When Stirling awoke it seemed to him that he had passed through an ocean of dreams. He rolled over and blinked through leaden eyes at the porthole. Dawn was breaking across a wild waste of Northern waters; ice floes and ancient packs floated by; seals sported; whale slick showed in oily patches, and the sun glanced over the smooth surface of the sea. A ripple showed where the Pole Star's sharp stem was cleaving the surface.

Stirling rubbed his eyes and listened. The steady clank of the engines and the vibration of the tail shaft beneath him still continued. He glanced upward. The tiny, telltale compass overhead was pointing west. The ship was headed for the true pole!

"Madmen!" said Stirling, springing out of the bunk.

He emerged into the larger cabin to find that Helen Marr had vanished. The rifle lay across the table, and her knitted tam-o'-shanter was hanging from one corner of the piano; the deck light had been thrown open, and the companionway was unbarred.

Stirling strode through the curtain and tested the door which led to the sailor's cabin. It was locked. A bitter protest in Frisco slang greeted his query. He hesitated. The girl had eluded him in some manner. She had gone on deck.

He crossed the alleyway, cocked the rifle, and burst into the larger cabin. Up the steps which led to the companion he climbed with savage strength, and the light of dawning day and the gust of salty air which filled his lungs cleared his brain. He stared about the quarter-deck, then dropped the rifle's butt down upon his boot.

The girl, bareheaded and with ribbons flying, was sitting in a deck chair; near by were the Russian leader and two other revolutionists. They turned as she laughed buoyantly, but the leader frowned and reached for his pocket. Stirling raised the rifle and swung it under his arm.

"Good morning, Mr. Stirling," called the girl. "Come aft with me. These poor men are not our enemies. They're lost and want a pilot."

Stirling lowered the muzzle of the rifle, but still eyed the leader, and his lips grew hard and level with suspicion. He raised his shoulders slightly.

The girl saw the motion and sprang out of the deck chair with a cry. "They're only big boys!" she exclaimed. "I was playing the piano and singing—while you were sleeping. One song they liked, and the leader knocked on the glass and called to me. There were tears in his eyes. He's escaped from Siberia and wants to get to America. They all have escaped, Mr. Stirling. They wouldn't harm anybody!"

Stirling remembered the carnage when the revolutionists took the ship. But perhaps they had thought that the Pole Star's crew would resist and therefore had anticipated an expected attack. And they seemed to have treated the girl with the attention due a princess. A cushion was at the foot of the deck chair; tea steamed in a kettle; crackers had been brought from the galley.

"I think you had better go below," said Stirling glancing at the girl's upturned face.

"Speak to them; they don't mean us any harm."

Stirling turned toward the leader, and the small eyes before him lightened where they had been filled with fear. A gross, hairy hand swept forward expressively.

"You don't know where you are?" asked Stirling, gesturing.

The man, apparently getting the sense of the Ice Pilot's question, shook his head.

"Do you want to go back?" Stirling pointed the rifle toward the jack staff and the stern of the ship.

The leader repeated his nod, then spoke to the two others, who, Stirling decided, also held office among the revolutionists. They lumbered to the rail and stared forward, raising their arms and pointing.

Stirling shaded his eyes from the rays of the sun which was swinging on a long slant over the sea, and saw ahead, and to starboard, the glint of horizon-down ice. He knew the reason—they were within thirty miles of Banks Land.

The sea was open to the magnetic west, where a hard line rimmed the surface. Gulls flew overhead, and the smoke of the furnaces blotted across the waters. The entire scene was one of desperate enterprise. They were steaming on an unknown ocean of danger and doubt, where no explorers had been able to penetrate. Only an open season, such as Stirling had never known before, permitted the Pole Star's progress.

With a mastering glance, he turned toward the leader, his head back, the cords of his neck showing like roots of some giant oak. Helen Marr seized his left hand and crept close up to him.

"I'll pilot this ship!" he said.

"Where?" asked Helen Marr.

"Through the Northeast Passage!"