The Glacier Gate
An Adventure Story
By
FRANK LILLIE POLLOCK
NEW YORK
CHELSEA HOUSE
PUBLISHERS
The Glacier Gate
Copyright, 1926, by CHELSEA HOUSE
Printed in the U. S. A.
All rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign
languages, including the Scandinavian.
CONTENTS
I. Determined Destiny
II. False Colors
III. Rockett
IV. Wrecked
V. The Digger
VI. Yuma Oil
VII. Her Father
VIII. Green Stones
IX. Unexplained Disappearances
X. A Generous Offer
XI. The Unwilling Tourist
XII. The Long Shot
XIII. Southward Bound
XIV. The Castaway
XV. An Unexpected Vision
XVI. Imprisoned in Snow
XVII. The Glacier’s Heart
XVIII. Camp of the Dead
XIX. Resurrection
XX. In His Own Net
XXI. The Knife
XXII. Tronador Light
THE GLACIER GATE
CHAPTER I
DETERMINED DESTINY
Destiny knocked at his door, but Doctor Rupert Lang was not at home.
At that very moment he was talking of his destiny to Miss Eva Morrison
in the glassed gallery of the Bayview Hotel, four miles out of Mobile,
where they had motored for tea.
It was not the first time they had drunk tea in this spot, and they
had usually come to talk of Lang’s dubious future, of what he might do
with what a series of catastrophes had left him. Nervous and ill, his
plans wavered. He had lately come to think of starting life afresh in
a country medical practice far back up State, in the “piney woods.”
“I’m not much good at general practice,” he said. “Surgery is all I
ever shone at. But up there they need doctors badly, men who can
handle a big, rough practice, rough-and-ready surgery of all kinds——”
“You mean to bury yourself alive!” Eva interrupted indignantly.
He looked at her with sudden, nervous irritation. She had said the
same thing before. Bury himself alive? As if he didn’t know it! But
what else was left to him?
Nothing else seemed to be left. He would not have believed that a
career could have been snuffed out so quickly. It was only a few weeks
ago that his future had been all golden; a great, growing Boston
reputation, even extending toward New York. He was one of the rising
stars of surgery, a coming man, a magician of the knife, one of these
modern gods who take men apart and reconstruct them with improvements.
Still well under thirty, he enjoyed the respect, the admiration, the
jealousy of men twice his age. His reputation increased; the big
checks came in.
And then—a little carelessness or ill luck, an unregarded scratch on a
finger that left it poisoned after an operation, and all at once he
was confronted with the danger of losing his right hand. Good work had
averted that; he recovered, but the poisoning left a slight stiffness
of the fingers and thumb, a nervous cramp that would have meant
nothing to a carpenter, but was ruin to the delicate craft of a
surgeon.
The bandages were not yet off his hand when the Automotive Fuel
Company collapsed, following the disappearance of Arthur Rockett, its
promotor, with all the liquid assets. Lang had spent the big checks
freely as they came, and his sole investment, amounting to twelve
thousand dollars, was in Automotive Fuel. The company had been touted
as a good thing by people who should have known better, and wiser men
than Lang were bitten.
For Lang the immediate result was a bad nervous breakdown. Winter was
coming on. He was ordered to seek a mild climate, a moist, relaxing
atmosphere, freedom from work and worry. Eva Morrison was acquainted
with all this story, except the fact of his financial collapse, and
she had no idea that all he possessed in the world was some fifteen
hundred dollars in the Mobile bank.
“You mustn’t give up. You mustn’t bury yourself,” she persisted.
“Why not? It’s as good a life as any, maybe. I was born here in
Alabama, you know—took my first diploma in Montgomery. I know the
piney-woods country, the big swamps, the bayous and the great rivers,
and the queer, good, primitive people. I’ll drive a flivver over the
sand roads, and hunt wild turkeys and never get my fees.”
She saw through his affected lightness, and looked at him gravely, her
chin on her hands.
“Your hand will get better. Your surgery will come back.”
“Never, or perhaps in years, and what good then? A surgeon has to keep
in constant practice, like a pianist.”
Failing to find him at his hotel, persistent Destiny tried again, and
a page summoned Lang to the telephone. He was away only a minute, and
came back with an odd smile.
“A call. A patient—the owner of a yacht out in the harbor somewhere.”
