The Ice Pilot Part 26

The wheel was changed. The ship sheered, missed a heavy-floe formation, and entered a lane of drift ice.

"Steady!" shouted Stirling, feeling the wine of the game. "Hold her steady, there!"

He smiled despite the danger, for the act of giving commands and finding them obeyed showed that the Russians were new to ice work. They would most certainly wreck the ship and drown all on board. The century-old floes through which they glided had been detached from the polar pack, but once past these, a course held for the America sh.o.r.e would bring safety.

The _Bear_ had not been as fortunate as the poacher. The ice between the Diomedes and Cape Prince of Wales was almost impa.s.sable, and the lieutenant in charge of the revenue cutter decided to take no chances.

He reduced speed and struck for the Alaskan coast, since it was evident that this course would again intercept the poacher. Their place of meeting would be off Kotzebue Sound.

Stirling forgot the ma.s.sacre aboard the _Pole Star_. He never had sided with the former crew; and the revolutionists, with their ignorance of the ice, were less to be feared. They had seized a ship, were running amuck, but at least had the virtue of motion. Their end might come in a score of ways, and it was to Stirling's interest to see that the ship remained afloat. There were the girl and Marr and the Frisco dock rat to consider.

Stirling's blood tingled at the excitement of the game; he breathed the refreshing air and raised his square shoulders. Open water and whale slick showed ahead, and beyond this the eastern horizon and the gray shadow of land. They were now plunging north by the compa.s.s, with a slight inclination toward the east. The course, he figured, should read northeast by north.

Lulled by the swaying and throbbing of the ship, he sensed a progression of true adventure. He had come North to whale. The whaling voyage had turned into an illicit sealing expedition. Now the revolutionists closely followed by the _Bear_, held the deck.

The low Arctic sun swung closer to the horizon. Within the purple haze astern came flashes of crimson light which died to lavender, and the lavender into velvet dusk. Night was falling upon the wild sea. It was well past ten o'clock. The revolutionists, busy at the fires and the gin, gave scant attention to the ship's bells.

Stirling dozed with his head against the rim of the crow's-nest, woke at odd times, and yawned. Sleep had overcome his stout frame. He peered down at the deck, saw that it was almost deserted, then lowered himself into the bottom of the nest and rested his chin on his drawn-up knees.

Here he slumbered through the night.

Awaking with a start of surprise, he found that the day had dawned. He rose and stared out over the bow of the ship. Ice floes showed close to the port rail, and beyond these the open sea and the cold glint of the great North pack. He swung to starboard and studied the haze through which the sun was rising on a long slant. Land was there, and he made a swift calculation-the ship must be crossing the open Kotzebue Sound.

Out of the land mist as the sun veiled itself behind a cloud there emerged a leaping thing of well-sheeted canvas and belching funnels. The _Bear_ had stolen a march on the poacher during the hours of the night, and a shot came skipping across the waves. It missed the _Pole Star's_ stern by a scant cable's length. Another followed from the revenue cutter's bow gun, and this burst in the whaleboats that lined the starboard rail.

A roar of fright and defiance rolled upward to Stirling. The leader sprang from the galley house and dashed up the p.o.o.p steps. A horde of his followers swarmed from the forecastle hatch and the forehold, and some leaped down the engine-room companion. The funnel belched big clouds of smoke and the fire doors clanged. The _Pole Star_ swerved toward the west and the open sea. This manoeuvre saved the revolutionists from certain capture.

Stirling waited with held breath and rigid lips. It was nip and tuck for the flying poacher, but gradually the distance between her and the cutter increased. The next shots fell short.

Men danced on deck and shook their fists toward the cutter, while the stokehold crew took turns in coming to the rail of their hatchway and raving at the _Bear_. They glanced aloft at the lone figure in the crow's-nest, but there was no malice in their expressions.

Stirling's blood tingled at the excitement of the game, and he lost his enmity for the Russians. They acted like children freed from bondage.

They had fled from Vladivostok, been wrecked in the Gulf of Anadir, and were now on the second leg of their adventure. It led to the icy North and strange waters.

