"WITHOUT COMPASS OR GUIDE"
It was with a staggering sense of hopelessness that the two girls on
the bosom of the Arctic floe saw the snow-fog settle down.
"It's likely to last for days, and by that time--" Marian's lips
refused to frame the words that expressed their condition when the
snow-fog lifted.
"By that time--" echoed Lucile. "But no, we must do something.
Surely, there is some way!"
"Without compass or guide?" Marian smiled at the impossibility of there
being a solution.
Unconsciously, she had repeated the first line of an old song. Lucile
said over the verse:
"Without compass or guide.
On the crest of the tide.
Oh! Light of the stars,
Pray pilot me home."
Involuntarily, her glance stole skyward. Instantly an exclamation
escaped her lips:
"Oh, Marian! We can see them! We can! We can!"
"What can we see?" asked Marian.
"The stars!"
It was true. The snow-fog, though spread over the vast surface of the
ice, was shallow. The stars gleamed through it as if there were no fog
at all.
Wildly their hearts beat now with hope.
"If we can locate the big dipper," said Lucile, whose astronomical
research had been of a practical sort, "we can follow the line made by
the two stars at the lower edge of the dipper and find the North Star.
All we have to do then is to let the North Star guide us home."
This was quickly done. And in a short while they had mapped out a
course for themselves which would certainly come nearer bringing them
to the desired haven than would the north-ward drift of the ice-floe.
"But Phi?" exclaimed Lucile.
Marian stood for a moment undecided. Should they leave this spot
without him? She believed he would make a faithful attempt to rejoin
them. What if they were gone when he came? Suddenly she laughed.
"Rover!" she exclaimed. "He can follow our trail. If Phi comes, he
will have only to follow us. He can travel faster than we shall. He
may catch up with us."
So with many a backward glance at the gleaming North Star, the two
girls set their course south by east, a course which in time should
bring them in the vicinity of the Diomede Islands.
In their minds, however, were many questions. Would further
tide-cracks impede their progress? Would the snow-fog continue? If it
did, would they ever be able to locate the two tiny islands which were,
after all, mere rocky pillars jutting from a sea of ice?
* * * * * *
Phi did not sit long on the ice-pile under the snow-fog. He was born
for action. Something must be done. Quickly he was on the run.
As he rushed back over the way in which he had come, something caught
his eye.
An immense ice-pan had been up-ended by the press of the drift. It had
toppled half over and lodged across the edge of a smaller cake. Now,
like an ancient drawbridge, it hung suspended over the black moat of
the salt water channel.
The boy's quick eye had detected a very slight movement downward. As
he remembered it now, the cake had made a far more obtuse angle with
the surface of the pool a half-hour before than it did now.
Was there hope in this? Hastily he arranged three bits of ice in one
pile, then two in another. By dropping on his stomach and squinting
across these, he could just see the tip of the up-ended cake. If it
were in motion the tip would soon disappear. Eagerly he strained his
eyes for a few seconds. Then, in disgust, he closed his eyes. The
cake did not seem to move.
For some time he lay there in deep thought. He was searching in his
mind for a way out.
After a while he opened his eyes. More from curiosity than hope, he
squinted once more along the line. Then, with a wild shout, he sprang
into the air. The natural drawbridge was falling. Its point had
dropped out of line.
The shout died on his lips. His eyes had warned him that the channel
of water was widening. If it widened too rapidly, if the drawbridge
fell too slowly, or ceased to fall at all, hope would die.
Moment by moment he measured the two distances with his eye. Rover,
sitting by his side, now and again peered up into his eyes as if to
say: "What's it all about?"
Now the drawbridge took a sudden drop of a foot. Hope rose. Then,
again, it appeared wedged solidly in place. It did not move. The
channel widened a foot, two feet, three. Hope seemed vain.
But now came a sudden tide tremor across the floe. With a crunching
sound the massive cake toppled and fell.
