The Ice Pilot Part 14

Stirling reached and clutched the belaying pin, wrenching it from Marr's hand with a half effort. Replacing it in the pinrail, he turned and stared at the crew. The little skipper had reached backward and clapped his hand on a hip pocket. Thinking better of this action, he hesitated.

"Men," said Stirling, "you're under the skipper's orders, as you know. I want you to take notice that he has forbidden you to lower for whales.

You, Eagan, step up here!"

The seaman mounted the p.o.o.p steps. "Eagan," said Stirling, laying his hand on the sailor's shoulder, "you are my witness that I've done all I could to earn a fair lay for the foremast hands and mates. From now on, we are embarked upon an unknown enterprise of doubtful character. I wash my hands of the voyage. I'll take orders until they conflict with the laws of these waters. After that I'll request Mr. Marr to place me ash.o.r.e."

Eagan rubbed his unshaven chin, blinked, and swung toward Marr. "I'm with the skipper," Eagan said. "I think he's right. I would rather load up with trade stuff-and other things-than mess with those whales. I think the crew are with me in this."

Stirling stared about him blankly. He felt as if the planks of the ship were slipping from under his feet. Eagan, from all reports, was a government spy. Now he was siding with the captain and the wilder members of the crew who had most certainly laid him low at the beginning of the voyage.

"Repeat that!" sneered Marr, rubbing his hands. "Just turn and tell that to this crew. Tell them what you said. Tell them you're with me as well as they are. This man Stirling is trying to cheat us out of fair game.

He'll be running a Sunday school, next. I know his breed-afraid of the law! What law is north of 53?"

"Heaven's law!" Stirling said, sincerely. "You won't raid the rookeries if I can prevent it. Don't you know that there's only one revenue cutter in these waters? Are you going to take advantage of that fact?"

Whitehouse came across the quarter-deck, clutched Marr by the arm, and drew the captain halfway toward the wheel and the companion skylight.

They whispered there as Stirling shouldered Eagan to one side, saying cuttingly: "You're with them, too? I thought you were a man!"

The sailor flushed and glanced down at the deck, then turned toward the crew. "Fight it out yourself," he said as he climbed to the lower deck.

Stirling waited for Marr to come forward, glancing longingly over the slick-covered seas. In mockery, it seemed, the whales were sporting about the silent ship. One came so close to the bow that a dropped block on the forecastle deck startled it. It was gone with a defiant toss of black flukes, and the school started toward the ice.

Whitehouse finished whispering to the captain, glided to Stirling, and grasped his arm. "The old man says to get aloft and work into the ice.

Says we'll whale later. The school's gone, anyway."

The peaceful ending to what Stirling had expected would lead to a general drawing of lines aboard the ship was more than he could stand.

He turned and fastened upon Marr a glance of deep determination, his fingers coiling into knots.

"Remember," the Ice Pilot said, distinctly, "I'll always be on deck. I want no double crossing."

With this shot delivered through his white teeth, Stirling moved leisurely over the deck and as he descended to the waist, one of the crew hissed. He wheeled, reached out, grasped the man by the waist and neck, and threw him over his shoulder like a sack of meal.

"Any more?" he asked, grimly.

No man of them offered himself though Stirling waited with his glance taking in the rough circle. He dropped his fingers, moved slowly to the rail and up the shrouds he climbed till he reached the crow's-nest.

Standing on the edge of this, he rimmed the ice pack from horizon to horizon.

"One bell!" he called down. "All hands stand by braces. Three of you come aloft and loosen sail."

The ship sprang with life. Whitehouse jerked the engine-room telegraph; the propeller thrashed astern; the sails dropped from the yards and were sheeted home. The taper jib boom swung toward the open lane to the north and east and ice floes ground under the stem.

For two watches Stirling remained aloft, calling down his orders in a strong voice. He knew the ice as few men were ever gifted to know it, and took advantage of all his experience. He held the course through the lane until, balked, he drove across a sea of slush and thin ice and crashed the way open to still another pathway to the north.

The Pribilofs, already green with moss and spring verdure, were sighted at sundown. A low shed marked the sealing station where the bachelor seals had been skinned in days gone by, and a flag flew from a pole at the side of the Commissioner's house. Its bars of white and red cheered Stirling. It was the emblem of his country in the Northern seas.

No other ships showed within the ice field; Stirling had taken chances lesser pilots feared. He drove north and east under steam and canvas, saving the ship from being crushed a score of times. He announced quietly upon the fourth day that East Cape lay ahead, and pointed over the bow. Marr, on the quarter-deck, clapped Whitehouse across the shoulders, and the mate grinned and danced over the planks.

