It is little wonder that Marian forgot all thought of fear amid such surroundings, as she worked industriously at the sketches which were to furnish her with three years of wonderful study under great masters.
But one day, after six weeks of veritable dream life, as she lifted the tray to her paint-box her eyes fell on that blue envelope. Instantly a flood of remembrance rushed through her mind; the frank-faced college boy, the angry miner, old Rover, the dog, who, sleek and fat on whale meat, lay curled up beside her, then again the grizzled face of the miner framed in a port-hole; all these passed before her mind’s vision and left her chilled.
Her hand trembled. She could not control her brush. The sketch of two native women in deerskin unionsuits, their brown shoulders bared, working at the task of splitting walrus skins, went unfinished while she took a long walk down the beach.
That very evening she had news that caused her blood to chill again. A native had come from East Cape, the next village to the south. He had seen a white man there, a full-bearded man of middle age. He had said that he intended coming to Whaling in a few days. He had posed among the natives as a spirit-doctor and had, according to reports, worked many wonderful cures by his incantations. Three whales had come into the hands of the East Cape hunters. This was an excellent catch and had been taken as a good omen; the bearded stranger was doubtless highly favored by the spirits of dead whales.
“I wish our skin-boat would come for us,” said Lucile suddenly, as they talked of it in the privacy of their tent.
“But it won’t, not for three weeks yet. That was the agreement.”
“I know.”
“And we haven’t a wireless to call them with. Besides, my sketches are not nearly complete.”
“I know,” said Lucile, her chin in her hands. “But, all the same, that man makes me afraid.”
“Well, I’ll hurry my sketches, but that won’t bring the boat any sooner.”
Had Marian known the time she would have for sketching, she might not have done them so rapidly. As it was, she worked the whole long eighteen-hour days through.
In the meantime, chill winds began sweeping down from the north. Still the bearded white man did not come to Whaling, but every day brought fresh reports of the good fortune of the people of East Cape. They had captured a fourth whale, then a fifth. Their food for the winter was secured. Whale meat was excellent food. They would have an abundance of whale-bone to trade for flour, sugar and tea.
But if the East Capers were favored, the men of Whaling were not. One lone whale, and that a small one, was their total take. Witch-doctors began declaring that the presence of strange, white-faced women in their midst was displeasing to the spirits of dead whales. The making of the images of the people on canvas was also sure to bring disaster.
As reports of this dissatisfaction came to the ears of the girls, they began straining their eyes for a square sail on the horizon. Still their boat did not come.
Then came the crowning disaster of the year. The walrus herd, on which the natives based their last hope, passed south along the coast of Alaska instead of Siberia. Their caches were left empty. Only the winter’s supply of white bear and seal could save them from starvation.
“Dezra! Dezra!” (It is enough!) the natives whispered among themselves.
The day after the return of the walrus canoes Marian and Lucile went for a long walk down the beach.
Upon rounding a point in returning Marian suddenly gave a gasp. “Look, Lucile! It’s gone—our tent!”
“Gone!” exclaimed Lucile unbelievingly.
“I wonder what—”
“Look, Marian; the whole village!”
“Let’s run.”
“Where to? We’d starve in two days, or freeze. Come on. They won’t hurt us.”
With anxious hearts and trembling footsteps they approached the solid line of fur-clad figures which stretched along the southern outskirts of the village.
As they came close they heard one word repeated over and over: “Dezra! Dezra!” (Enough! Enough!)
And as the natives almost chanted this single word, they pointed to a sled on which the girls’ belongings had been neatly packed. To the sled three dogs were hitched, two young wolf-hounds with Rover as leader.
“They want us to go,” whispered Lucile.
“Yes, and where shall we go?”
“East Cape is the only place.”
“And that miner?”
“It may not be he.”
Three times Marian tried to press her way through the line. Each time the line grew more dense at the point she approached. Not a hand was laid upon her; she could not go through, that was all. The situation thrilled as much as it troubled her. Here was a people kind at heart but superstitious. They believed that their very existence depended upon getting these two strangers from their midst. What was there to do but go?
They went, and all through the night they assisted the little dog-team to drag the heavy load over the first thin snow of autumn. Over and over again Marian blessed the day she had been kind to old Rover because he was a white man’s dog, for he was the pluckiest puller of them all.
