The Ice Pilot Part 9

Remember that it may happen again."

Eagan squared his jaw and glanced for a second time toward the b.o.o.by hatch then he rubbed his hands together, reached and took the salve offered by Stirling.

"I'll tend to the next time," he said, huskily. "I'll tend to it! I don't need no afterguard to fight my battles. I can lick any three men of this crew, Mr. Stirling."

The Ice Pilot turned, strode across the rude planks of the forecastle, and mounted the ladder to the deck. Cushner removed the medicine chest from beneath his arm and started aft with it.

"Hold on," said Stirling. "Just a minute, Sam!"

The second mate turned.

"Don't say anything more to Marr. Just give him the chest and meet me in the waist. We'll have a smoke over this. That crew look as if they were in earnest. They'll murder Eagan if he don't keep his eyes peeled."

The mate bobbed his head and climbed the weather p.o.o.p steps as Marr appeared at the side of the wheelsman and stared over the canvas rail.

His eyes locked with Stirling's and were unable to hold the Ice Pilot's accusing scrutiny. Already and before entering the Bering Sea, there was a full crop of suspicion and cross-purpose sowed upon the _Pole Star_.

Cushner moved to the rail as Marr disappeared in the gloom. The two seamen lighted pipes and stared out over the Northern sea. A nip was in the air, and the higher stars shone with frosty effulgence.

"I've got to take the p.o.o.p," said Cushner, folding close his pea-jacket and glancing aft. "Whitehouse has gone into the galley. Marr won't stand for a watch alone; he'll probably go below."

Stirling shrugged his broad shoulders, pressed the bowl of his pipe, then blew upon his thumb with thoughtful air.

"I'm kinda summing things up, Sam. First the shanghai party; then the seaman who wanted to come aboard. Then, Sam, there's the mystery of the gamming by the j.a.p. All looks as if Marr has a fixed purpose. Looks like a crooked compa.s.s point to steer by!"

"Darn crooked!"

Stirling wound his strong fingers about the second mate's arm. "I'm a simple sailorman," he said, heavily. "I've sailed the Arctic and the Bering and the North Pacific, man and boy, for thirty years. I have no kith or kin. I've one star to guide. That's truth and right doing, Sam.

It's over there!"

The Ice Pilot pointed along the leader stars of the Great Dipper and notched his fingernail on the lodestar. "That's my guide," he said. "I play square! I never made anything much by playing square, but I'm going to steer my course by that light point. Marr won't mislead me a quarter point."

"Spoken fair!" declared Cushner. "You can call on me."

The mate vanished in the gloom of the waist.

Stirling dragged on his pipe, held it out, tapped it against the rail and dumped the glowing coals overside with a sweeping motion. He paused at the door to his galley cabin. The s.h.i.+p was plunging eastward with her screw turning over at three-quarter speed. A soft halo capped the funnel, like the tip of an ashless cigar, and the throbbing shook the deck which was canted ever so slightly under the influence of the northeast wind.

"Headin' full and by," said Stirling. "We're making for Dutch Pa.s.s. I'll be glad to see the ice. Somehow or other that Bering always seemed like a man's sea."

The days which followed the a.s.sault upon Eagan were hard ones for the mixed crew of the _Pole Star_. The course of the whaler was into the teeth of a wind which swung over the watches from point to point.

The night between the spume-filled days revealed the stars overhead in all their Northern glory-steel pointed they seemed. Within them and over the Northern world a pale sheen glowed, and vanished and glowed again.

This was the reflection of the aurora upon the great north barrier.

Fur coats, skin boots, woollen socks with moss filling, mittens, and watch caps were broken from the slop-chest and distributed to the crew.

At high noon of the third day from the gamming by the j.a.panese sealer, Stirling mounted to the crow's-nest, paused on its edge for a glance at the deck, then dropped down into a snug, far-swinging berth from which he had command of a hundred leagues of icy water.

He reached and secured a pair of twelve-diameter gla.s.ses which had been placed in a small chart rack, rested his elbows on the rim of the crow's-nest, and swept the horizon with keen eyes.

