The _Warrior_ was loaded, not only with supplies for the journey but
also with Pete’s winter outfit, and the entire party put to sea. As
Bradford had predicted, Dorothy was immediately interested in Nick
Pavlof. He had a dark, unprepossessing face and a surly, unpleasant,
guttural voice; she felt immediately glad that she had two strong men to
control him. One glance at the big chief guide, his broad shoulders and
homely weather-beaten face, told her he was not the kind to take
over-much nonsense from quarter-breed Russians. Fortune Joe was likewise
a dusky fellow, but he had a rapt, dreamy look in his dark eyes that
identified him as a man living apart from the casual, material world of
men.
In this struggling launch, creeping along the flanks of the cruel reefs,
she felt nearer the eternal mystery of the sea than ever before. Perhaps
it was mostly a matter of physical proximity; she had been somewhat
detached from it on the long deck of the _Catherine D_, but here she
could almost reach down and touch the water, and any one of the
tireless, marching army of easy-rolling waves could seemingly reach up
and overwhelm her. This eternity of gray waters, washing those strange,
treeless, rock-bound shores, invoked an unfamiliar, plaintive mood in
her. She was not only yearning, heart-hungry, but deeply sobered,
humbled in spirit, wondering what was human life in comparison with the
eternal constancies of sea and crag.
She hadn’t gone about life in quite the right way, somehow. She had
missed a great deal that might have been hers; she had passed over
realities to live in empty dreams; she had renounced things worth while
for baubles. The truth went home to her as she watched the waves
breaking endlessly, forever and forever beyond the scope of her thought,
against the gray, towering crags of the shore. But these vain, dim,
half-understood regrets, this gnawing remorse, could never bring back
the wasted days. Her wise part was to bury her dead, to lock the past in
a vault of enduring stone; then to take up the old, care-free life where
she had left it off. She would accept Ivan’s fiery love and give her own
in return. Surely such a destiny would afford all the happiness she had
a right to expect.
This was an outcast land, and for the time being she felt in some way an
outcast too. She could not shut out its grim spirit nor repress the
yearning, sober mood that it wakened. The land was beautiful, she knew,
but in a weird, savage way. The low hills and tundra that at intervals
sloped easily down to the sea were a wonderful beryl green,—a vista in
two tones; one that of the rich moss of the tundra, the other the darker
tone of the alder thickets. There was not a tree to be seen, far as her
eyes could see. At intervals this rolling shore line gave way to grim
and lofty precipices, the high ranges dropping sheerly off into the sea,
and here the waves broke in great, upreaching, shimmering clouds of
spray. Beyond these many-hued cliffs was the supreme Aleutian Range, a
wonderful divide of sharp, jagged snow-swept peaks. There was no sign
that man had gained a foothold here, never a village or roof, a
trapper’s hut or a camp fire. Thus had it lain unchanged since, in
bygone ages, it had raised up from the sea.
She was aware as she stood at the deck railing that a few yards forward
Pete the guide watched the shore line too. He also seemed lost in the
brooding mood that it invoked. She found herself glancing, from time to
time, at his homely, thoughtful face, the broad shoulders hunched over
the railing; and by woman’s secret ways she knew that he was deeply and
poignantly aware of her presence, also. It was quite natural that he
should be interested in her—likely, living in this desolate, forsaken
land, she was a new type to him—but it was an unguessed mystery why his
rugged, weather-beaten face, his lean, powerful frame should so intrigue
her. Perhaps it was simply that he was a new type to her, too—a man of
the open places probably unlettered and uncouth, but still the basic,
primitive type from which her race had sprung. Suddenly he spoke to her
and pointed toward the beach.
“Look just to the left of that big, white triangular rock,” he told her.
“Do you see something moving——”
Instantly she caught a spot of red. “Yes—what is it?”
“A fox. We’ll see lots of ’em. If you keep your eyes open, we may see
caribou too—they roam here in enormous herds.”
