Masters of the Wheat-Lands Part 26

"Anyway," he said, after a long pause, "we'll stand on, and run into the creek we've fixed on, if it's necessary."

Dusk had closed down on them, and it had grown perceptibly colder. The haze crystallized on the rigging, the rail was white with rime, and the deck grew slippery, but they left everything on the _Selache_ to the topsails, and she crept on erratically through the darkness, avoiding the faint spectral glimmer of the scattered ice. The breeze abeam propelled her with gently leaning canvas at some four knots to the hour, and now and then Wyllard, who hung about the deck that night, fancied he could hear a thin, sharp crackle beneath the slowly lifting bows.

Next day the haze thickened, and there seemed to be more ice about, but the breeze was fresher, and there was, at least, no skin upon the ruffled sea. They took off the topsails, and proceeded cautiously, with two men with logger's pikepoles forward, and another in the eyes of the foremast rigging. They struck nothing, fortunately, and when night came the _Selache_ lay rolling in a heavy, portentous calm. Dampier and one or two of the men declared their certainty that there was ice near them, but, at least, they could not see it, though there was now no doubt about the crackling beneath the schooner's side. It was an anxious night for most of the crew, but a breeze that drove the haze aside got up with the sun, and Dampier expected to reach the creek before darkness fell.

He might have succeeded but for the glistening streak on the horizon, which presently crept in on them, and resolved itself into detached gray-white ma.s.ses, with openings of various sizes in and out between them. The breeze was freshening, and the _Selache_ was going through it at some six knots, when Dampier came aft to Wyllard, who was standing at the wheel. There was a moderately wide opening in the floating barrier close ahead of him. The rest of the crew stood silent watching the skipper, for they were by this time more or less acquainted with Wyllard's temperament.

"You can't get through that," said Dampier, pointing to the ice.

Wyllard looked at him sourly, and the white men, at least, understood what he was feeling. So far, he had had everything against him--calm, and fog, and sudden gale--and now, when he was almost within sight of the end of the first stage of his journey, they had met the ice.

"You're sure of that?" he questioned.

Dampier smiled. "It would cost too much, or I'd let you try." He called to the man perched high in the foremost shrouds, and the answer came down: "Packed right solid a couple of miles ahead."

Wyllard lifted one hand, and let it suddenly fall again.

"Lee, oh! We'll have her round," he said, and spun the wheel.

The men breathed more easily as they jumped for the sheets, and with a great banging and thrashing of sailcloth the vessel shot up to windward, and turned as on a pivot. As the schooner gathered way on the other tack, the men glanced at Wyllard, for the _Selache's_ bows were pointing to the southeast again, and they felt that was not the way he was going.

Wyllard turned to Dampier with a gesture of impatience.

"Baulked again!" he said. "It would have been a relief to have rammed her in. With this breeze we'd have picked that creek up in the next six hours."

"Sure!" replied Dampier, who glanced at the swirling wake.

"Then, if we can't get through the ice we can work the schooner round.

Stand by to flatten all sheets in, boys."

They obeyed orders cheerfully, though they knew it meant a thrash to windward along the perilous edge of the ice. Soon the windla.s.s was caked with glistening ice, and long spikes of it hung from her rail, while the slippery crystals gathered thick on deck. Lumps and floes of ice detached themselves from the parent ma.s.s, and sailed out to meet the vessel, crashing on one another, while it seemed to the men who watched him that Wyllard tried how closely he could shave them before he ran the _Selache_ off with a vicious drag at the wheel. None of them, however, cared to utter a remonstrance.

They brought the schooner around when she had stretched out on the one tack a couple of miles, and, standing in again close-hauled, found the ice thicker than ever. Then she came around once more, and, until the early dusk fell, Wyllard stood at the jarring helm or high up in the forward shrouds.

"We can't work along the edge in the dark," he said to Dampier.

"Well," answered the skipper dryly, "it wouldn't be wise. We could stand on as she's lying until half through the night, and then come round and pick up the ice again a little before sun-up."

Wyllard made a sign of acquiescence. "Then," he said, "don't call me until you're in sight of it. A day of this kind takes it out of one."

He moved aft heavily toward the deck-house, and Dampier watched him with a smile of comprehension, for he was a man who had in his time made many fruitless efforts, and bravely faced defeat. After all, it is possible that when the final reckoning comes some failures will count.

For several hours the _Selache_ stretched out close-hauled into what they supposed to be open water, and they certainly saw no ice. They hove her to, and when the wind fell light brought her round and crept back slowly upon the opposite tack. Wyllard had gone to sleep after his day of anxious work, and daylight was just breaking when he next went out on deck. There was scarcely a breath of wind and the heavy calm seemed portentous and unnatural. The schooner lay lurching on a sluggish swell, with the frost-wool thick on her rigging, and a belt of haze ahead of her. The ice glimmered in the growing light, but in one or two places stretches of blue-gray water seemed to penetrate it, and Dampier, who strode aft when he saw Wyllard, said he believed that there must be an opening somewhere.

"By the thickness of it, that ice has formed some time, and as we've seen nothing but a skin it must have come from further north," he added.

"It gathered up under a point or in a bay most likely, until a shift of wind broke it out, and the stream or breeze sent it down this way. That seems to indicate that there can't be a great deal of it, but a few days' calm and frost would freeze it solid."

"Well?" Wyllard returned impatiently.

"It lies between us and the inlet, and it's quite clear that we can't stay where we are. Once we got nipped, there'd probably be an end of her. We must get into that inlet at once or make for the other further south."

Wyllard shook his head. "It all leads back to the same point. We must get through the ice. The one question is--how is it to be done?"

