CHAPTER X
FINDING THE TRAIL
"I think we can go." Phi smiled as he spoke. His hour for a try-outhad expired. He was back.
"Can--can we cross the Straits?" Marian asked, breathless with emotion.
"I think so."
"How?"
"Got a new guide. I'll show you. Be ready in a half-hour. Bring yourpictures and a little food. Not much. Wear snowshoes. Ice isterribly piled up."
He disappeared in the direction of his own igloo.
Marian looked about the cozy deerskin home where were stored their fewbelongings, then gazed away at the masses of deep purple shadows thatstretched across the imprisoned ocean. For a moment courage failed her.
"Perhaps," she said to herself, "it would be better to try to winterhere."
But even as she thought this, she caught a vision of that time when sheand her companion had been crowded out of a native village to shift forthemselves. Then, too, she thought of the possible starving-time inthe spring, after the white bear had gone north and before walrus wouldcome, or trading schooners.
"No," she said out loud, "no, we'd better try it."
When the girls joined Phi on the edge of the ice-floe, they lookedabout for the guide but saw none. Only Rover barked them a welcome.
"Where's the guide?" asked Lucile.
"You'll see. C'm'on," said the boy, leading the way.
For a mile they traveled over the solid shore-ice. They then came to astretch of water, dark as midnight. At the edge of this was atwo-seated kiak.
Phi motioned Lucile to a seat. Deftly, he paddled her across to theother side. It was with a sinking feeling that she felt herselfsilently carried toward the north by the gigantic ice-floe.
Marian and the dog were quickly ferried over. Then, after drawing thekiak upon the ice, the boy turned directly north and began walkingrapidly. At times he broke into a run.
"Have to make good time," he explained as he snatched Marian's roll ofsketches from her hand. "Got to get the trail."
They did make good time. Alternately running and walking, they kept upa pace of some six or seven miles an hour.
"Why, I thought--thought we were going to go east," puffed Marian."We're just going down the beach."
Phi did not answer.
They had raced on for nearly an hour when they suddenly came upon akiak drawn up as theirs had been on the ice.
"Ah! I thought so," said the boy. "Now's the time for a guide. Here,Rover!"
He seized the dog by his collar and set him on the invisible trail ofthe men who had deserted that kiak. The dog walked slowly away,sniffing the ice as he went. His course was due east. The threefollowed him in silence. Presently his speed increased. He took on anair of confidence. With tail up, ears back, he sniffed the ice onlynow and then as he dashed over great, flat pans, then over littlemountains of broken ice, to emerge again upon flat surfaces.
Marian understood, and her admiration for Phi grew. He had found thetrail of the men who had crossed the Straits before them. He had putRover on that trail. Rover could not fail to follow. The trail wasfresh, only seven hours old. Rover could have followed one as manydays old.
"Good old Rover," Marian murmured, "good old Rover, a white man's dog."
All at once a question came to her mind. They had been obliged to goseveral miles north to pick up the trail. This was due to the movementof the floe. This movement still continued. It was carrying themstill farther to the north. The Diomede Islands, halfway station ofthe Straits, were small; they offered a goal only two or three miles inlength. If they were carried much farther north, would they not missthe islands?
She confided her fears to Phi.
"I thought of that," he smiled. "There is a little danger of that, butnot much, I guess. You see, I'll try to time our rate of travel, andfigure out as closely as I can when we have covered the eighteen milesthat should bring us even with the islands. Then, too, old Rover willbe losing the trail about that time. When that bearded friend of yoursand his guide leave the floe to go upon the solid shore ice of theislands, the floe is going to keep right on moving north. That breaksthe trail, see? When we strike the end of that trail we can go duesouth and hit the islands. If the air is at all clear, we can seethem. It's a clumsy arrangement, but better than going it without atrail."
Marian did "see," but this did not entirely still the wild beating ofher heart as she leaped a yawning chasm between giant up-ended cakes ofice, or felt her way cautiously across a strip of newly-formed ice thatbent under her weight as if it were made of rubber.
It was with a strange, wild thrill that she realized they were far outover the conquered sea. Hundreds of feet below was the bed of BeringStraits. Above that bed a wild, swirling current of frigid salt waterraced.
Once, as they were about to cross a stretch of new ice, Phi threwhimself flat and hacked a hole through the ice. Water bubbled up,while Marian caught the wild surging rush of the current.
For a second her knees trembled, her face blanched. Phi saw and smiled.