She moved nearer to him, and he pointed out things of interest. Once he
showed her a flock of beach geese, lifting tall heads from the shore;
often hair-seal rolled up with the combers, and once he showed her what
he thought to be that most rare of marine animals, a sea otter, playing
in a floating bed of kelp. Of sea life there was an abundance,—porpoise
playing beside the ship, a whale blowing far off, once the long, dark
fin of a basking-shark, chasing salmon in the mouth of a long,
deeply-cut bay. “Maybe I’ll get to show you a Kodiak bear, too,” Pete
told her. “Then you’ll get the thrill of your life.”
He showed her the high, glittering Pavlof volcano, and her towering
sister peak, one of the most symmetrical mountains in the world. He
seemed oddly eager, vaguely excited as he talked; yet never once did he
evince the slightest sign of undue familiarity, and his attitude of deep
respect never faltered for an instant.
She felt increasingly glad that Bradford had selected him for the head
guide. She saw with pleasure that he was personally immaculate,—his
blond beard trimmed until it was almost distinguished-looking, his rough
garb well kept and clean. She had a feeling that, should one of the
rolling waves rise up and overwhelm the boat, his would be a strong arm
to rescue her. At present, however, the seas were comparatively placid,
easily rolling, the sky blue overhead, the warm late September sun
pouring genially down on the deck.
“I believe we’re going to have the best of weather,” she told him.
Pete hesitated. “I don’t quite like the way the clouds lie on the
hills,” he told her soberly. “We’re bound to have good weather for a day
or two, I should say—likely time in plenty to get where we’re going. Of
course no one can tell in these uproarious waters. After a few days
there’s going to be a change in weather, and what that means, no one
knows.”
“Of course this is your best season.”
“Yes—September is one of our best months. But it’s like the calm before
the storm. But we are getting too well along toward October, and October
is too near our big, white winter to give us Western Alaskans any great
pleasure.”
It was Pete who, later, brought fruit to her stateroom, opened a jammed
window, and with the finest courtesy put himself at her service. And
when the night came down, in silence and mystery, and the white,
Northern stars emerged over the easy-rolling sea, it gave her an odd,
deep sense of security that this strong man of the North was waiting,
somewhere just outside her stateroom, her guide and protector in case of
disaster.
The _Warrior_ rounded the Peninsula, then turned northeast along the
south shore of Bering Sea. For the first three days the good weather
prevailed without a break, but the morning of the fourth brought a
sharper wind, a more restless movement of the whitecaps on the dark
waves. There was also, for no apparent reason, a decided fall in
temperature; and Dorothy felt glad of her heavy, otter coat that she
wore on deck. The _Warrior_ pushed steadily on, however, neither captain
nor crew in the least worried by the change of weather.
The fifth morning found the sky overcast and lowering, and a decidedly
keen edge to the wind. The water had darkened in hue, the tall cliffs
frowned from the shore. But the _Warrior_ progressed steadily, and at
the dawn of the sixth day dropped her anchor out from the reefs where
the _Jupiter_ and the _Vigten_ had gone down.
The landing party was soon ready to disembark. Dorothy, deeply moved by
the belief that this was the site of her husband’s death, her brunette
beauty accentuated by the wind on her cheeks, and the sea’s blue
deepening her violet eyes; Ivan, thrilled by the savage beauty of the
land, dressed warmly in smart riding trousers, rubber-and-leather boots,
and a sheep-lined coat, and the three guides outwardly stolid and
businesslike, climbed into one of the ship’s boats into which Pete had
already packed a large part of his winter supplies and such duffle as
Dorothy and Ivan had brought; and the word was given to lower away. “One
thing more,” Dorothy directed, as the crew stood at the davits. “Ivan, I
want you to bring your violin.”
“Of course.” One of the crew immediately brought the precious instrument
to his side, not the brilliant Stradivarius, but a beautiful Hornstiener
of wonderful, mellow tone. He understood the girl’s wish. She wanted to
hear him play amid these scenes of savage grandeur to which they had
come, expressing through the magic of his music the weird, uncanny
spirit of the rock-bound, eerie land.