Mile by mile he searched for signs of whale slick or spout, but none showed, then he turned and squinted ahead. Two needlelike peaks showed well to the eastward. They were the highest points of the Aleutian group, and marked the pa.s.s through to the Bering Sea.

The day unrolled and lifted the archipelago up and into the Northern sky. It seemed a white-robed mountain chain-with each spire and crag forming the teeth of a giant saw. A rose light gleamed and reddened this barrier as the sun rimmed the Western world. The light paled to a flamingo and then to purple night as the s.h.i.+p drove on.

It was midnight, with Whitehouse and Marr standing watch on the p.o.o.p, and Stirling and Cushner in the crow's-nest, when they reached the overhanging shadow of the pa.s.s to the Bering. The s.h.i.+p steadied, swung, then darted under the lee of a barren island; the strait with its score of sharp turnings lay ahead.

They pa.s.sed the entrance to Dutch Harbor and Unalaska, raised the Rock of the Bishop, sheered and drove with all steam through the narrow outlet to the strait, entering at morning the waters of the Bering.

Stirling breathed, for the first time sure of sea room. Raising his gla.s.ses, he greeted the morning sun that slanted cold and bright along the arctic waters which rose and fell in slow gliding. He lowered his elbows and leaned far out over the crow's-nest edge, studying the small patches of spring ice through which the s.h.i.+p's sharp prow cut like a knife going through satin.

Floes, in the form of old "grandfathers," were pa.s.sed to starboard and port. These had drifted with the current down through the Bering Strait and were destined to melt in the warm waters of the j.a.pan Current. Some were small cakes, which had been formed that winter, and upon some of these arctic birds and hair seals sported.

A larger formation appeared ahead-part of the great North pack. Walrus and polar bear dove overside as the whaler bore down upon this floe, sheered, and entered a wide lane leading toward the north and east.

"Take the s.h.i.+p!" called Marr from the p.o.o.p. "It's your s.h.i.+p from now on, Mr. Stirling."

The Ice Pilot leaned over the edge of the crow's-nest. "Where are you headin' for?" he asked with a stout laugh. "I don't know your compa.s.s point. You didn't tell me."

"Tie to the ice-the pack!" Marr had consulted the binnacle before giving the order.

Stirling chuckled like a big boy, turned in his narrow quarters, and crooked his elbows with the gla.s.ses clasped in his hands. He studied the currents and the drift of the lighter floes, sniffed the wind, then swung his eyes from northeast to northwest.

"Hard astarboard!" he called down to the quartermaster. "Put her hard astarboard."

"Hard astarboard," rolled up to the crow's-nest. "She's hard astarboard, sir!" the wheelsman corrected.

"Steady now. Steady! Over with it. Now steady. Port! Port! Hard aport!

Stead-y thar!"

CHAPTER X-TO THE LAST DAY

The _Pole Star_ threaded the ice floes like a dancer on a polished floor. She drove all that day north and east; she crashed through new ice; she dodged the ancient floes and worked into the pack and through the lanes under the masterful handling of the Ice Pilot, who sought no rest. Coffee was brought to him by the galley boy. With this, and now and then a drag from his pipe, he held down three watches until morning broke and revealed to the east the higher line of the barrier beyond which the s.h.i.+p could not go.

"Pack ahead!" he announced, turning and staring shrewdly toward Marr who stood with Cushner on the p.o.o.p. "Yon's the North pack!"

Marr lifted his face and returned the stare, then dropped his eyes under the steady scrutiny and consulted Cushner.

Stirling swung and rimmed the white line without gla.s.ses. He knew it of old and knew that it was too early to find a lane leading north or east.

The ancient floes were still cemented together in an unyielding ma.s.s.

Upon them snow glistened, and pools of fresh water showed.

"Tie to the pack!" called Marr. "Pick out a place to get water. Find a hummock we can lash to. We'll lie here a while!"

Into a tiny bight of open water, sheltered on three sides by ancient ice, Stirling drove the _Pole Star_. Here she was lashed to a hummock by a hawser which three of the crew carried overside and hitched in a bowline of staunch hemp.