LOST IN AN ARCTIC FOG
After they had first sighted the fog it did not seem more than five
minutes before they were enveloped in it. They could not see ten feet
ahead of them, and the only way they had of knowing they were near one
another was by shouting. The wind lulled almost immediately and the
umiack began to drift straight north. In a few moments all hands were
wet to the skin. All around them the icebergs and floes ground together
with growling, grating noises, like so many fierce animals.
“Ahoy, there!” came the muffled bellow of Corporal McCarthy through the
heavy mist.
“Here!” shouted Dick at the top of his lungs, the fog seeming to throw
the sound of his voice back into his face.
“Keep paddling to the right—against the current,” came the Corporal’s
command. “Sing out every few minutes so we can keep track of each
other.”
“Alright,” shouted Dick, and behind came the fainter sound of Constable
Sloan’s voice from the other umiack.
Progress now became dangerous indeed. The boats seemed to have floated
into a patch of broken ice that threatened every minute to crush the
frail umiacks like so much match wood. Then, too, Corporal McCarthy’s
shouts were growing fainter at every repetition.
“We’re losing ground,” called Dick to Sandy. “Work harder. Keep moving
to the right!”
“That’s what I’m trying to do,” called back Sandy from the center of the
boat, “but there’s a big floe pushing us to the left. We can’t seem to
get around it. Sipsa is doing all he can to keep us from getting smashed
up from the left. Look out!”
Sandy’s warning shout was accompanied by a violent jar that shook the
umiack from bow to stern.
“We’ve hit solid ice on the left!” cried Sandy. “We’ll be smashed
between two floes.”
Dick leaped up and, leaning over the side of the umiack, pushed on the
ice that was threatening to crush them against the floating ice on their
right.
But his efforts were of no avail. The umiack shuddered as if about to
collapse under the pressure, then seemed to rise out of the water.
“The ice has shoved under us!” cried Dick, much relieved.
Dick was right. Luckily, the flat bottomed umiack had grounded on the
flat ice pushing against her starboard side, and the higher ice on the
lee was pushing her farther over. Presently they were almost entirely
out of the water, the umiack half on the ice floe and floating along
with it.
“We can’t stay on this ice,” called Sandy. “It will carry us out to sea
and we’ll be lost.”
Dick thought rapidly. It was a moment for quick decision and daring
action.
“Sandy,” he cried, his mind made up, “stick by the boat. I’m going out
on this floe and shove us off as soon as we get to open water on one
side!”
“You’ll be drowned!” wailed Sandy.
“Got to take a chance,” was Dick’s exclamation as he leaped over the
gunwale of the umiack to the slippery surface of the fragment of floe
upon which they had been lifted.
“Tell me as soon as you see open water on the left,” shouted Dick to
Sandy. “That’s the only way we can get off this floe. I can’t move the
umiack to the other side.”
“Alright—wait,” Sandy replied tensely.
There followed many moments of suspense when each heart beat seemed
painful. Little that Dick knew of the northern seas, it was enough to
make the truth clear to him. If the floe they had grounded upon joined
with the ice on the left, and the entire mass continued to move, they
would be carried out to sea and lost on an ocean where few ships had
ever navigated. It had been several minutes since they had heard the
voice of Corporal McCarthy, and Constable Sloan’s shouts were barely
audible behind and far to the east. Proof enough that the ice was
carrying them out beyond the headland that marked the end of the bay.
Tensely Dick waited, digging his boots into little chinks of ice, ready
to push off at a word from Sandy.
“Watch out!” Sandy’s low exclamation steeled Dick’s muscles. “We’re
breaking loose from the other ice. The crack is getting wider. Wait a
minute! Alright, let her go!”
Dick drew a deep breath and bent all his strength upon the heavy umiack.
There came a slight grating sound, a lurch and the umiack, with its
heavy load, slid from the floe into the sea, as Dick leaped into the
stern with a cry of relief.
But his relief was short lived, for when he lifted his voice to shout to
the other boats, there was no reply. Again and again he shouted, until
his voice was hoarse, listening intently in the intervals. Not even
Sloan’s voice was audible now.
“We must be way out of the course,” Sandy said, discouraged.
Dick’s spirits fell also, then when he was about to give up shouting, he
caught the sound of a voice again.
“There—that’s Constable Sloan,” Dick said tensely.
“But it’s funny—he seems to be on the left of us,” Sandy came back.
They listened again, often shouting together. This time they were amazed
to hear the faint call from slightly to the right and ahead.
“That must be Corporal McCarthy,” Dick hazarded.
“No, I think it sounded like Constable Sloan,” Sandy disagreed. “But how
could he get over on the right so soon?”
“It’s the fog, I guess,” Dick returned. “The sounds are deceiving.
Anyway, we’re certain this floe on our right is between us and the
island. We’ll have to keep on working ahead until we can get around it.”
“You know what I think, Dick?” Sandy’s voice was exceedingly sober.
“Well, what do you think? I’m at my wit’s end myself.”
“This floe has caught on a larger block of ice somewhere on the other
side and it has been turning slowly. Dick, we don’t know where we’re at
now.”
“I hope you’re wrong,” Dick hastily rejoined, renewing his efforts at
the paddle.
