The Ice Pilot Part 33

The statement was made so fervently that Helen Marr blushed and did not answer as she followed the towering form of the Ice Pilot across the quarter-deck and down into the cabin, which was warm from the steam pipes which led from the boilers. The coffeepot was filled and placed over an alcohol stove, and she added some biscuits and marmalade to the meal.

Stirling had removed his cap, showing a slight sprinkle of gray in his hair, but his eyes spoke of youth and were strong with resolve. She raised her glance and smiled as she offered the coffee.

It came to her with force that he was no longer the aged, s.h.a.ggy bear who had crawled up the trapdoor in the deck of the cabin. Her influence had been for good, and he reminded her of a faithful Viking who would shed his last drop of blood for her protection. The revolutionists were potentially dangerous, but she sensed with the intuition of woman that they feared Stirling.

He rose from the table and stood with his head close to the deck beams.

"I'll go up now," he said, "and watch the ice. Your coffee was a fine bracer."

She, too, rose and followed him to the step leading to the deck companion. "Do you think the Russians will desert the ship?" she asked.

"They go to their death if they do. The land is impa.s.sable. It is five hundred miles to the nearest Hudson Bay post. Franklin and others could not cross that barren land. Nor can the revolutionists."

"But they are Russians and used to the cold."

Stirling shook his head and replaced his cap. "The ship is the only way out," he said, sincerely. "We must stick by it!"

He was halfway up the steps when she called to him. He turned and glanced down, his fingers on the combing of the hatch. His eyes widened as she lifted her face to his and pouted slightly.

"There's one thing we've forgotten," she said.

"What is that?"

"About the man from San Francisco, the one you locked in the cabin.

Don't you think you should let him loose?"

Stirling caught the note of sympathy in her tones, but he shook his head.

"He will behave," she added, quickly. "I'm sure that he will. He is afraid of you."

Her eyes were wide and very blue.

"Please let him go," she asked. "I'm sure of him."

The Ice Pilot turned and strode across the cabin, brushed aside the curtain, and pa.s.sed into the alleyway. Voices sounded as Helen Marr waited, then Slim appeared with one hand grasping the wrist of the other.

He leered through the half light of the cabin, and glanced up at the deck opening. "It's a fine way to--" he began, but Stirling silenced him with a glance.

"Get on deck!" the Ice Pilot commanded. "Get up and forward! The Russians won't kill you, they're too busy deciding whether to abandon the ship or not. You'll find food in the galley. Go now!"

Slim paused at the top of the steps and glared down, then ducked his unshaven face as Stirling moved toward the foot of the stairs and started upward. There was that in Stirling's face which brooked no excuses; his jaw was set with a fighting bulge at the point.

The deck was deserted, the wheel swung idle, and the _Pole Star_ rose and fell with the ground swell which lifted the ice floes and packed them upon the shelving beach.

Stirling crossed the planks, after shutting the cabin companion hatch, and stood by the canvas rail, studying the excited knot of revolutionists in the waist below him. The leader had mounted a hatch and was speaking rapidly, pointing now and then to the menace of the ice gathering to the north and west.

The land over the starboard rail held a certain lure to ignorant minds, the green moss and lichens which showed being apparently a promise of greener things to the southward. But Stirling knew that this inference could not be made. The way to the American continent was ice strewn and bare of animals; a trail of death and starvation.

The Russians moved in a flock to the rail and studied the ice about the ship-already firm enough to support a man's weight. The low swinging sun had not warmed the air enough to prevent the sea from freezing, and floes and drift ice were being cemented in the laboratory of nature. The ship alone was free, but encompa.s.sed by a ring of spongy ice and snow.

The sky overhead was pale; light flurries of ice particles dropped down to the deck, while the Northern aurora played and shot streamers up to the zenith. The sun plunged into a heavy haze which seemed to rim the entire horizon, and the temperature fell. The barometer was steady at twenty-nine, point six. Stirling played for a shift of wind which alone would free the ship from the coming deadlock.

He waited, and watched the revolutionists. The dock rat emerged from the galley door and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, stared at the Russians and then toward the quarter-deck. He made no attempt to come aft, and the evil that was stamped in his face held Stirling rigid.

