The Ice Pilot Part 16

Stirling hurried into his cabin and tore a leaf from an ancient log book. Upon this he wrote a message to Peterson which he felt was certain to be delivered by the faithful Diomede chief.

The message concerned the Seal Islands and the danger of a raid being made against them.

Notify any revenue cutters or cruisers,

Stirling commanded.

The native chief took the sc.r.a.p of paper, glanced about in caution, and crammed it into a bead-woven poke wherein were his most valuable possessions. "Me give 'em!" he declared, positively. "White captain, he get maybe day or two. Plenty whale ships come now."

Stirling was satisfied with his messenger. The chief departed from the _Pole Star's_ side after bundling aboard his umiak all of his trade stuff and relatives. These last were seventeen in number, and the skin boat was deep enough in the sea to suggest that a catastrophe would happen before the Lesser Diomede was reached.

The last sight of the chief, however, was a rea.s.suring one to Stirling.

The faithful native had skilfully risen in the bow of the umiak, steadied his short legs, and taken out his beaded poke. This he waved overhead, being careful not to capsize the laden boat.

Stirling had answered by lifting his cap and holding it aloft, then the boat was paddled around a rocky point. Other umiaks and kayaks followed.

Many of the natives went ash.o.r.e, taking the stuff they had bought; the few that remained were aft with Marr. One was singing a drunken song which never before had been heard on land or sea.

Eagan stepped to Stirling's side as the last notes of this song floated down the deck.

"Booze!" said the seaman, laconically.

"Alcohol!" exclaimed Stirling. "These natives were all right until the white men came. They hunted and fished and lived simple lives."

Eagan smiled. "What are you going to do about this Siberian bunch?" he asked. "The U. S. A. has no jurisdiction over here."

"It has! Russia is not to blame. It isn't Russian whalers and traders who do the mischief."

"Forget the preaching," said Eagan with Frisco slang. "Keep your opinions to yourself, Stirling. The day for booze in the United States seems to be about over, anyway. Just now--"

The seaman's voice trailed off into silence. He thrust out a strong jaw, drilled Stirling with a meaning glance, then was gone with a swift turn across the deck.

Stirling was still thinking of the whisky; like all strong natures, he dwelt too long on one subject.

He moved to the rail and leaned his elbows upon the chains where they were spliced to the shrouds and standing rigging. He swept the native village with a painstaking glance; it was not the same as first he had known it. The igloos back in the valley, which was still crusted with winter snow, were few and small in dimensions. The frame shacks and rude tents of the summer village bore the certain stamp of neglect and carelessness. Dogs hunted about for sc.r.a.ps of meat. Children in trade calico played with a listless air. The umiaks and kayaks were patched and broken.

Stirling frowned. Other villages along the Siberian and Alaskan sh.o.r.es were similarly stamped. They had been touched and polluted by the influence of those whalers who found it easier to allow the natives to secure the whalebone than it was to go out to sea and get it.

A sharp command broke through Stirling's thoughts, and he turned from his view of the village. Marr stood at the weather p.o.o.p steps.

The little skipper pointed toward the waist of the whaleboat. "Lower that!" he snapped. "You and Eagan and about two seamen drop up to East Cape. See if there's any bone there."

Stirling answered the skipper's command with a slow glance, moved not too hastily toward the whaleboat, and climbed inside. From this position, he called Eagan and two seamen who were idling on the forepeak.

The boat was cleared of lashings and lowered, with Stirling in the bow and Eagan in the stern, then the seamen came down the dangling falls and dropped aboard. They thrust out two long oars and shoved the whaleboat from the ship.

Stirling glanced at the telltale on the _Pole Star_, then motioned to up the single sail and lower the centerboard. The light craft sailed into the wind and canted far to leeward, gliding from the shadow of the headland as the sun swung over the shoulder of Siberia.

East Cape was reached soon after dark. Stirling sprang ash.o.r.e and shouted; then repeated the call. Lights shone from the windows set in the summer shacks.

A pack of s.h.a.ggy dogs, followed by three natives, came out and stared at the whaleboat. One dog crept down the beach and sniffed Stirling's native boots, then raised his snout and called a wolf's long howl of welcome.

