“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.
CHAPTER XI
“WITHOUT COMPASS OR GUIDE”
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 “mukluk” 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, i
f 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!”
CHAPTER XII
“WHAT IS THAT?”
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 gripped Marian’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 kayak. 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 kayak.
“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 crie
d 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 kayak, 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 bola 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 kayak for a brief consultation. After talking matters over they decided that the best thing they could do was to remain by the kayak until the fog cleared. It was true that the kayak, 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 kayak and they knew all too well what a spill meant in that stinging water.
The Girl Detective Megapack: 25 Classic Mystery Novels for Girls Page 52