Eva made a delighted gesture, beaming suddenly.
“I declined, of course,” he added. “I referred them to another
physician. I’m not practicing in Mobile.”
“But you might—you could—you’re qualified!” Eva exclaimed, bitterly
disappointed. “You must be mad! A yachtsman—likely a millionaire!
They’ve heard of your reputation even here.”
“But I tell you I don’t want to practice in Mobile, or in any of these
towns!” Lang exclaimed, again in sudden irritation. “I dare say they
have heard of me. The doctors here know my name, and I don’t want to
face their sympathy for my comedown. I had enough of that in
Boston—the men who had always hated me, been jealous of me, coming
with their crocodile sympathy, hoping that I’d soon be fit again, and
praying that they’d seen the last of me. I’d sooner bury myself, as
you say.”
He checked himself, quivering, angry and ashamed at his lack of
control. Sick nerves know no reason. He looked at Eva Morrison again,
wondering once more how she had come so deeply into his confidence,
this girl of twenty, pretty as a picture, indeed, looking at him now
with grieved brown eyes. But he had known her less than a month, and
what could she understand, after all?
She had been a passenger on the steamer that he boarded at Boston for
Mobile. He had not remembered her at first; he did not want to know
anybody; but in the inevitable companionship of shipboard she reminded
him of past acquaintance. She had been a patient of his; he had
treated her for some slight injury received in playing basket ball at
the girls’ college she attended, and he had met her afterward at
somebody’s house.
She had made no impression upon him, but somehow they drifted together
in that six-day voyage, more and more together as the steamer rounded
Florida and the air grew warmer and they came into the Gulf seas. She
had heard of his breakdown, as he gathered; but it was not spoken of
between them until afterward, in Mobile.
He had a dim impression that she was to wait in Mobile for relatives
from the North who were to join her there; and Lang stopped there
because he did not know where else to go. He had no plans, but it was
imperative to make some at once. He thought at times of becoming a
ship’s surgeon, then of retreating into the upriver woods and he came
by degrees to talk over these plans with Eva, and so by degrees they
arrived at this extraordinary pitch of intimacy.
A week passed, and her relatives did not arrive. She had established
herself at the quiet Iberville Hotel, and Lang saw her almost daily,
and often twice a day. They motored, boated together, went to the
movies, dined out. Lang was by no means in love. Standing in the wreck
of all his life he was far from even thinking of love, but Eva was
restful and comforting and she soothed his tortured nerves and his
tormented spirit.
More than once he had been suddenly angry and rude to her, as just
now, and had had to apologize.
“Sorry!” he said repentantly.
She smiled with complete comprehension.
“I only wish I could influence you a little,” she said. “See, we must
go. It’s past five, and look at the bay.”
The mellow, springlike Alabama autumn of the early afternoon had
turned suddenly foul. Fine rain drove against the windows, and the
broad surface of the bay beyond was blurred with squalls of wind and
mist. They lingered, waiting for it to clear, and the small black page
who had called Lang to the telephone came again behind his chair.
“Gentleman to see you, suh,” he whispered confidentially. “Same
gentleman what telephoned. Mighty important, he says, suh!”
He had evidently been scientifically tipped, for, before Lang could
deny himself he perceived the persistent caller at the heels of the
page. He turned with some annoyance.
“I’m sure I hope you’ll excuse me, doctor, breaking in on you after
what you said on the phone,” said the caller hastily. “But if I could
speak to you just half a minute—— My name’s Carroll. I’m from the
yacht, you know.”
He was a good-looking young fellow, considerably less than Lang’s age,
brown-faced, black-haired, dressed in immaculate blue serge and fresh
linen like a yachtsman; and he had a most plausible and ingratiating
manner. Afterward Lang came to find the brown eyes rather hard, the
lips uncertain. But their smile was winning, and it was difficult to
resist Carroll’s address when he chose to please.
“Say what you like,” said Lang. “But you know I’m not practicing here.
There are plenty of good physicians in Mobile.”
“Sure. Not in your class, though. We know you’re not located here—just
passing through—saw it in the paper, and we simply couldn’t lose the
chance of getting you. It looked providential. As for fee, you
know—why we don’t mind a hundred dollars, or anything you like to
name.”
“There’s no question of that,” said Lang stiffly. “What’s the matter
with your patient? I couldn’t possibly operate.”