A rude door was opened in the larger shack, and the chief stood revealed in the glow of the inner fire, about which native women were squatted.

Stirling advanced and held out his hand, touching the chief on the shoulder. "You remember me," he said. "Me ice pilot of the _Beluga_. You got any whalebone to trade?"

The chief's face cleared, and he voiced a noisy welcome. He had no whalebone; furs he showed and also tusks. Some of these were carved with running men and spouting whales.

It was after dawn when Stirling gave the order to run out the whaleboat and make for the _Pole Star_. The chief, his family, and a score of natives waved a silent farewell, standing on the beach until the boat turned a ledge of rock and vanished into the smooth waters of the Strait.

Stirling was steering as the light boat swung under the _Pole Star's_ stern and glided alongside. He glanced up at the overhanging p.o.o.p where lights showed through the portholes. Out of one an arm reached and waved, and he heard a low-voiced warning. It was m.u.f.fled and indistinct, but it was a girl's tones which warned. He had but time to swing the tiller when the boat sc.r.a.ped against the whaler's sheathing and Eagan caught a dangling fall.

CHAPTER XVI-FROM HIS POCKET

The Ice Pilot reached the deck by way of the chains in the waist, and saw that the entire crew had gathered between the galley house and the break of the p.o.o.p.

Marr was with them. He wheeled, strutted over the planks, and planted himself before Stirling. "What did you find at East Cape?" he asked.

Stirling doubled his fists and stepped back. "Little or nothing," he said, glancing over the skipper's slight shoulder and meeting the eyes of the crew which seemed suddenly hostile. "Little or nothing," he repeated, simply. "There's pelts there and ivory, but no bone. I told them we had no whisky to trade."

"You did?"

Stirling flushed and backed to the rail. He heard Eagan drop to the deck beside him, and the seaman was followed by the two sailors who had made the trip to East Cape.

"I did!"

"Don't you know that this crew is trying to make an honest living? Don't you know that every brave man aboard gets a two hundredth lay of the bone we trade or capture? Why didn't you try the natives with a little whisky bait? You'd have found bone hidden in every igloo."

"Go yourself!" said Stirling. "I won't do your dirty work!"

Marr turned to the half-moon of menacing men. "You heard that," he said.

"That's the kind of man this pilot is-all for himself. I told you we'd have to look out for him. We can't go on any further until he is taken care of."

The crew had reached some sort of agreement before Stirling arrived from East Cape; this much he saw with widening eyes, glancing from face to face. The Kanakas had been chosen for their loyalty to the little skipper. The boat steerers were Frisco dock rats who had the run of the steerage-an elevated position to them. The rest of the crew had scant hopes for anything save plunder and spoils in this life. They would have willingly followed Marr through the entire group of rookeries, starting at Disko Island and winding up at the Pribilofs.

Stirling reached and rested his hand on the pinrail, where were a dozen bra.s.s belaying pins. He lifted his hand, wound his fingers about the nearest, and raised it an inch or more. A tenseness of desperate right steeled his muscles; his jaw muscles hardened to b.a.l.l.s, and his lips closed in a grim line.

Marr reached backward and clapped his palm over his right hip. The motion was a signal. The crew snarled in a running line of anger, advanced in a half-circle, and closed about Stirling. One held a sheath knife openly displayed in his hand.

"Kill the squealer!" he exclaimed. "Kill him! He's preventing us from getting what's coming on this voyage. Darn, says I, if I'll go to Fris...o...b..oke. What d'ye say, mates?"

"Hold on!" cried Stirling, raising his ponderous right fist. "The first man who tries anything gets this!"

Eagan stepped out from the rail a half step, and stood partly between Stirling and the little skipper. There was that written in the seaman's face which held every man upon the ship. His eyes glittered with high light, and his body rested on the b.a.l.l.s of his feet as if to spring.

"A moment!" Eagan snapped in steeled tones. "This layout will lead to murder. Murder leads to swingin'. I don't want to swing. I'm with the skipper in every way. Get that?"