Stirling climbed over the edge of the crow's-nest and reached for a
line. He dropped to the deck like a plummet, strode aft and mounted the
poop, where Marr stood with the pin in his hand.
The hastily dressed crew had rushed aft and were gathered in the waist
as Stirling thrust his jaw forward and locked glances with the little
skipper. An explosion was brooding; the foremast hand, who had whaled
for ten years, kept repeating, "A blow! A blow!"
"What d'ye mean?" snapped Marr. "What d'ye mean by coming up here
without orders?"
Stirling's eyes flashed dangerously, the brown in them changing to hazel
and red. His fists clenched into great balls of hate; he was seeing
fire.
"What do I mean?" he asked. "Why, what do _you_ mean? What's the answer
to letting that school of whales escape? I never saw more in these
waters."
Marr toyed with the belaying pin, lifted it, and swung his arm. "I don't
intend to argue the case with you!" he declared. "I want my orders
obeyed! I am in command of this ship. I order you to make for the ice. I
command you to take me to Indian Point on the Siberian coast."
Stirling reached and clutched the belaying pin, wrenching it from Marr's
hand with a half effort. Replacing it in the pinrail, he turned and
stared at the crew. The little skipper had reached backward and clapped
his hand on a hip pocket. Thinking better of this action, he hesitated.
"Men," said Stirling, "you're under the skipper's orders, as you know. I
want you to take notice that he has forbidden you to lower for whales.
You, Eagan, step up here!"
The seaman mounted the poop steps. "Eagan," said Stirling, laying his
hand on the sailor's shoulder, "you are my witness that I've done all I
could to earn a fair lay for the foremast hands and mates. From now on,
we are embarked upon an unknown enterprise of doubtful character. I wash
my hands of the voyage. I'll take orders until they conflict with the
laws of these waters. After that I'll request Mr. Marr to place me
ashore."
Eagan rubbed his unshaven chin, blinked, and swung toward Marr. "I'm
with the skipper," Eagan said. "I think he's right. I would rather load
up with trade stuff--and other things--than mess with those whales. I
think the crew are with me in this."
Stirling stared about him blankly. He felt as if the planks of the ship
were slipping from under his feet. Eagan, from all reports, was a
government spy. Now he was siding with the captain and the wilder
members of the crew who had most certainly laid him low at the beginning
of the voyage.
"Repeat that!" sneered Marr, rubbing his hands. "Just turn and tell that
to this crew. Tell them what you said. Tell them you're with me as well
as they are. This man Stirling is trying to cheat us out of fair game.
He'll be running a Sunday school, next. I know his breed--afraid of the
law! What law is north of 53?"
"Heaven's law!" Stirling said, sincerely. "You won't raid the rookeries
if I can prevent it. Don't you know that there's only one revenue cutter
in these waters? Are you going to take advantage of that fact?"
Whitehouse came across the quarter-deck, clutched Marr by the arm, and
drew the captain halfway toward the wheel and the companion skylight.
They whispered there as Stirling shouldered Eagan to one side, saying
cuttingly: "You're with them, too? I thought you were a man!"
The sailor flushed and glanced down at the deck, then turned toward the
crew. "Fight it out yourself," he said as he climbed to the lower deck.
Stirling waited for Marr to come forward, glancing longingly over the
slick-covered seas. In mockery, it seemed, the whales were sporting
about the silent ship. One came so close to the bow that a dropped block
on the forecastle deck startled it. It was gone with a defiant toss of
black flukes, and the school started toward the ice.
Whitehouse finished whispering to the captain, glided to Stirling, and
grasped his arm. "The old man says to get aloft and work into the ice.
Says we'll whale later. The school's gone, anyway."
The peaceful ending to what Stirling had expected would lead to a
general drawing of lines aboard the ship was more than he could stand.
He turned and fastened upon Marr a glance of deep determination, his
fingers coiling into knots.
"Remember," the Ice Pilot said, distinctly, "I'll always be on deck. I
want no double crossing."
With this shot delivered through his white teeth, Stirling moved
leisurely over the deck and as he descended to the waist, one of the
crew hissed. He wheeled, reached out, grasped the man by the waist and
neck, and threw him over his shoulder like a sack of meal.
"Any more?" he asked, grimly.
No man of them offered himself though Stirling waited with his glance
taking in the rough circle. He dropped his fingers, moved slowly to the
rail and up the shrouds he climbed till he reached the crow's-nest.
Standing on the edge of this, he rimmed the ice pack from horizon to
horizon.
"One bell!" he called down. "All hands stand by braces. Three of you
come aloft and loosen sail."
The ship sprang with life. Whitehouse jerked the engine-room telegraph;
the propeller thrashed astern; the sails dropped from the yards and were
sheeted home. The taper jib boom swung toward the open lane to the north
and east and ice floes ground under the stem.
For two watches Stirling remained aloft, calling down his orders in a
strong voice. He knew the ice as few men were ever gifted to know it,
and took advantage of all his experience. He held the course through the
lane until, balked, he drove across a sea of slush and thin ice and
crashed the way open to still another pathway to the north.