"With a working breeze I'd stand into the biggest opening, but as there's none we'll wait until it clears a little, and then send a boat in. The sun may bring the wind."

They had breakfast while they waited, but the wind did not come, and it was several hours later when a pale coppery disc became visible and the haze grew thinner. Then they swung a boat out hastily, for it would not be very long before the light died away again. Two white men and an Indian dropped into the boat and they pulled across half a mile of sluggishly heaving water, crept up an opening, and presently vanished among the ice. Soon afterward the low sun went out, and wisps of ragged cloud crept up from the westward, while smears of vapor blurred the horizon, and the swell grew steeper. There was no wind at all, but blocks and canvas banged and thrashed furiously at every roll, until they lowered the mainsail and lashed its heavy boom to the big iron crutch astern. The boat remained invisible, but its crew had been given instructions to push on as far as possible if they found clear water, and Dampier, who did not seem uneasy about the men, paced up and down the deck while the afternoon wore away.

CHAPTER XVII

DEFEAT

A gray dimness was creeping in upon the schooner when a bitter breeze sprang tip from the westward, and Dampier bade the crew get the mainsail on to the _Selache_.

"I don't like the look of the weather, and I'm beginning to feel that I'd like to see that boat," he said. "Anyhow, we'll get way on her."

It was a relief to hoist the mainsail. The work put a little warmth into the sailors. The white men had been conscious of a growing uneasiness about their comrades in the boat, and action of any sort was welcome.

The breeze had freshened before they set the sail, and there were whitecaps on the water when the _Selache_ headed for the ice, which had somewhat changed its formation, for big ma.s.ses had become detached from it and were moving out into the water, while the open s.p.a.ce had become perceptibly narrower. The light was now fading rapidly, and Wyllard took the wheel when Dampier sent forward the man who had held it.

"Get the cover off the second boat, and see everything clear for hoisting out," commanded the skipper, and then called to Wyllard, "We're close enough. You'd better heave her round."

The schooner came around with a thrashing of canvas, stretched out seawards, and came back again with her deck sharply slanted and little puffs of spray blowing over her weather-rail, for there was no doubt that the breeze was freshening fast. Dampier now sent a man up into the foremast shrouds, and looked at Wyllard afterward.

"I'd heave a couple of reefs down if I wasn't so anxious about that blamed boat," he said. "As it is, I want to be ready to pick her up just as soon as we see her, and it's quite likely she'd turn up when we'd got way off the schooner, and the peak eased down."

Wyllard realized that Dampier was right as he glanced over the rail at the dimness that was creeping in on them. It was blowing almost fresh by this time, and the _Selache_ was driving very fast through the swell, which began to froth here and there. It is, as he knew from experience, always hard work, and often impossible, to pull a boat to windward in any weight of breeze, which rendered it advisable to keep the schooner under way. If the boat drove by them while they were reefing it might be difficult to pick her up afterwards in the dark. He was now distinctly anxious about her. Just as the light was dying out, the man in the shrouds sent down a cry.

"I see them, sir!" he said.

Dampier turned to Wyllard with a gesture of relief. "That's a weight off my mind. I wish we had a reef in, but"--he glanced up at the canvas--"she'll have to stand it. Anyway, I'll leave you there. We want to get that second boat lashed down again."

This, as Wyllard recognized, was necessary, though he would rather have had somebody by him and the rest of them ready to let the mainsheet run, inasmuch as he was a little to windward of the opening, and surmised that he would have to run the schooner down upon the boat. It was a few moments later when he saw the boat emerge from the ice, and the men in her appeared to be pulling strenuously. They were, perhaps, half a mile off, and the schooner, heading for the ice, was sailing very fast.

Wyllard lost sight of the boat again, for a thin shower of whirling snow suddenly obscured the light. Dampier called to him.

"You'll have to run her off," he said. "Boys, slack out your sheets."

There was a clatter of blocks, and when Wyllard pulled his helm up it taxed all his strength. The _Selache_ swung around, and he gasped with the effort to control her as she drove away furiously into the thickening snow. She was carrying far too much canvas, but they could not heave her to and take it off her now. The boat must be picked up first, and the veins rose swollen to Wyllard's forehead as he struggled with the wheel. There is always a certain possibility of bringing a fore-and-aft rigged vessel's main-boom over when she is running hard, and this is apt to result in disaster to her spars. So fast was the _Selache_ traveling that the sea piled up in big white waves beneath her quarter, and, cold as the day was, the sweat of tense effort dripped from Wyllard as he foresaw what he had to do. First of all, he must hold the schooner straight before the wind without letting her fall off to leeward, which would bring the booms crashing over; then he must run past the boat, which he could no longer see, and round up the schooner with fore-staysail aback to leeward of her, to wait until she drove down on them.

This would not have been difficult in a moderate breeze, but the wind was blowing furiously and the schooner was greatly pressed with sail. He thought of calling the others to lower the mainsail peak, but with the weight of wind there was in the canvas he was not sure that they could haul down the gaff. Besides, they were busy securing the boat, which must be made fast again before they hove the other in, and it was almost dark now. In view of what had happened in the same waters one night, four years before, the desire to pick up the boat while there was a little light left became an obsession.

The swell was rapidly whitening and getting steeper. The _Selache_ hove herself out of it forward as she swung up with streaming bows. It seemed to Wyllard that he must overrun the boat before he noticed her, but at last he saw Dampier swing himself on to the rail. The skipper stood there clutching at a shroud, and presently swinging an arm, turned toward Wyllard.

"Eight ahead!" he shouted. "Let her come up a few points before you run over them."

Wyllard put his helm down a spoke or two, which was easy, and then as the bows swung high again there was a harsh cry from the man who stood above Dampier in the shrouds.