FINDING THE TRAIL
"I think we can go." Phi smiled as he spoke. His hour for a try-out
had expired. He was back.
"Can--can we cross the Straits?" Marian asked, breathless with emotion.
"I think so."
"How?"
"Got a new guide. I'll show you. Be ready in a half-hour. Bring your
pictures and a little food. Not much. Wear snowshoes. Ice is
terribly piled up."
He disappeared in the direction of his own igloo.
Marian looked about the cozy deerskin home where were stored their few
belongings, then gazed away at the masses of deep purple shadows that
stretched across the imprisoned ocean. For a moment courage failed her.
"Perhaps," she said to herself, "it would be better to try to winter
here."
But even as she thought this, she caught a vision of that time when she
and her companion had been crowded out of a native village to shift for
themselves. Then, too, she thought of the possible starving-time in
the spring, after the white bear had gone north and before walrus would
come, or trading schooners.
"No," she said out loud, "no, we'd better try it."
When the girls joined Phi on the edge of the ice-floe, they looked
about for the guide but saw none. Only Rover barked them a welcome.
"Where's the guide?" asked Lucile.
"You'll see. C'm'on," said the boy, leading the way.
For a mile they traveled over the solid shore-ice. They then came to a
stretch of water, dark as midnight. At the edge of this was a
two-seated kiak.
Phi motioned Lucile to a seat. Deftly, he paddled her across to the
other side. It was with a sinking feeling that she felt herself
silently carried toward the north by the gigantic ice-floe.
Marian and the dog were quickly ferried over. Then, after drawing the
kiak upon the ice, the boy turned directly north and began walking
rapidly. At times he broke into a run.
"Have to make good time," he explained as he snatched Marian's roll of
sketches from her hand. "Got to get the trail."
They did make good time. Alternately running and walking, they kept up
a pace of some six or seven miles an hour.
"Why, I thought--thought we were going to go east," puffed Marian.
"We're just going down the beach."
Phi did not answer.
They had raced on for nearly an hour when they suddenly came upon a
kiak drawn up as theirs had been on the ice.
"Ah! I thought so," said the boy. "Now's the time for a guide. Here,
Rover!"
He seized the dog by his collar and set him on the invisible trail of
the men who had deserted that kiak. The dog walked slowly away,
sniffing the ice as he went. His course was due east. The three
followed him in silence. Presently his speed increased. He took on an
air of confidence. With tail up, ears back, he sniffed the ice only
now and then as he dashed over great, flat pans, then over little
mountains of broken ice, to emerge again upon flat surfaces.
Marian understood, and her admiration for Phi grew. He had found the
trail of the men who had crossed the Straits before them. He had put
Rover on that trail. Rover could not fail to follow. The trail was
fresh, only seven hours old. Rover could have followed one as many
days old.
"Good old Rover," Marian murmured, "good old Rover, a white man's dog."
All at once a question came to her mind. They had been obliged to go
several miles north to pick up the trail. This was due to the movement
of the floe. This movement still continued. It was carrying them
still farther to the north. The Diomede Islands, halfway station of
the Straits, were small; they offered a goal only two or three miles in
length. If they were carried much farther north, would they not miss
the islands?
She confided her fears to Phi.
"I thought of that," he smiled. "There is a little danger of that, but
not much, I guess. You see, I'll try to time our rate of travel, and
figure out as closely as I can when we have covered the eighteen miles
that should bring us even with the islands. Then, too, old Rover will
be losing the trail about that time. When that bearded friend of yours
and his guide leave the floe to go upon the solid shore ice of the
islands, the floe is going to keep right on moving north. That breaks
the trail, see? When we strike the end of that trail we can go due
south and hit the islands. If the air is at all clear, we can see
them. It's a clumsy arrangement, but better than going it without a
trail."
Marian did "see," but this did not entirely still the wild beating of
her heart as she leaped a yawning chasm between giant up-ended cakes of
ice, or felt her way cautiously across a strip of newly-formed ice that
bent under her weight as if it were made of rubber.
It was with a strange, wild thrill that she realized they were far out
over the conquered sea. Hundreds of feet below was the bed of Bering
Straits. Above that bed a wild, swirling current of frigid salt water
raced.
Once, as they were about to cross a stretch of new ice, Phi threw
himself flat and hacked a hole through the ice. Water bubbled up,
while Marian caught the wild surging rush of the current.
For a second her knees trembled, her face blanched. Phi saw and smiled.