The Pribilofs, already green with moss and spring verdure, were sighted
at sundown. A low shed marked the sealing station where the bachelor
seals had been skinned in days gone by, and a flag flew from a pole at
the side of the Commissioner's house. Its bars of white and red cheered
Stirling. It was the emblem of his country in the Northern seas.
No other ships showed within the ice field; Stirling had taken chances
lesser pilots feared. He drove north and east under steam and canvas,
saving the ship from being crushed a score of times. He announced
quietly upon the fourth day that East Cape lay ahead, and pointed over
the bow. Marr, on the quarter-deck, clapped Whitehouse across the
shoulders, and the mate grinned and danced over the planks.
The massive solemnity of the great headland, as it rose above the ice
field, held every eye aboard the whaler. It was the farthermost point
east and north of the Siberian continent. Near the foot of the Cape
nestled a native village.
"Indian Point?" asked Marr, glaring upward at Stirling.
The Ice Pilot nodded as he guided the ship through the last of the shore
ice and ordered the anchor dropped in a sheltered nook. The rattle of
the chain in the hawser hole awoke echoes within the cliff; Indian
canoes in the shape of hair-sealskin umiaks and kayaks darted out to
meet them, and other boats flecked the Straits of Bering, coming down
with the wind and current from East Cape.
The _Pole Star_ was the first ship of the season, and the natives
welcomed it with a great noise. Chiefs were hastily paddled out, and
mounted the quarter-deck to gather about Marr and Whitehouse. Stirling
attended to the throng which swarmed up the anchor chain and forepeak.
Native girls, old women, men and children brought trade stuff of varied
character--salmon, walrus tusks, small whalebone, carved idols, feather
coats, skin caps, and hoods.
A large umiak appeared from the ice of the strait, and in its bow stood
a chief, who called Stirling's name. The Ice Pilot reach over the rail
and grasped the hand of the leader of the Diomede Islanders. They had
brought the best of Mazeka boots, which are prized by whalers and the
hunters of the North. These boots were sealskin moccasins, capped to
full length with deerskin, watertight and warm.
"Plenty bone ashore," said the native chief, pointing at the igloos of
Indian Point. "Plenty whales this season. Me catchum two."
Stirling smiled at the broad face of the Eskimo, then shook his head.
"Plenty ships come soon," he said. "You sell to old Peterson. You
remember, he pay big trade stuff. Don't take whisky."
The chief blinked shrewdly, dug deep within his fur parka, and brought
forth a pipe, which he filled with a pinch of cut plug. Stirling offered
a match, and the chief puffed and stared about the ship.
"New!" he said with brevity. "Fine ship. You own?"
Stirling shook his head and pointed toward the quarter-deck, where Marr
was in conference with the Indian Point chiefs.
"He buy whalebone?" asked the Diomede Islander.
"I don't think so. You try old Peterson. Maybe he give you plenty."
"I want two whaleboats this year," said the shrewd native. "I want ten
guns and whale lines. Next year I catch plenty whales."
Stirling recalled the method employed by the natives in capturing
bowheads. They usually fastened from kayaks or umiaks and drove in as
many irons as they could. To each iron was fastened a skin line which
terminated in a seal poke inflated with air. These, if in sufficient
numbers, prevented the whale from sounding and allowed it to be finished
with long, ivory-pointed lances.
Drunken natives staggered from the poop and swarmed about the waist and
forepeak of the ship. Marr had distributed whisky for what trade stuff
he needed. He bought three heads of bone for twelve kegs of alcohol and
water mixed. This bone came out in umiaks and was stored with the other
baleen in the forehold.
Time passed at the Point. Marr seemed in no great hurry to enter the
Arctic, even going ashore and remaining overnight with the native
chiefs. Sounds of their mirth and drunken carousing floated out.
Stirling chafed at the delay. The skipper was evidently waiting for some
message from across the sea. Each ship which passed or dropped anchor at
East Cape was gammed; each time the captain returned without word of his
purpose. Five whalers went through to the summer whaling ground which
extended all of the way to the mouth of the Mackenzie River and beyond.
A night came when the sun barely dipped below the western waters.
Stirling had tried to sleep, but finally emerged to the deck with hot,
fevered eyes. The air was heavy and sultry, and mosquitoes buzzed. They
had been blown from off the Siberian tundra.
The pack long since had gone through the Straits and down the long reach
of the Bering Sea. A group of natives slept on the forepeak of the _Pole
Star_, while a single member of the crew walked slowly from port to
starboard and back again, holding the anchor watch.
Some slight noise upon the quarter-deck caused Stirling to turn aft till
he stood in the gloom of the galley cabin. He glanced keenly upward, to
where the drab canvas of the rail showed, with a shadow behind it. A
faint light shone from the open companion.
Then, and suddenly, he heard his name called. He started for the lee
poop steps, then paused as a warning was whispered to him. He stared
upward in rising perplexity. A white hand reached over the rail, its
fingers uncoiled, and a dark object fell to the deck. There followed the
sound of soft feet over the quarter-deck's planks and of the shutting of
the cabin companion.
Stirling stooped and picked up the object. Unrolling it slowly, he
blushed through his sea tan as he held out a tiny glove. It was such a
glove as only a dainty woman could wear.
"By the jumping bowheads!" he exclaimed. "A pretty girl's aboard and
she's noticed me. I wonder who she is?"