The boy was on his feet in an instant. The chasm was bridged. But the
cake had broken in two. Could he make it?
Calling to his dog, he leaped upon the slippery surface. An
ever-widening river of water flowed where the cake had split. With one
wild bound, he cleared it. The dog followed. In another moment they
were safe on the other side.
"That's well over with," the boy sighed, patting the old dog on the
head. "Now the question is, how can we find our friends?"
That, indeed, was a problem. They had covered considerable ground.
The ice had been shifting. To pick up their back trail seemed
impossible. An hour's search convinced him that it could not be done.
He sat down in a brown study. He could not go away and leave these
girls to drift north and perish, yet further search seemed futile.
Just as he was about to despair, Rover began to bark in the distance.
Following the sound, he came to where the dog was apparently barking at
nothing. But as the boy approached, the dog shot away over the ice.
"A trail!" he muttered, following on.
The ice was hard and smooth. A soft skin "muckluck" would leave no
mark. Even the hard toes of a white bear would not scratch it.
When the boy had followed for a half-hour, he thought of these things,
and paused to consider. What if he were following the meandering trail
of a lumbering white bear? And if it happened to be a trail of a human
being, was it his own trail, that of the girls, or of the bearded miner
and his guide?
His compass would tell something. Studying his compass then, he walked
forward slowly.
Fifteen minutes of this told him that this was no white bear's trail.
It went too straight ahead for that. Neither could it be his own
trail, for he would have come to a sudden turn before this. One thing
more was certain: The person or persons who made this trail were headed
due south by east. They would, if they did not change their course, in
time reach the vicinity of the Diomede Islands. Were they his friends,
or the unfaithful guide and his party? This he could not tell.
After a few moments' reflection he decided that there remained but one
thing for him to do: to follow this trail.
"All right, old dog," he said, "let's see where this ends, and who's at
the end. Might be an Eskimo hunter who has wandered far on the
ice-floe, for all I know; but he'll end up sometime."
Moment by moment the scent of the trail they followed grew fresher. He
could tell this by the old dog's growing eagerness. At every ice-pile
they rounded, he expected to catch sight of human figures. Would it be
two men or two girls? He could not tell. Not a chance footprint in
soft snow had caught his eye.
When he had fairly given up hope of overtaking them, as he speeded
around a gigantic ice-pile he came at once in sight of those he
followed. So overjoyed was he at sight of human beings that, before
determining their identity, he shouted cheerily:
"Hey, there!"
The figure nearest him wheeled in his track. Then, with the fierce
growl of a beast, he sprang at the boy's throat.
So taken by surprise was Phi that he made no defense. He caught a
vision of a pair of fiery eyes set in a mass of shaggy hair; the next
instant he felt himself crashed to the hard surface of the ice.
The advantage was all with the man. Larger, stronger, older, with the
handicap of the aggressor, he bade fare to finish his work quickly.
The native guide had passed beyond the next ice-pile. Rover had
followed.
But the boy's college days had not been for naught; he knew a trick or
two. As if stunned by the fall, he relaxed and lay motionless. Seeing
this, the man took time to plant his knees on the boy's chest before
moving his horny hands toward his throat.
The next instant, as if thrown by a springboard, the man flew into the
air. Phi sprang to his feet, his one thought of escape. Turning, he
dashed around an ice-pile, then another and another. But fate was not
with him. Just at the moment when he felt that he could elude his
pursuer, his foot struck a crevice in the ice, and he went sprawling.
Again the wild terror was upon him.
But this time there came tearing over the ice a new wild terror, and
this one his friend. Old Rover, silent and determined, sprang clean at
the man's throat. The assailant went down, striking out with hands and
feet, and roaring for mercy.
Phi dragged the dog off. "Get!" he said. The man looked surly, but
one look at the determined boy and the eager jaws of the dog set him
slouching away.
"You're some dog!" the boy laughed at the old leader. "Well, now, I'll
say you are!"