The boat was lowered, and the three Alaskans took the oars. They headed
straight toward the gate between the reefs where the dory of the _Dolly
Bettis_ had rowed to rescue the battered, bleeding Remittance Man almost
two years before.
The boat soon touched on shore, and while the natives were set to the
work of unloading the dory and packing the equipment out of the reach of
the tide, Pete led Ivan and Dorothy to the top of a near-by, grassy
hill, from which they could overlook a long stretch of beach.
Nearer view did not in the least alleviate the deep feeling that this
land invoked in Dorothy. As she pushed through the deep moss, up the
wind-swept hill, the haunting spirit of the waste places went home to
her as never before. How bitter, how drear they were,—the tall cliffs
on which the waves broke forever, the long sweep of mossy tundra steeped
in the silence of the ages, the bleak hills, and beyond, the glittering,
rugged peaks of the Aleutian Range! Even the rich green was not warm and
cheering like the summer hue of Georgian meadows. It recalled rather the
strange, emerald tint of certain pools of poisoned water that travelers
sometimes encounter on the desert,—seductive, malevolent, deadly. Yet
she found no hate in her heart for this desolate wilderness other than
its association with her husband’s death. Really it moved some hidden
sense of beauty in her. For all its bleakness, it was beautiful; for all
its desolation it fascinated and intrigued her.
How sharp was the wind! It buffeted her on the hilltop. It shrilled over
her head; and she saw, with growing alarm, that the waves were ever
increasing in height and power.
She stole a glance into Ivan’s face; and instantly forgot her own mood
to wonder at his. Evidently the tone and spirit of these empty shores
had touched him deeply too, and had stirred his artist’s soul. She had a
dim feeling that some alien, hidden side of this man, which she had
always vaguely recognized and feared, was rising into dominance. Some
part of him that was ever a stranger to her was making an amazing
response. His eyes looked cloudy and dark; his handsome, impassive face
was almost stark white. Yet he had not forgotten her in yielding to this
poet’s mood. She was still the center of his universe; and he saw this
wilderness only as a background to her. If anything it enhanced her in
his sight; and because the inmost, primitive part of him was being
wakened he was all the more likely to give himself wholly to his desire
for her.
She was vaguely troubled; why she did not know, and she could not guess
why she was somewhat reassured when she glanced into the face of the
chief guide. Here was a sure foothold, like a great rock deeply buried
in the sustaining earth. Some way he suggested a strong tower that the
winds buffet in vain, that the snows lie heavy upon but cannot break
down. He was of a Northern race—known and tried of old to such
storm-swept lands as this—and naturally he could rise above their
terror.
Pete paused on the hill, then began a detailed study of the beach below
through the binoculars. And almost at once he saw the weather-beaten
white cross that marked the grave.
He did not confide to Dorothy his real reaction to that discovery. His
darkened, sobered blue eyes did not reveal that which would have amazed
her considerably: a despair that shook this strong man to the
foundations of his being. It had been his hope from the first that the
cross had fallen and had been lost in the deep moss, and he would
therefore have his wife’s company for days and weeks while a detailed
search was being made. But already the adventure was all but over. To
walk beside her to the grave, to watch over her a few little hours while
the casket was being unearthed, loaded on the dory, and put aboard the
_Warrior_; and then they would go their separate ways. He could watch
the _Warrior_ that carried her and that grim counterfeit of himself
until it vanished beyond the curve of the earth; and then only the waste
places, the solitude of the crags hushed by the threat of winter would
be left.
He knew there was no use to try to hide his find. Ivan would take the
glass in a moment; and his keen eyes could not miss the sight of the
white cross on the shore. It was a wonder that his employers had not
distinguished it with the naked eye. The great dream of his life was
already all but passed; and what was his fate henceforth he neither knew
nor cared. Only the North would be left,—the wind streaming by in its
never-ending journey, the tundra swept by winter’s infinity of snow.
