Stirling had finished his examination of the seaman's wound by the time
Cushner returned from aft with the medicine chest. This contained
bandages and crude cures which had the merit of being overly strong.
The Ice Pilot washed the wound with heavy fingers and pressed on a pad
of salve which was rank with iodoform and arnica. He glanced keenly at
Cushner, as Eagan sat up and stared about the forecastle with bewildered
eyes.
"What did the old man say?" asked Stirling.
"Not much! Said the crew of this ship looked able to dodge blocks."
Stirling stooped to Eagan. "Who struck you?" he inquired, feelingly.
The seaman pressed his left hand to the bandage, then eyed his fingers.
He gathered his senses, frowned deeply, staring about the empty bunks,
and up through the opening to the deck. Faces were pressed there, faces
curious and hard.
"I wasn't struck!"
The seaman's voice carried the lie in its tones. "I fell down over a
bucket," he continued. "Slipped, I guess. Must have hit the corner of
the molasses barrel. It's deuced sharp, it is."
Stirling removed a small portion of salve from a can, spread it upon a
piece of paper, and handed it to the seaman with steady fingers.
"You lie!" he said with clenched teeth. "You lie about falling down.
Remember that it may happen again."
Eagan squared his jaw and glanced for a second time toward the booby
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 poop 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 poop," 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 Jap. All looks as if Marr has a fixed purpose. Looks like
a crooked compass 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 ship 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 Pass. 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 assault 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 Japanese 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 glasses 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 pass 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 ship drove on.
It was midnight, with Whitehouse and Marr standing watch on the poop,
and Stirling and Cushner in the crow's-nest, when they reached the
overhanging shadow of the pass to the Bering. The ship steadied, swung,
then darted under the lee of a barren island; the strait with its score
of sharp turnings lay ahead.
They passed 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
glasses, 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 ship's sharp prow cut like a
knife going through satin.
Floes, in the form of old "grandfathers," were passed 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 Japan 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 ship!" called Marr from the poop. "It's your ship 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 compass
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 glasses 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!"