"Never fear," he exclaimed; "we'll make it all right. And when you getback home you'll have a story to tell that will make Eliza's crossingon the ice seem like a picnic party crossing a trout stream onstepping-stones."
It was not long after that, however, when even this daring boy's facesobered. Old Rover, who had been following the trail unhesitatingly,suddenly came to a halt. He turned to the right, sniffing the ice.Then he turned to the left. After that he looked up into the face ofthe boy, as if to say:
"Where's the trail gone?"
Phi examined the ice carefully.
"Been a sudden jam here," he muttered; "then the ice has slid along,some north, some south. It has all happened since our friends passedthis way. You just wait here. I'll take Rover to the north and lethim pick up the trail. When I find it, I'll come back far enough tocall to you. May be to the south, though, but we'll soon see."
He disappeared around a giant ice-pile and, in a twinkling, was lost toview.
The two girls, placing their burdens of food and Marian's sketches onan up-ended ice-cake, sat down to wait. They were growing weary. Thestrain of the adventure into this puzzling, unknown ice-field wastelling on their nerves.
"I wish we were safe at Cape Prince of Wales," sighed Marian.
"Yes, or even East Cape," said Lucile. "I think I'd be content to staythere and chance the year with the natives."
"Anyway, Phi's doing his best," said Marian. "Isn't he a strange one,though? Do you think he has the blue envelope?"
"I don't know."
"Well, I think he has."
"I don't know," Lucile said sleepily. Fatigue and the keen Arctic airwere making her drowsy.
Presently, she leaned back against an ice-cake and fell asleep.
"I'll let her sleep," Marian mused. "It'll give her strength for whatcomes next, whatever that is."
An hour passed, but no call echoed across the silent white expanse.Marian, now pacing back and forth across a narrow ice-pan, now pausingto listen, felt her anxiety redoubled by every succeeding moment. Whatcould have happened to Phi? Had some mishap befallen him? Had a slipthrown him into some dangerous crevice? Had thin ice dropped him tosure death in the surging undercurrent? Or had he merely wandered toofar and lost his way?
Whatever may have happened, he did not return.
At length, with patience exhausted, she climbed the highest ice-pileand gazed away to the north. The first glance brought forth a cry ofdismay. A narrow lane of dark water, stretching from east to west,extended as far as eye could see in each direction. It lay not aquarter of a mile from the spot where she stood.
"He's across and can never recross to us," she moaned in despair. "Nocreature could brave that undercurrent and live. And there is no otherway."
Then, as the full terror of their situation flashed upon her, she sankdown in a heap and buried her face in her hands.
The
y were two lone girls ten miles from any land, on the bosom of avast ice-floe, which was slowly but surely creeping toward the unknownnorthern sea. They had no chart, no compass, no trail to follow and noguide. To move seemed futile, yet to remain where they were meant suredisaster.
As if to complete the tragedy of the whole situation, a snow-fogdrifted down upon them. Blotting out the black ribbon of water andevery ice-pile that was more than a stone's throw from them, it swepton to the south with a silence that was more appalling than had beenthe grinding scream of a tidal wave beneath the ice.
"Lucile! Lucile!" she fairly screamed as she came down to the surfaceof the pan. "Lucile! Wake up! We are lost! He is lost!"
* * * * * *
What had happened to the young college boy had been this: He hadhastened to the north in search of the trail. Rover, with nose closeto the ice, had searched diligently for the scent. For a long time hissearch had been unrewarded, but at last, with a joyous bark, he sprangaway across an ice-pan.
The boy followed him far enough to make sure that he had truly foundthe trail, then, calling him back, turned to retrace his steps.
Great was his consternation when he discovered the cleavage in thefloe. Hopefully he had at first gone east along the channel in searchof a possible passage. He found none. After racing for a mile, heturned and retraced his steps to the point where he had first come uponopen water. From there he hurried west along the channel. Anothertwenty minutes was wasted. No possible crossing-place could be found.
He then sat down to think. He thought first of his companions. Thatthey were in a dire plight, he realized well. That they would be ableto devise any plan by which they could find their way to any shore, hedoubted; yet, as he thought of it, his own position seemed morecritical. The trail he had found would now be useless. He was northof the break in the floe. Land lay to the south of it. He had no wayto cross. In such circumstances, the dog with his keen sense of smell,and his compass with its unerring finger, were equally useless.
"Nothing to do but wait," he mumbled, so he sat down patiently to wait.
And, as he waited, the snow-fog settled down over all.