"Never fear," he exclaimed; "we'll make it all right. And when you get
back home you'll have a story to tell that will make Eliza's crossing
on the ice seem like a picnic party crossing a trout stream on
stepping-stones."
It was not long after that, however, when even this daring boy's face
sobered. Old Rover, who had been following the trail unhesitatingly,
suddenly came to a halt. He turned to the right, sniffing the ice.
Then he turned to the left. After that he looked up into the face of
the boy, as if to say:
"Where's the trail gone?"
Phi examined the ice carefully.
"Been a sudden jam here," he muttered; "then the ice has slid along,
some north, some south. It has all happened since our friends passed
this way. You just wait here. I'll take Rover to the north and let
him pick up the trail. When I find it, I'll come back far enough to
call to you. May be to the south, though, but we'll soon see."
He disappeared around a giant ice-pile and, in a twinkling, was lost to
view.
The two girls, placing their burdens of food and Marian's sketches on
an up-ended ice-cake, sat down to wait. They were growing weary. The
strain of the adventure into this puzzling, unknown ice-field was
telling on their nerves.
"I wish we were safe at Cape Prince of Wales," sighed Marian.
"Yes, or even East Cape," said Lucile. "I think I'd be content to stay
there and chance the year with the natives."
"Anyway, Phi's doing his best," said Marian. "Isn't he a strange one,
though? Do you think he has the blue envelope?"
"I don't know."
"Well, I think he has."
"I don't know," Lucile said sleepily. Fatigue and the keen Arctic air
were making her drowsy.
Presently, she leaned back against an ice-cake and fell asleep.
"I'll let her sleep," Marian mused. "It'll give her strength for what
comes next, whatever that is."
An hour passed, but no call echoed across the silent white expanse.
Marian, now pacing back and forth across a narrow ice-pan, now pausing
to listen, felt her anxiety redoubled by every succeeding moment. What
could have happened to Phi? Had some mishap befallen him? Had a slip
thrown him into some dangerous crevice? Had thin ice dropped him to
sure death in the surging undercurrent? Or had he merely wandered too
far and lost his way?
Whatever may have happened, he did not return.
At length, with patience exhausted, she climbed the highest ice-pile
and gazed away to the north. The first glance brought forth a cry of
dismay. A narrow lane of dark water, stretching from east to west,
extended as far as eye could see in each direction. It lay not a
quarter of a mile from the spot where she stood.
"He's across and can never recross to us," she moaned in despair. "No
creature could brave that undercurrent and live. And there is no other
way."
Then, as the full terror of their situation flashed upon her, she sank
down in a heap and buried her face in her hands.
They were two lone girls ten miles from any land, on the bosom of a
vast ice-floe, which was slowly but surely creeping toward the unknown
northern sea. They had no chart, no compass, no trail to follow and no
guide. To move seemed futile, yet to remain where they were meant sure
disaster.
As if to complete the tragedy of the whole situation, a snow-fog
drifted down upon them. Blotting out the black ribbon of water and
every ice-pile that was more than a stone's throw from them, it swept
on to the south with a silence that was more appalling than had been
the grinding scream of a tidal wave beneath the ice.
"Lucile! Lucile!" she fairly screamed as she came down to the surface
of the pan. "Lucile! Wake up! We are lost! He is lost!"
* * * * * *
What had happened to the young college boy had been this: He had
hastened to the north in search of the trail. Rover, with nose close
to the ice, had searched diligently for the scent. For a long time his
search had been unrewarded, but at last, with a joyous bark, he sprang
away across an ice-pan.
The boy followed him far enough to make sure that he had truly found
the trail, then, calling him back, turned to retrace his steps.
Great was his consternation when he discovered the cleavage in the
floe. Hopefully he had at first gone east along the channel in search
of a possible passage. He found none. After racing for a mile, he
turned and retraced his steps to the point where he had first come upon
open water. From there he hurried west along the channel. Another
twenty minutes was wasted. No possible crossing-place could be found.
He then sat down to think. He thought first of his companions. That
they were in a dire plight, he realized well. That they would be able
to devise any plan by which they could find their way to any shore, he
doubted; yet, as he thought of it, his own position seemed more
critical. The trail he had found would now be useless. He was north
of the break in the floe. Land lay to the south of it. He had no way
to cross. In such circumstances, the dog with his keen sense of smell,
and his compass with its unerring finger, were equally useless.
"Nothing to do but wait," he mumbled, so he sat down patiently to wait.
And, as he waited, the snow-fog settled down over all.