The boys now proceeded to bury their misgivings in hard work on the
paddles. Sipsa continued his work at the prow of the craft, his expert
handling of the pole avoiding many a dangerous ice jam. Yet as the
minutes passed and they failed again and again to raise even a faint
shout from the balance of the company, they became certain that they
were floating out to sea.
“Oh, if this fog would only lift!” Dick prayed.
They worked on for what seemed to them an hour longer, but which
actually could not have been more than fifteen minutes, when it seemed
that Dick’s prayer was about to be answered.
“It’s getting lighter, isn’t it?” Sandy said hoarsely, almost afraid to
believe his eyes.
“I believe you’re right,” Dick answered, cheering up.
Slowly the fog thinned until they could see almost a hundred feet around
them, then, as swiftly as it had enveloped them, the fog bank passed
over, leaving them half blinded by the sudden glare of sunlight. Dick
and Sandy cried out with joy, and rose up in the umiack to look about.
“Thank heaven!” Dick ejaculated as he feasted his eyes on a welcome
scene.
Sandy had been right. The floe which they had been following had touched
upon some solider object. It had been the island!
There was but a few yards of open water between them and the barren,
snow-piled shore, and the floe on their right made a strong bridge to
land. Half a mile out to sea was the umiack of Constable Sloan and Toma,
making good time toward land. Corporal McCarthy was waving his paddle to
them a quarter mile to the left, and, now that the fog no longer
deadened sound, his shout was borne to the ears of the happy boys.
Dick and Sandy immediately bent to the paddles and worked the umiack
into the beach, where they pulled it upon dry land and commenced
unloading it.
A half hour later the company was reunited, and Corporal McCarthy gave
orders to make camp, and to stow the native boats high and dry on the
shore for future use.
“We’ll have to take a rest after that hard pull across the bay,” the
policeman explained. “But while you fellows fix something to eat, I’ll
take a run along the shore and see if I can’t find where Mistak landed.
I’d like to know more about this island we’ve landed on, too.”
When Corporal McCarthy was gone, Dick, Sandy and Toma set to work with
alacrity to help Constable Sloan make camp. They were so hungry that
their mouths watered when they fed the ravenous dogs their allotment of
frozen fish.
“I could eat whalebone and like it,” Dick said to Sandy as he watched
Constable Sloan pouring beans into the melted snow water, and listened
to the simmering of the tea pot.
“That’s nothing,” Sandy retorted. “I know now why a goat can eat tin
cans.”
Constable Sloan did not wait for Corporal McCarthy’s return before he
called all hands to the food he had prepared. Perhaps he sympathized
with the boys, but it was true he ate as hungrily as they did, all the
while telling them stories of his experiences in the land of the long
day and the long night.
“It hardly seems possible we’re actually seeing the midnight sun,” Dick
said, when the edge was off his appetite.
“The way my eyes feel, I sure feel it’s a fact. Do your eyes feel
strained and tired, Dick?”
“You bet they do. But how would it feel if we had as strong sunlight as
they do in the south?”
“We’d probably go blind,” Sandy opined.
“There’s hardly a doubt about that,” said Constable Sloan. “But wait
till you experience the long night, and see the moon go around and
around in the sky, for day after day, not seeing anything but the stars,
and then only when the sky is clear.”
“Do you think we’ll be up here that long?” asked Dick.
“Well, you never can tell,” Constable Sloan replied evasively, as if he
had said more than he intended.
After the meal the boys immediately crawled into their sleeping bags and
fell into a sound slumber. They did not awaken when Corporal McCarthy
returned, several hours later, and did not know he had returned until
they were awakened to find the dogs harnessed to the sledges and
breakfast awaiting them.
“Why didn’t you wake us up so we could help get ready to start?” Dick
asked the policemen.
“We’ve got a long hard trip ahead of us,” returned the Corporal, “and
you fellows needed your rest. I found Mistak’s trail two miles east of
here. He’s started inland and not only that, but it looks like he’s
crossed a glacier which seems to cover part of the interior of the
island.”
“Did you hear that?” Dick turned to Sandy. “We may have to cross a
glacier.”
“That suits me better than floating around among these icebergs in a
caribou hide boat,” Sandy replied with spirit. “I like to have my feet
under me, and dry land under my feet.”
“In other words you’re a land lubber,” laughed Dick.
“I guess I am,” admitted Sandy, strapping on his snowshoes.
A little later the little company pulled out of camp, and set off at a
good pace, Corporal McCarthy in the lead. After following the seashore a
little way they cut inland at an angle, and after about an hour’s
sledging struck the trail made by a dog team and three men.
At this point they made a halt while Corporal McCarthy went ahead to
look over the land before they advanced. The reason for this move was
quickly evident, for towering over them, at a distance of less than half
a mile, was a mass of ice that marked the beginning of a glacier,
probably miles and miles in extent.
Dick and Sandy were awed by the very immensity of the towering ice. The
fact that they might find it necessary to brave those treacherous
heights on the trail of the “white Eskimo” tested their courage to the
utmost. But the boys were not the sort that back down when danger is
close at hand. Truth to tell, they loved action and danger more than was
good for their own safety.
“There comes the Corporal,” Dick called out presently, his sharp eyes
having caught sight of a fur parka behind an ice hummock.
Presently the policeman came fully into view and waved for them to come
on.
“The trail leads over the glacier,” called the Corporal when they were
within hearing distance.
Dick and Sandy hurried forward after the dogs, their hearts hammering at
the promise of the excitement ahead.