Dorothy, watching him, saw a queer look of strain steal into his homely
countenance; and the glass trembled in his hand. But he spoke slowly,
perfectly casually, when he turned.
“I’ve found it already,” he said.
“The cross?” Ivan asked quickly.
“Yes. Not three hundred yards from the camp. We would have seen it from
there if that big, gray boulder hadn’t been in the way.”
He was somewhat surprised that Dorothy should take the news so quietly.
The fact that the immediate finding of the grave meant that they could
at once sail on down to Seward and leave this howling wilderness did not
seem to sink home; instead of being exultant she was only thoughtful and
subdued. But of course Ivan could not expect a really happy mood,
considering the tragic nature of this undertaking.
On the other hand Ivan himself seemed not only overjoyed, but somewhat
relieved. Evidently this waste land held little pleasure for him and he
was eager to turn away.
The three of them walked quietly down to the grave. The cross was a
simple one of white board; yet the crew of the _Norwood_ had done well
by the man who slept below. They had printed simply:
PETER NEWHALL
_November 24, 1920_
R. I. P.
The dignity of the simple inscription brought a soft luster to Dorothy’s
eyes, but Pete stared down like a man in a dream. What a travesty it
was! What a joke on Big Chris Larson lying inarticulate in the casket
beneath.
Pete called the two camp helpers, and they came with their shovels. “You
won’t want to watch this, Mrs. Newhall,” he said courteously. “Would you
like to have me row you back to the boat?”
“I’ll stay it out, Pete, thank you. I’m afraid it’s going to rain,
though——”
Pete’s blue eyes studied the sky. In the emotional stress of the last
few moments he had forgotten his old enemy, the Northern winter. The
clouds had darkened and lowered: the cold, driving rain of the North
Peninsula was certainly not far off. “I’m afraid so too,” he commented.
“If we work fast, maybe we can get back to the ship before it breaks.”
He took one of the three tools and turned his own big muscles to the
task. It soon became increasingly evident, however, that they could not
beat the storm; and in all likelihood would be obliged to spend the
night ashore, after all. A sudden, sharp increase in the wind had blown
up waves of alarming size, and it was doubtful whether they should dare
try to reach the ship in the open dory. At least the casket could not be
transported aboard till calm weather; this much was certain. For once in
his life Pete blessed the gods of the storm.
He turned with a radiant smile that seemed to light his homely face.
“Don’t worry, Mrs. Newhall,” he assured the girl. “We’ll take care of
you and make you comfortable if it blows the mountains over.”
She was strangely, deeply grateful, and her warm color deepened as she
answered his smile. “I’m not afraid, Pete. I know you’ll look after us.”
And now the squall at sea was beginning to resemble a real hurricane.
The first few drops of cold rain, like fine shot, began to lash down at
them before a race-horse wind; and Pete immediately took measures for
his employer’s comfort. He took his two men from the work, and aiding
them with his own broad shoulders, he tipped the dory halfway over on
the beach. Then he spread Dorothy’s heavy, canvas-lined sleeping robe
beneath it. “Get under there,” he invited cordially.
Dorothy and Ivan both were glad to obey, for all at once the clouds
dissolved in drenching gusts of rain. The higher hills were at once
obscured in mist; and the storm, dropping between, all but obscured the
_Warrior_ riding at anchor. And now, as the storm increased in violence,
it became increasingly doubtful whether or not the craft could stand out
in her present, exposed position.
They soon were answered as to this. As all of them watched, appalled,
the dim ghost that was the ship began to fade into a shadow. At first
Dorothy dared to believe that the mist had simply thickened between, but
by peering steadily she soon knew the amazing truth. The _Warrior_ was
floating away into the haze—whether adrift or driven by her engines she
did not know—leaving herself and her companions to the grim solitudes
of the wild and the mercy of the storm.