The leader shouted something in Russian, and a hoa.r.s.e cheer broke from many throats. A decision had been reached in regard to abandoning the _Pole Star_. Russians to the number of a score sprang forward, ripped the battings from the fore hatch, and disappeared into the hold. Others ransacked the galley for food and clothes.

A rude sled was devised from part of a whaleboat and rope-yarn splicings. Upon this the leader climbed and pointed dramatically toward the low-lying land, slapped the chart with the back of his hand, and traced out an imaginary course. Stirling leaned far forward and watched him, amus.e.m.e.nt, mingled with pity sweeping over his strong face. He called, and then repeated the call. The leader lowered his chart and turned.

"You're going to your doom!" declared Stirling. "Abandon this ship and you are lost. There is no way to civilization by the land route!" He pointed a mittened finger toward the island and the magnetic north.

The leader flushed and struck the chart with a sharp blow, sprang from the sled, and hurried aft. Stirling met him with a cold smile. "I told you," he said, "that there is no way. No way! Do you understand that?"

"There is a--"

Stirling thrust the leader from the quarter-deck, then turned and strode to the companion. Pausing at the hatch, he glanced aloft. Ice had appeared upon the cap of the mizzenmast, the rigging was coated with frost, and the wind, from the north and east, held steadily. Its velocity was not more than eight miles an hour, and it showed signs of changing some time during the short Arctic night.

Stirling went below after sliding open the cabin hatch. Helen Marr stood by a landward porthole, and she turned and smiled at Stirling, but the smile died as she saw the sombre light in his eyes. "What happened?" she asked.

"They're going to abandon the ship. It means their death."

"Can't you stop them?" The girl had begun to believe that Stirling was strong enough to accomplish anything.

"It would be no use trying," he said, removing his cap and fingering it with fingers which tingled. "Their minds are made up. The leader thinks he can reach a Hudson Bay post. He does not know what I know--"

Stirling's voice trailed off into an expressive pause, as he thought of the grim tales he had heard of Banks Land and the Gulf of Boothia. Many trappers and explorers had laid their bones out on the Arctic wilds. The land was barren, extending to the white ramparts of the Mackenzie River on the south and west, and to the Hudson Bay on the east and north. It was without vegetation or animal life for nine months of the year, and the water courses were frozen over to the same dead level as the rest of the world. Only the white fox and the skulking wolf were to be seen, and these two animals were far too wary to be shot.

"They're lost if they leave the ship," said Stirling, waking from his thoughts. "We'll stay here and winter, if necessary. The ice may crush the _Pole Star_, but we can get enough provisions and fuel ash.o.r.e to last out. It might be possible to work to the west next summer in a whaleboat. It all depends on the season. I never saw one so open as this one was, but there may never be another like it, Miss Marr."

The girl turned toward the porthole, and the cold breeze which cut through the opening brought colour to her cheeks and fanned her hair.

"Is there no chance of getting through to the open sea this summer?" she asked, shivering slightly and drawing her deerskin jacket about her slight waist.

"Yes, by Heaven; there is a chance!" Stirling's voice rose and filled the cabin. "There's a fighting chance, Miss Marr!"

She turned and stared at him, and her lips formed the question. He laid his cap on the table and opened his pea-jacket, breathing with giant gulps of suppressed emotion. Suddenly the air had grown warm to him. "I can get through," he said, "if within a few hours the wind shifts to the south and west. That will clear Barrow Strait of ice. Once out of the Strait, the way is open to Baffin Bay through the Lancaster Sound."

Helen Marr clapped her hands, then wheeled with swishing skirts and stared out through the porthole. "The wind," she said, "is dying. Does that indicate anything?"

"Everything!"

"Then the Russians will stay?"

"No; they are going. I want a few to remain with us. That dock rat will, he's too lazy to try for the American continent. Perhaps there are others who will listen to reason, but the time is short. Maybe through the leader I can get the case stated to them, and ask for volunteers who are willing to wait for the wind to shift."

Helen Marr glided to the piano and lifted a sealskin coat from its stool. She thrust her arms into the sleeves of this as Stirling stepped forward with wonder written across his features.

"What are you going to do?" he asked.