalf-unconscious companion upon the center of the deck.
"There's a cabin aft," she whispered, "a warm cabin.
We'll soon bethere."
"Soon be there," Lucile echoed faintly.
The climbing of the long, slanting, slippery deck was a terribleordeal. More than once Marian despaired. At last they stood beforethe door. She put a hand to the knob. A cry escaped her lips. Thecabin door was locked.
Dark despair gripped her heart. But only for an instant.
"Lucile, the key! The key we found in the cabin! Where is it?"
"The key--the key?" Lucile repeated dreamily.
"Oh, yes, the key. Why, that's not any good."
"Yes, it is! It is!"
"It's in my parka pocket."
The next moment Marian was prying the key from a frozen pocket, and thenext after that she was dragging Lucile into the cabin.
In one corner of the cabin stood a small oil-heater. Above it was amatch-box. With a cry of joy Marian found matches, lighted one, triedthe stove, found it filled with oil. A bright blaze rewarded herefforts. There was heat, heat that would save her companion's life.
She next attacked the frozen garments. Using a knife where nothingelse would avail, she stripped the clothing away until at last she fellto chafing the white and chilled limbs of the girl, who still struggledbravely against the desire to sleep.
A half-hour later Lucile was sleeping naturally in a bunk against theupper wall of the room. She was snuggled deep in the interior of amammoth deerskin sleeping-bag, while her garments were drying besidethe kerosene stove. Marian was drowsing half-asleep by the fire.
Suddenly, she was aroused by a voice. It was a man's voice. She wasstartled.
"Please," the voice said, "may I come in? That's supposed to be mycabin, don't you know? But I don't want to be piggish."
Marian stared wildly about her. For a second she was quite speechless.Then she spoke:
"Wait--wait a minute; I'm coming out."