The ship plunged away from the coast and toward the North pack. Stirling realized that the _Bear_ would follow to the bitter end, and he knew there was also another revenue cutter in the Arctic Ocean-the chances were slim for the Russians to escape, and the trap might be sprung at Point Barrow which juts far out into the Arctic.

Hurtling west, and then edging toward the north as the day advanced, the _Pole Star_ avoided the pack and settled down to steady progress toward the American sh.o.r.e in the vicinity of Icy Cape.

The day unrolled with the cold sun swinging over the land and through the mists. The night, which came with slow shadowing, found Stirling weak and listless from lack of food and water, and he realized that an effort would have to be made to escape from the crow's-nest. The crew had drunk the entire store of gin and trade whisky, and they roamed the deck in groups, their attention fastened upon the low coast along which many Arctic whalers had been wrecked. The pa.s.sageway between this coast and the grounded ice was narrow in places. A north-easter would crush the ship and drive it ash.o.r.e.

The lane of ice-free waters widened as Cape Lisburne was pa.s.sed. This lane often had been blocked by light floes, and Stirling studied the grounded pack to the west and north, coming to the conclusion that the season would be an extremely open one. Never before in his experience had he seen clearer steaming to the eastward.

Night came on with the _Pole Star_ logging thirteen knots. The ship was surprisingly handled by the Russians, who worked more by intuition than from experience, but they had the sense of drift and direction. The _Bear_ was left hull down in the flecked field astern, but still coming on grimly.

Walruses and seals were distributed by the wash of the ship; lone wolves howled from the sh.o.r.e; a polar bear lumbered over the ice as the _Pole Star_ crashed through, staggered, and resumed its eastward course. The Russians on deck surged aft for fear of catastrophe. Surrounding the wheelman and the leader, they peered anxiously toward the after companion which was barricaded on the inside.

Streamers of yellow light shot athwart the eastern heavens, and this light brightened into a nebula of crimson. The aurora played and flickered and surged upward toward the zenith, while through it the pale stars shone. A moon rose and rolled along the lowland which lay between Lisburne and Icy Cape. The Barren Country stood revealed in cold splendour, stretching to the ramparts of the Mackenzie River and the mountains at Fort Yukon.

A sense of motion came to Stirling, for he knew the waters. Never before, however, had he found the sea so open. The aged and grounded floes were well to the northwest, and had not been driven above the seven-fathom line. The lane they left for navigation was wide enough to float all the navies of the world, and only a great storm would close it behind the _Pole Star_.

Midnight found Stirling weary of the details of the voyage and weak from lack of food and water. A languor stole over his rugged frame; he yawned and attempted to sleep, but a clang of a fire door and a quarter-point swing of the ship awakened him to dull consciousness. He peered over the edge of the crow's-nest.

The deck below seemed a haven; there was food and water there. The way down would be short. He searched about for some sign of the Russians.

Aside from the wheelman's head over the barricade and a towering leader standing by the weather rail of the quarter-deck, there was no one in sight.

The funnel, almost beneath shrouds, was crowned with a ring of fire, and a shift of wind now and then drove smoke upward. Stirling choked in this, tried to marshal the details of an escape, but felt his position was far too desperate to await daylight. The Russians were sleeping off the last of the gin. Their leader had given orders to drive for Point Barrow and take the chances to be met there.

Stirling widened his eyes and pressed his hand to his hot brow, studying the white lane of water which was bordered by ice on one quarter and the dark land upon the other. A providence had the ship in its grip. Small floes were avoided by no effort of the wheelman and thin ice, formed overnight, was ripped as satin by a knife.

Point Barrow was less than five hours' steaming ahead, and beyond the Point, with its whaling station and its native village, lay the open Sea of Beaufort and the unknown land of Keenan. It was a desperate sea into which to venture, and the horror of the short month came home to Stirling. He was facing cold, starvation, and isolation-a trinity of despair.

The stars paled as the slow dawn started creeping along the eastern heavens. The onward surge of the ship through the dream scene of flecked ice patches and mirrorlike water became a vision of unreality.

Stirling searched the way ahead, and recognized familiar landmarks from other voyages. The ribs of a whale ship showed high driven upon the tundra. This was the wreck of the _George M. Foster_, thrust ash.o.r.e three seasons before by the pressure of the North pack.

