The Ice Pilot Part 11

Stirling rested his hands on the rail and stared downward. The whaler surged against the shelving ice, steadied, then surged back again. Seals peered curiously from the depths of the Bering. Some scrambled from the floes and plumped into the icy water. Walruses were upon the pack. They had broken through the thin ice formed overnight, and their whiskers and tusks were white with h.o.a.r frost.

Stirling stared aloft, then shuddered slightly and drew his great coat close about him. The ratlines and standing rigging, the downhauls and halyards formed a ghostly tapestry, like the gossamer web of some forest glade.

He raised his hands, breathed upon them to secure circulation, slowly climbed the rail, and reached for the shrouds, and thrusting his feet through the chains he mounted until he reached the Jacob's ladder. Going over this he leaned far outboard, glanced down at the deck, then finished the climb to the crow's-nest which was coated with frost.

Some whim of the current had cleared the sea to the south and east. It was as if a broom had swept through the pile of a purple carpet. The floes which had broken from the main pack had been whisked southward to melt in the warm waters of the north Pacific. Occasionally, however, a h.o.a.ry old "grandpa" went drifting by with its load of walrus and hair seals, while over them hovered gulls and other birds.

Stirling narrowed his eyes and searched long and carefully for some sign of another whaler. The season was an early one. Bowheads were to be expected in such waters; the whale slick which showed marked their feeding ground. He saw no sign of sail or smoke. A slight haze to the southward marked the smoky sea where the chilled waters of the Bering met the first warm current which seeped through the pa.s.ses of the Aleutian Group.

Climbing from the crow's-nest, Stirling swung out over the ladder and smiled slightly as he saw a patient fisherman, in the s.h.a.ggy form of a polar bear, all too intent upon the circular opening of a seal's hole through the ice.

A whiff of galley smoke and the rattle of falling ice from the shrouds disturbed the fisherman. He raised his yellow snout, blinked his tiny eyes, and was off with a lumbersome trot toward the shelter of higher hummocks in the east.

Cushner appeared like a giant who had slept without turning over. He lifted his long arms, stretched, pointed his icicle-sharp beard aloft, and held his mouth open as he stared at Stirling swinging down the shrouds.

"By the stars, old man!" he exclaimed. "You're an early bird. Ain't more than seven bells, if it's that. Raised any bowheads yet?"

Stirling sprang from the rail to the deck and rubbed his frosted hands.

He stepped to Cushner's side and clapped him on the back. "Not yet!" he said. "No whales, but there's an ocean of fine slick. It's a whaling day if ever there was one."

"Waal," yawned Cushner. "Waal, I'll call the watches and get ready. We might as well drop away from the pack."

Without consulting Marr, the second mate gave the order to bring in the hawser and hoist easy canvas on the fore and main. The _Pole Star_ sheered and drifted toward the southward. Stirling emerged from the galley house, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, felt the glow of the strong coffee he had drunk, then crossed the deck and mounted again to the crow's-nest where he took position to observe any signs of whales or white water.

The whaler was hove to, with her yards braced, and steam pluming from the pipe after the raking funnel; the boats were swung outboard; the gear was gone over and the water kegs filled.

Marr appeared at one bell. He glanced toward the distant pack, frowned slightly, then leaned over the rail of the quarter-deck. "Who gave the order to drop down here?" he asked Cushner.

The second mate stood erect in the starboard-waist boat. "I did," he said, slowly. "I thought, seeing as how there was whale slick, that we better get in position for lowering. We could only lower three boats where we were."

Marr motioned for Whitehouse, who sprang up the weather p.o.o.p steps, and the two men went aft behind the canvas screen. Cushner glanced toward Stirling in the crow's-nest, and Stirling nodded. He seemed to say without words that he would stick by the second mate's statement.

Whitehouse appeared and glanced upward. "What d'ye make out?" he asked, pointing over the ship's rail. "'Ow's the sea to lee'ard?"

"Plenty of signs," said Stirling. "There's a sail far down toward that big floe. Looks like the first of the Frisco fleet. She's headin' for the ice. Likely there'll be more. Old 'Hank' Peterson and his _Beluga_ always fasten around about here. That looks like the _Beluga's_ fore-topsail. It's dirty enough!"

The _Beluga_, so it proved, tacked and went about with its long row of white boats showing clear and distinct in the Northern sunlight.