Just as dawn streaked the east they came in sight of what appeared to be a rude shack built of boards. As they came closer they could see that some of the boards had been painted and some had not. Some were painted halfway across, and some only in patches of a foot or two. They had been hastily thrown together. The whole effect, viewed at a distance, resembled nothing so much as a crazy-quilt.
“Must have been built from the wreckage of a house,” said Lucile.
“Yes, or a boat.”
“A boat? Yes, look; there it is out there, quite a large one. It’s stranded on the sandbar and half broken up.”
The girls paused in consternation. It seemed they were hedged in on all sides by perils. To go back was impossible. To go forward was to throw themselves upon the mercies of a gang of rough seamen. To pass around the cabin was only to face the bearded stranger, who, they had reason to believe, was none other than the man who had demanded the blue envelope.
A few minutes’ debate brought them to a decision. They would go straight on to the cabin.
“Mush, Rover! Mush!” Marian threw her tired shoulders into the improvised harness, and once more they moved slowly forward.
It was with wildly beating hearts that they eventually rounded the corner of the cabin and came to a stand by the door. At once an exclamation escaped their lips:
“Empty! Deserted!”
And so it proved. Snow that had fallen two days before lay piled within the half-open doorway. No sign of occupation was to be found within save a great rusty galley range, two rickety chairs, an improvised table, two rusty kettles and a huge frying-pan.
“They have given the ship up as a total loss, and have left in dories or skin-boats,” said Marian.
“Yes,” agreed Lucile. “Wanted to get across the Straits before the coming of the White Line.”
The “coming of the White Line.” Marian started. She knew what that meant far better than Lucile did. She had lived in Alaska longer, had seen it oftener. Now she thought what it would mean to them if it came before the skin-boat came for them. And that skin-boat? What would happen when it came to Whaling? Would the Chukches tell them in which direction they had gone? And if they did, would the Eskimo boatmen set their sail and go directly to East Cape? If they did, would they miss this diminutive cabin standing back as it did from the shore, and seeming but a part of the sandbar?
“We’ll put up a white flag, a skirt or something, on the peak of the cabin,” she said, half talking to herself.
“Do you think we ought to go right on to East Cape?” said Lucile.
“We can’t decide that now,” said Marian. “We need food and sleep and the dogs need rest.”
Some broken pieces of drift were piled outside the cabin. These made a ready fire. They were soon enjoying a feast of fried fish and canned baked beans. Then, with their wat
er-soaked mukluks (skin-boots) and stockings hanging by the fire, they threw deerskin on the rude bunk attached to the wall and were soon fast asleep.
Out on the wreck, some two hundred yards from shore, a figure emerged from a small cabin aft. The stern of the ship had been carried completely about by the violence of the waves. It had left this little cabin, formerly the wireless cabin, high and dry.
The person came out upon the deck and scanned the horizon. Suddenly his eyes fell upon the cabin and the strange white signal which the girls had set fluttering there before they went to sleep.
Sliding a native skin-kayak down from the deck, he launched it, then leaping into the narrow seat, began paddling rapidly toward land.
Having beached his kayak, he hurried toward the cabin. His hand was on the latch, when he chanced to glance up at the white emblem of distress which floated over his head.
His hand dropped to his side; his mouth flew open. An expression of amazement spread over his face.
“Jumpin’ Jupiter!” he muttered beneath his breath.
He beat a hasty retreat. Once in his kayak he made double time back to the wreck.
Marian was the first to awaken in the cabin. By the dull light that shone through the cracks, she could tell that it was growing dark.
Springing from her bunk, she put her hand to the latch. Hardly had she done this than the door flew open with a force that threw her back against the opposite wall. Fine particles of snow cut her face. The wind set every loose thing in the cabin bobbing and fluttering. The skirt they had attached to a stout pole as a signal was booming overhead like a gun.
“Wow! A blizzard!” she groaned.
Seizing the door, she attempted to close it.
Twice the violence of the storm threw her back.
When at last her efforts had been rewarded with success, she turned to rouse her companion.
“Lucile! Lucile! Wake up? A blizzard!”
Lucile turned over and groaned. Then she opened her eyes.
“Wha—wha—” she droned sleepily.
“A blizzard! A blizzard from the north!”
Lucile sat up quickly.
“From the north!” she exclaimed, fully awake in an instant. “The ice?”
“Perhaps.”
“And if it comes?”
