CHAPTER IX
FINDING THE TRAIL
"I think we can go," Phi smiled as he spoke. His hour for a try-out had expired. He was back.
"Can—can we cross the straits?" Marion asked, breathless with emotion.
"I think so."
"How?"
"Got a new guide. I'll show you. Be ready in a half -hour. Bring your pictures and a little food. Not much. Wear snow-shoes. Ice is terribly piled up."
He disappeared in the direction of his own igloo.
Marion looked about the cozy deerskin home where were stored their few belongings; then gazed away at the masses of deep-purple shadows that stretched across the imprisoned ocean. For a moment courage failed her.
"Perhaps," she said to herself, "it would be better to try to winter here."
But even as she thought this, she caught a vision of that time when she and her companion had been crowded out of a native village to shift for themselves. Then, too, she thought of the possible starving-time in the spring, after the white bear had gone north and before walrus would come, or trading schooners.
"No," she said, "no, we'd better try it."
When the girls joined Phi on the edge of the ice-floe, they looked about for the guide, but saw none. Only Rover barked them a welcome.
"Where—where's the guide?" asked Lucile.
"You'll see. Come on," said the boy, leading the way.
For a mile they traveled over the solid shore-ice. They then came to a stretch of water, dark as midnight. At the edge of this was a two-seated kayak.
Phi motioned Lucile to a seat. Deftly he paddled her across to the other side. It was with a sinking feeling that she felt herself silently carried toward the north by the gigantic ice-floe.
Marion and the dog were quickly ferried over. Then, after drawing the kayak upon the ice, the boy turned directly north and began walking rapidly. At times he broke into a run.
"Have to make good time," he puffed, as he snatched Marion's roll of sketches from her hand. "Got to get the trail."
They did make good time. Alternately running and walking, they kept up a pace of some seven or eight miles an hour.
"Why, I thought—thought we were going to go east," puffed Marion. "We're just going down the beach."
Phi did not answer.
They had raced on for nearly an hour when they suddenly came upon a kayak 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 of the men who had deserted that kayak. The dog walked slowly away, sniffing the ice as he went. His course was due east. The three followed him in silence. Presently his speed increased. He took on an air of confidence. His tail went up, his ears back. He sniffed the ice only now and then as he dashed over great flat pans, then over little mountains of broken ice, to emerge again upon flat surfaces.
Marion understood, and her admiration for Phi grew. He had found the trail of the men who had crossed the straits before them. He had put Rover on that trail. Rover could not fail to follow. The trail was fresh, only seven hours old. Rover could have followed one as many days old.
"Good old Rover!" Marion murmured, "Good old Rover, a white man's dog!"
All at once a question came to her mind. They had been obliged to go several miles north to pick up the trail. This was due to the movement of the floe. This movement still continued. It was carrying them still farther to the north. The Diomede Islands, half-way station of the straits, were small—offered a goal only two or three miles in length. If they were carried much farther north, would they not miss the islands?
She confided her fears to Phi.
"I thought of that," he smiled. "There is a little danger of that; but not much, I guess. You see, I'll try to time our rate of travel and figure out as closely as I can when we have covered the eighteen miles that should bring us even with the islands. Then, too, old Rover will be losing the trail about that time. When that bearded friend of yours and his guide leave the floe to go upon the solid shore-ice of the islands, the floe is going to keep right on moving north. That breaks the trail. See? When we strike the end of that trail we can go due south and strike the islands. If the air is at all clear, we can see them. It's a clumsy arrangement, but better than going it without a trail."
Marion did see, but this did not entirely still the wild beating of her heart. It was with a strange, wild thrill that she realized they were far out over the conquered sea. Hundreds of feet below was the bed of Bering Strait. Above that bed, a wild, swirling current of frigid salt water raced.
Once, as they were about to cross a stretch of new ice, Phi threw himself on his stomach and hacked a hole through the ice. Water bubbled up, while Marion 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 get back home, you'll have a story to tell that will make Eliza's crossing of the river on the ice seem a mere picnic party crossing a trout-stream on stepping-stones."
It was not long after that, however, when even this daring boy's face sobered. 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 of the 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 passed this way. You just wait here. I'll take Rover to the north and let him pick up the trail. When I find it, I'll come back far enough to call to you. Maybe to the south; we'll see."
He disappeared around a giant ice-pile.
The two girls, placing their burdens of food and Marion's sketches on an up-ended ice-cake, sat down to wait. They were growing weary. The strain of the adventure into this puzzling unknown ice-field was telling on their nerves.
An hour passed, but no call echoed across the silent white expanse. Marion, now pacing back and forth across a narrow ice-pan, now pausing to listen, felt her anxiety redoubled by every succeeding moment. What could have happened to Phi? Had some mishap befallen him? Had a slip thrown him into some dangerous crevice? Had thin ice dropped him to sure death in the surging undercurrent? Or had he merely wandered too far and lost his way?
Whatever may have happened, he did not return.
At length, with patience exhausted, she climbed the highest ice-pile and gazed away to the north. The first glance brought forth a cry of dismay. A narrow lane of dark water, stretching from east to west, extended as far as eye could see in each direction. It lay not a quarter of a mile from the spot where she stood.
"He's across and can never recross to us!" she moaned in despair. "No creature could brave that undercurrent and live. And there is no other way."
Then, as the full terror of their situation flashed upon her, she sank down in a heap and buried her face in her hands.
They were two girls, ten miles from any land, on the bosom of a vast ice-floe, which was slowly but surely sweeping toward the unknown northern sea. They had no chart, no compass, no trail to follow, and no guide. To move would seem futile. Yet to remain where they were meant disaster.
As if to complete the tragedy of the whole situation, a snow-fog drifted down upon them. Blotting out the black ribbon of water and every ice-pile that was more than a stone's throw from them, it swept on to the south with a silence that was more appalling than had been the grinding scream of the tidal-wave beneath the ice.
What had happened to the young college boy had been this: he had hastened to the north in search of the trail. Rover, with nose close to the ice, had searched diligently for trace of the lost trail. For a long time his search had been unrewarded. But at last, with a joyous bark, he sprang away across an ice-pan.
The boy followed him far enough to make sure that he had truly found the trail, then, calling him back, turned to retrace his steps.
Great was his consternation when he discovered the cleavage in the floe. Hopefully, he had at first gone east along the channel in search of a possible passage. He found none. After racing on for a mile, he turned and retraced his steps to the point where he had first come upon open water. From there he hurried west along the channel. Another twenty minutes was wasted. No possible crossing-place could be found.
He then sat down to think. He thought first of his companions. That they were in a dire plight, he realized well. That they would be able to devise any plan by which they could find their way to any shore, he doubted; yet, as he thought of it, his own position seemed even more critical. The trail he had found would now be useless. He was north of the break in the floe. Land lay to the south of it. He had no way to 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 hold on," he mumbled.
He sat down patiently to wait.
And, as he waited, the snow-fog settled down over all.