“Oh, I hope it won’t come to an operation. We don’t know what’s the
matter with him. He’s kind of paralyzed—some sort of stroke, I reckon.
He hasn’t moved or spoken for days, and don’t know anything. He’s on
his yacht, right out in the harbor.”
Lang glanced furtively at Eva. Her eyes beamed, and she made a little
surreptitious, imperative gesture: “Go—go!”
“Very well,” he decided. “How do I get aboard your yacht? I must take
this lady home first, of course.”
“I can go alone,” Eva said, eagerly; but Carroll broke in with still
greater alacrity.
“My taxi is waiting down below, and I’ll drive you and the lady
wherever you want to go. I’ve got a motor launch near the foot of
Government Street, and we’ll be aboard the yacht in no time.”
Plainly he was determined not to lose sight of his prize. Accepting
his offer, they drove rapidly into town and put Eva down at her hotel,
where Lang promised to come next day and report. Thence they went to
Lang’s own hotel, where he secured his black medical bag and a
raincoat, and then to the wharf.
Carroll’s boat was a small but speedy-looking craft, a trifle battered
for a yacht’s tender, but they got aboard, Carroll started the engine,
and they nosed out past a couple of moored freighters into the muddy
bay. The weather had become worse, and driving sheets of mist and fine
rain swept the water.
“I hope your yacht isn’t far,” said Lang uneasily.
“We’ll be there before you have time to get wet,” Carroll genially
assured him.
Lang looked all about the harbor to espy the trim, white-painted craft
he expected to board. The launch’s engines hummed and she gathered
speed, tearing down the harbor with a sheering wave thrown from her
bow. It was very wet. Lang could feel the rain dripping from his hat
brim, and he humped his shoulders and stared through the gathering
twilight and the mist.
They were well clear of the harbor proper. A black anchored steamer
loomed up, slipped past; a couple of bare-masted schooners lay still
without a sign of life aboard. Nothing was in sight ahead but another
big three-master lying close to the western shore. Dimly he made out
the lighted windows of the Bayview Hotel, where he had often sat with
Eva.
He leaned over and spoke to his pilot with some irritation. Carroll
muttered something cheerful about “There in a jiffy,” and let her out
another notch.
Lang huddled in his seat, wet, uncomfortable, growing more and more
uncomfortable and indignant. He was sorry he had come. The bay
widened; the shores were growing invisible, and the whole waterscape
was darkening rapidly.
“Look here, where are you taking me?” he broke out at last. “You said
it would be only a few minutes. I’d never have come——”
“For God’s sake, shut up!” Carroll snapped back at him.
Lang subsided indignantly, unwilling to risk his dignity in
altercation. Carroll suddenly sounded a siren that quavered and wailed
piercingly.
Nothing answered it. Again and again the horn screamed over the turbid
heave of the darkening water, and then the boat swerved in a wide
curve westward.
It kept this course for more than a mile, and then began to sweep an
equal curve the other way. At regular intervals Carroll blew the horn,
but half an hour passed, and they had made several more great curves
before a vast, hoarse roar sounded through the gloom, perhaps a mile
away.
With a relieved exclamation Carroll headed the boat toward it. Nothing
yet was visible, but the deep steam blast sounded again and again,
always louder; and finally a spark began to show through the misty
gloom ahead. It was not a ship’s side light, but it developed into a
lantern swinging close to the water, and suddenly there was a loom of
something huge and black moving slowly through the darkness, and he
saw a spot of great rusty steel hull in the glimmer of the lantern.
Some one shouted from high above. Carroll answered, slowing down,
approaching a side ladder now visible by the lantern. The big ship was
barely moving, and Carroll hooked on with a practiced hand. He
indicated the ladder to his passenger, and Lang, though much tempted
to refuse, managed to catch it as the trailing launch heaved and fell
alongside.
Dripping wet, and in a state of the most extreme irritation and
disgust, he scrambled up the ladder, felt himself gripped by the arm
and helped over the rail, where he almost tumbled upon the deck.
A group of men in wet, shining waterproof coats surrounded him.
Carroll had scrambled up at his heels. A light was turned on
somewhere.
“Here we are!” Carroll cried triumphantly. “Got him. Gentlemen—Doctor
Robert Long of Chicago!”