“We’re stuck, that’s all, in Siberia for nine months. Won’t dare try to cross the Straits on the ice. No white man has ever done it, let alone a woman. Well,” she smiled, “we’ve got food for five days, and five days is a long time. We’d better try to bring in some wood, and get the dogs in here; they’d freeze out there.”
CHAPTER VI
THE DREAD WHITE LINE
Three days the blizzard raged about the cabin where Lucile and Marian had found shelter. Such a storm at this season of the year had not been known on the Arctic for more than twenty years.
For three days the girls shivered by the galley range, husbanding their little supply of food, and hoping for something to turn up when the storm was over. Just what that something might be neither of them could 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 a bang, 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 a wonderful study.”
Suiting action to words, she sought out her paint-box and was soon busy with a sketch, which, developing bit by bit, or rather, seeming to evolve out of nothing, showed a native dressed in furs, shading his eyes to scan the dark, tossing ocean. And beyond, the object of his gaze, was the silvery line. When she had finished, she playfully inscribed a title at the bottom:
“The Coming of the White Line.”
As she put her paints away, something caught her eye. It was one corner of the blue envelope with the strange address upon it.
“Ah, there you are still,” she sighed. “And there you will remain for nine months unless I miss my guess. I wish I hadn’t kept my promise to the college boy; wish I’d left you in the pigeon-hole at Cape Prince of Wales.”
Since the air was too chill, the wind too keen for travel, the girls slept that night in the cabin. They awoke to a new world. The first glimpse 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 as the 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 the ice-floe!”
“Let’s do it,” said Marian enthusiastically. “Perhaps there’s some sort of a solution to our problem there.”
They were soon threading their way in and out among the ice-piles which were already solidly attaching themselves to the sand beneath the shallow water.
And now they reached a spot where the water was deeper, where ice-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 narrow chasm 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 broad ice-pan, now skirting a dark pool, now clambering over a pile of ice ground 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 voice of a cyclone increases.
Only a second elapsed before they knew. Then with a cry of terror Marian dragged her companion to the center of the ice-pan and pulled her flat to its surface. From somewhere, far out to sea, a giant tidal wave was sweeping through the ice-floe. Marian had seen it. The mountain of ice which it bore on its crest seemed as high as the solid ridge of rock behind them on the land. And with its weird, wild, rushing scream of grinding and breaking ice, it was traveling toward them. It had the speed of the wind, the force of an avalanche. When it came, what then?
With a rush the wild terror of the Arctic sea burst upon them. It lifted the giant ice-pan weighing hundreds of tons, tilted it to a dangerous angle, then dropped from beneath it. Marian’s heart stopped beating as she felt the downward rush of the avalanche of ice. The next instant she felt it crumble like an egg-shell. It had broken at the point where they lay. With a warning cry of terror she sprang to her feet and pitched forward.
The cry was too late. As she rose unsteadily to her knees, she saw a dark brown bulk topple at the edge of the cake, then roll like a log into the dark pool of water which appeared where the cake had parted. That object was Luc
ile. Dead or alive? Marian could not tell. But whether 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 spent its force on the sandy beach.
That other, less violent disturbances, would follow the first, the girl knew right well. Hastily creeping to the brink of the dark pool, she strained her eyes for sight of a floating bit of cloth, a waving hand. There was none. Despair gripped her heart. Still she waited, and as she waited, there came the distant sound, growing ever louder, of another onrushing tide.
When Lucile went down into the dark pool she was not dead. She was conscious and very much alive. Very conscious she was, too, of the peril of her situation. Should that chasm close before she rose, or as she rose, she was doomed. In one case she would drown, in the other she would be crushed.
Down, down she sank. But the water was salt and buoyant. Now she felt herself rising. Holding her breath she looked upward. A narrow ribbon of black was to the right of her.
“That will be the open water,” was her mental comment. “Must swim for it.”
She was a strong swimmer, but her heavy fur garments impeded her. The sting of the water imperiled her power to remain conscious. Yet she struggled even as she rose.
Just when Marian had given up hope, she saw a head shoot above the water, then a pair of arms. The next instant she gripped both her companion’s wrists and lifted as she never lifted before. There was wild terror in her eye. The roar of the second wave was drumming in her ears.
She was not a second too soon. Hardly had she dragged the half-unconscious girl from the pool than it closed with a grinding crash, and the ice-pan again tilted high in air.
The Girl Detective Megapack: 25 Classic Mystery Novels for Girls Page 48