Other wrecks marked the beach, showing where a fleet of whalers had attempted to gain the shelter of Point Barrow. A northwester had scattered them and laid their bones out upon the pale Arctic wilds. Men had died there from starvation and cold.

Native villages showed, with their summer huts gaunt and bare against the snow, and behind them igloos, fast melting in the warm air. Kayaks and umiaks dotted the beach; dogs came down to the sh.o.r.e and stared at the ship. A head was thrust through a tent's bark door, and a hand waved. Then afterward had come the rushing of dark forms along the tundra and the cries of natives.

The wheelsman held the centre of the course between the North pack and the sand spits. The leader, m.u.f.fled to the eyes in sealskin, came out of the galley and glanced aloft. The orders he gave were for more steam, and the funnel belched forth smoke and driven cinders. The screw thrashed as the ship hurtled on into the brightening dawn.

Stirling climbed out of the crow's-nest, lowered his legs over its forward edge, and sat there with his hands gripping one of the downhauls. The sea ahead was polished and rippleless, the way to Point Barrow was open, and already the land had bent to the north and west.

They were now rounding Alaska.

A shout rose from the dark deck, forms swarmed from the forecastle, and the ship took on churning life. The leader had sensed the danger to be met with at Point Barrow. A premonition had seized him that the _Bear_ might have signalled by wireless to a waiting government boat.

Stirling divined that this would be the case, and pressed his palm against his head. The throbbing of the ship, felt at the masthead, drove a surge of nausea through his stout frame. The end was close at hand, unless they struck out to open sea, through the ice floes, and avoided the Point.

A misted sun rose in the north and east, directly before the taper jib boom of the _Pole Star_. It drove the last of the aurora from the sky, rose in a rolling eye of fire, and brought out all the details of the stretching Arctic wild.

To the north and west showed great floes, which had grounded upon the shallow land which marked the seven-fathom bank. Between these floes lanes appeared, filled with whale slick and sporting seals. They led to the true north and the solid pack below the cold horizon.

Swinging the helm with sudden intuition, the leader drove the ship down a wide lane and away from the sh.o.r.e. Stirling sensed this manuvre was to avoid being sighted at the Point. The leader had spread a chart out upon the quarter-deck, and his thumb traced a course which would take him away from any possible pursuit; it would also be a venture into an unknown sea. Blond Eskimos and castaways from Franklin's expedition were supposed to people the polar sh.o.r.es of Banks and Keenan Land.

Stirling studied the ship's deck with eyes brightened by hunger and resolve. He sought for a place to descend-an opening which would allow him to reach the forehold where stores and water could be found.

The revolutionists were scattered from the forepeak to the break of the p.o.o.p. Smoke showed from the galley stovepipe. The engine-room crew and stokehold crowd had redoubled their efforts in order to sheer the ship from the land. Word had been pa.s.sed down that the _Bear_ might signal the government people at Point Barrow, which was almost in sight.

Stirling glanced aft to where the Russian at the wheel was taking his orders from the leader who had sprung upon the weather rail and was holding to the mizzen shrouds.

The chance for escape from the crow's-nest had come. The mainsail hung from the main yard, and its flapping canvas would afford some slight shelter. Stirling weighed the opportunity and prepared to make the effort. The open main hatch invited with its glimpse of boxes and scattered trade stuff.

He lowered himself from the crow's-nest and stood on the jack above the Jacob's ladder. Here he was sheltered from a chance glance aloft. He poised himself, gathered together his remaining strength, then reached downward and grasped the ladder's top, his eyes slowly swinging aft.

They rested on the barricade of canvas which had been erected forward of the cabin companion. A form moved behind this canvas, and the eastern light brought out the details. It was Slim, the Frisco dock rat, a ragged tam-o'-shanter capping his uncut hair.

With his face pressed over the edge of the canvas, Slim took in the details of the ship and the revolutionists and frowned. A second form moved close to his side and the girl glanced over the canvas, her eyes raised in tearful search of the crow's-nest. When they lighted upon Stirling, she beckoned with a white finger, then gave a heart-rendering, poignant call of distress.