The ma.s.sive solemnity of the great headland, as it rose above the ice field, held every eye aboard the whaler. It was the farthermost point east and north of the Siberian continent. Near the foot of the Cape nestled a native village.

"Indian Point?" asked Marr, glaring upward at Stirling.

The Ice Pilot nodded as he guided the ship through the last of the sh.o.r.e ice and ordered the anchor dropped in a sheltered nook. The rattle of the chain in the hawser hole awoke echoes within the cliff; Indian canoes in the shape of hair-sealskin umiaks and kayaks darted out to meet them, and other boats flecked the Straits of Bering, coming down with the wind and current from East Cape.

The _Pole Star_ was the first ship of the season, and the natives welcomed it with a great noise. Chiefs were hastily paddled out, and mounted the quarter-deck to gather about Marr and Whitehouse. Stirling attended to the throng which swarmed up the anchor chain and forepeak.

Native girls, old women, men and children brought trade stuff of varied character-salmon, walrus tusks, small whalebone, carved idols, feather coats, skin caps, and hoods.

A large umiak appeared from the ice of the strait, and in its bow stood a chief, who called Stirling's name. The Ice Pilot reach over the rail and grasped the hand of the leader of the Diomede Islanders. They had brought the best of Mazeka boots, which are prized by whalers and the hunters of the North. These boots were sealskin moccasins, capped to full length with deerskin, watertight and warm.

"Plenty bone ash.o.r.e," said the native chief, pointing at the igloos of Indian Point. "Plenty whales this season. Me catchum two."

Stirling smiled at the broad face of the Eskimo, then shook his head.

"Plenty ships come soon," he said. "You sell to old Peterson. You remember, he pay big trade stuff. Don't take whisky."

The chief blinked shrewdly, dug deep within his fur parka, and brought forth a pipe, which he filled with a pinch of cut plug. Stirling offered a match, and the chief puffed and stared about the ship.

"New!" he said with brevity. "Fine ship. You own?"

Stirling shook his head and pointed toward the quarter-deck, where Marr was in conference with the Indian Point chiefs.

"He buy whalebone?" asked the Diomede Islander.

"I don't think so. You try old Peterson. Maybe he give you plenty."

"I want two whaleboats this year," said the shrewd native. "I want ten guns and whale lines. Next year I catch plenty whales."

Stirling recalled the method employed by the natives in capturing bowheads. They usually fastened from kayaks or umiaks and drove in as many irons as they could. To each iron was fastened a skin line which terminated in a seal poke inflated with air. These, if in sufficient numbers, prevented the whale from sounding and allowed it to be finished with long, ivory-pointed lances.

Drunken natives staggered from the p.o.o.p and swarmed about the waist and forepeak of the ship. Marr had distributed whisky for what trade stuff he needed. He bought three heads of bone for twelve kegs of alcohol and water mixed. This bone came out in umiaks and was stored with the other baleen in the forehold.

Time pa.s.sed at the Point. Marr seemed in no great hurry to enter the Arctic, even going ash.o.r.e and remaining overnight with the native chiefs. Sounds of their mirth and drunken carousing floated out.

Stirling chafed at the delay. The skipper was evidently waiting for some message from across the sea. Each ship which pa.s.sed or dropped anchor at East Cape was gammed; each time the captain returned without word of his purpose. Five whalers went through to the summer whaling ground which extended all of the way to the mouth of the Mackenzie River and beyond.

A night came when the sun barely dipped below the western waters.

Stirling had tried to sleep, but finally emerged to the deck with hot, fevered eyes. The air was heavy and sultry, and mosquitoes buzzed. They had been blown from off the Siberian tundra.

The pack long since had gone through the Straits and down the long reach of the Bering Sea. A group of natives slept on the forepeak of the _Pole Star_, while a single member of the crew walked slowly from port to starboard and back again, holding the anchor watch.

Some slight noise upon the quarter-deck caused Stirling to turn aft till he stood in the gloom of the galley cabin. He glanced keenly upward, to where the drab canvas of the rail showed, with a shadow behind it. A faint light shone from the open companion.

Then, and suddenly, he heard his name called. He started for the lee p.o.o.p steps, then paused as a warning was whispered to him. He stared upward in rising perplexity. A white hand reached over the rail, its fingers uncoiled, and a dark object fell to the deck. There followed the sound of soft feet over the quarter-deck's planks and of the shutting of the cabin companion.

Stirling stooped and picked up the object. Unrolling it slowly, he blushed through his sea tan as he held out a tiny glove. It was such a glove as only a dainty woman could wear.

"By the jumping bowheads!" he exclaimed. "A pretty girl's aboard and she's noticed me. I wonder who she is?"