Peterson was cruising over known ground. He drove the ship away from the pack and vanished through the smoke of the seas with the patches of his ancient sails allowing the last sight of him.

Another ship climbed up over the rim of the world. Smoke showed in a long slaty line, and soon was revealed the fine sheer and trim rig of a revenue cutter. Stirling lowered his gla.s.ses with a dry smile, and stared toward the whaler's p.o.o.p. Marr stood there with feet braced and a telescope clapped to his eye.

The little skipper muttered vehemently as he wheeled swiftly and strode to the rail. "What ship's that?" he called up to Stirling.

"The United States revenue cutter _Bear_, Mr. Marr!"

The captain frowned, turned, and looked over the ice-dotted waters.

"Which way is she heading now?" he asked.

"Same course. She's sizing us up. Likely she'll skirt the pack, back and forth, until she finds a lane to the east. She always does."

"How many cutters come North?"

"Usually three--the _Bear_ and the _Wolverene_ and the _Northern Star_."

Stirling's voice contained a shaded warning, as he leaned over the edge of the crow's-nest and watched Marr intently. The little captain was plainly disturbed. He coiled and uncoiled his well-manicured fingers, stroked his smooth chin, then went aft with a quick stride and disappeared through the cabin companion.

Cushner climbed up the fore shrouds and dropped alongside Stirling.

Pinching the Ice Pilot's arm, he chuckled as he twirled the k.n.o.b of the gla.s.ses and extended his arm outward.

"She's th' _Bear_, all right," he said after a careful glance. "She's giving us a good lookin' over. We're new to her. I reckon th' whaleboats will satisfy her. There's nothin' to excite suspicion."

The _Bear_ slowly vanished into the mist, and a line of dark smoke marked her going.

Cushner laid down the gla.s.ses and exclaimed through his beard: "They ought to know you, old man!"

"Not in this rig," Stirling said. "Last time I saw the _Bear_, I was pilot of the _Mary Foster_. They gammed us the other side of St.

Lawrence Island. They were looking for poachers. Somebody had raided the northeast point of St. Paul's, and three hundred bachelor seals were missing."

"Fair game, I say, when you do it out beyond the three-mile limit. It's just the same as highway when it's done on the rookeries."

"That's the way I think. Marr had better take warning. It would be a short shift to McNeal's Island and a long sentence if he tried anything."

Cushner climbed out of the crow's-nest and lowered himself to the deck.

Standing by the rail he watched the crew who were alert to raise a spout. Whitehouse, at a suggestion from Marr, had offered ten plugs of tobacco and two square faces of trade gin for the first blow reported.

The morning pa.s.sed without any sign of whales. At two bells in the afternoon watch a second whaler wallowed by and offered the signal that she had already fastened and cut in. A dark slab of muck tuck, or blubber, was dangling from her stumpy jib boom.

Stirling knew the ship as he knew the palm of his strong hand. She was the _Norwhale_ out of Frisco. He called down her name and pointed out her aged captain to the crew of the _Pole Star_.

"The luckiest man in the North!" Stirling exclaimed. "Already fastened and lookin' for more. Keep your eyes peeled to lee'ard, boys. There's an ocean of slick and plenty of signs."

The sun was rolling into the west when a stir pa.s.sed through the _Pole Star_. A voice forward had half shouted, then died to a whisper. One lookout pointed far down to the south and east; Stirling swung his gla.s.ses and studied the wide surface of the Bering. He saw a spout which proved to be waves dashed from the weather side of a floe, and sea gulls hovering over an oily patch. He tested the direction of the wind by holding his finger aloft, and stared at the telltale which draped from the mizzen top.

Clapping the gla.s.ses to his eyes, he swung about in a slow circle. Due south, he steadied and grew rigid. He saw the low bore of water which marked the presence of some animal beneath the surface. He closed his lips in a hard, firm line; his face cleared; his arms grew rigid as bars of steel. He waited with every muscle tense. Then, and suddenly, he lowered the gla.s.ses, leaned far out over the edge of the crow's-nest, and called loudly: "A blow! A blow! There she blows!"

CHAPTER XII-THE MANNER OF MAN

The ship shook with the running of many men. The mate sprang to the shrouds and shaded his eyes.

"Where away?" called up Cushner.

"Direct to the south'ard! Right over that floe! There she blows again.

There she blows!"