  After they had first sighted the fog it did not seem more than five minutes before they were enveloped in it. They could not see ten feet ahead of them, and the only way they had of knowing they were near one another was by shouting. The wind lulled almost immediately and the umiack began to drift straight north. In a few moments all hands were wet to the skin. All around them the icebergs and floes ground together with growling, grating noises, like so many fierce animals. “Ahoy, there!” came the muffled bellow of Corporal McCarthy through the heavy mist. “Here!” shouted Dick at the top of his lungs, the fog seeming to throw the sound of his voice back into his face. “Keep paddling to the right—against the current,” came the Corporal’s command. “Sing out every few minutes so we can keep track of each other.” “Alright,” shouted Dick, and behind came the fainter sound of Constable Sloan’s voice from the other umiack. Progress now became dangerous indeed. The boats seemed to have floated into a patch of broken ice that threatened every minute to crush the frail umiacks like so much match wood. Then, too, Corporal McCarthy’s shouts were growing fainter at every repetition. “We’re losing ground,” called Dick to Sandy. “Work harder. Keep moving to the right!” “That’s what I’m trying to do,” called back Sandy from the center of the boat, “but there’s a big floe pushing us to the left. We can’t seem to get around it. Sipsa is doing all he can to keep us from getting smashed up from the left. Look out!” Sandy’s warning shout was accompanied by a violent jar that shook the umiack from bow to stern. “We’ve hit solid ice on the left!” cried Sandy. “We’ll be smashed between two floes.” Dick leaped up and, leaning over the side of the umiack, pushed on the ice that was threatening to crush them against the floating ice on their right. But his efforts were of no avail. The umiack shuddered as if about to collapse under the pressure, then seemed to rise out of the water. “The ice has shoved under us!” cried Dick, much relieved. Dick was right. Luckily, the flat bottomed umiack had grounded on the flat ice pushing against her starboard side, and the higher ice on the lee was pushing her farther over. Presently they were almost entirely out of the water, the umiack half on the ice floe and floating along with it. “We can’t stay on this ice,” called Sandy. “It will carry us out to sea and we’ll be lost.” Dick thought rapidly. It was a moment for quick decision and daring action. “Sandy,” he cried, his mind made up, “stick by the boat. I’m going out on this floe and shove us off as soon as we get to open water on one side!” “You’ll be drowned!” wailed Sandy. “Got to take a chance,” was Dick’s exclamation as he leaped over the gunwale of the umiack to the slippery surface of the fragment of floe upon which they had been lifted. “Tell me as soon as you see open water on the left,” shouted Dick to Sandy. “That’s the only way we can get off this floe. I can’t move the umiack to the other side.” “Alright—wait,” Sandy replied tensely. There followed many moments of suspense when each heart beat seemed painful. Little that Dick knew of the northern seas, it was enough to make the truth clear to him. If the floe they had grounded upon joined with the ice on the left, and the entire mass continued to move, they would be carried out to sea and lost on an ocean where few ships had ever navigated. It had been several minutes since they had heard the voice of Corporal McCarthy, and Constable Sloan’s shouts were barely audible behind and far to the east. Proof enough that the ice was carrying them out beyond the headland that marked the end of the bay. Tensely Dick waited, digging his boots into little chinks of ice, ready to push off at a word from Sandy. “Watch out!” Sandy’s low exclamation steeled Dick’s muscles. “We’re breaking loose from the other ice. The crack is getting wider. Wait a minute! Alright, let her go!” Dick drew a deep breath and bent all his strength upon the heavy umiack. There came a slight grating sound, a lurch and the umiack, with its heavy load, slid from the floe into the sea, as Dick leaped into the stern with a cry of relief. But his relief was short lived, for when he lifted his voice to shout to the other boats, there was no reply. Again and again he shouted, until his voice was hoarse, listening intently in the intervals. Not even Sloan’s voice was audible now. “We must be way out of the course,” Sandy said, discouraged. Dick’s spirits fell also, then when he was about to give up shouting, he caught the sound of a voice again. “There—that’s Constable Sloan,” Dick said tensely. “But it’s funny—he seems to be on the left of us,” Sandy came back. They listened again, often shouting together. This time they were amazed to hear the faint call from slightly to the right and ahead. “That must be Corporal McCarthy,” Dick hazarded. “No, I think it sounded like Constable Sloan,” Sandy disagreed. “But how could he get over on the right so soon?” “It’s the fog, I guess,” Dick returned. “The sounds are deceiving. Anyway, we’re certain this floe on our right is between us and the island. We’ll have to keep on working ahead until we can get around it.” “You know what I think, Dick?” Sandy’s voice was exceedingly sober. “Well, what do you think? I’m at my wit’s end myself.” “This floe has caught on a larger block of ice somewhere on the other side and it has been turning slowly. Dick, we don’t know where we’re at now.” “I hope you’re wrong,” Dick hastily rejoined, renewing his efforts at the paddle. The boys now proceeded to bury their misgivings in hard work on the paddles. Sipsa continued his work at the prow of the craft, his expert handling of the pole avoiding many a dangerous ice jam. Yet as the minutes passed and they failed again and again to raise even a faint shout from the balance of the company, they became certain that they were floating out to sea. “Oh, if this fog would only lift!” Dick prayed. They worked on for what seemed to them an hour longer, but which actually could not have been more than fifteen minutes, when it seemed that Dick’s prayer was about to be answered. “It’s getting lighter, isn’t it?” Sandy said hoarsely, almost afraid to believe his eyes. “I believe you’re right,” Dick answered, cheering up. Slowly the fog thinned until they could see almost a hundred feet around them, then, as swiftly as it had enveloped them, the fog bank passed over, leaving them half blinded by the sudden glare of sunlight. Dick and Sandy cried out with joy, and rose up in the umiack to look about. “Thank heaven!” Dick ejaculated as he feasted his eyes on a welcome scene. Sandy had been right. The floe which they had been following had touched upon some solider object. It had been the island! There was but a few yards of open water between them and the barren, snow-piled shore, and the floe on their right made a strong bridge to land. Half a mile out to sea was the umiack of Constable Sloan and Toma, making good time toward land. Corporal McCarthy was waving his paddle to them a quarter mile to the left, and, now that the fog no longer deadened sound, his shout was borne to the ears of the happy boys. Dick and Sandy immediately bent to the paddles and worked the umiack into the beach, where they pulled it upon dry land and commenced unloading it. A half hour later the company was reunited, and Corporal McCarthy gave orders to make camp, and to stow the native boats high and dry on the shore for future use. “We’ll have to take a rest after that hard pull across the bay,” the policeman explained. “But while you fellows fix something to eat, I’ll take a run along the shore and see if I can’t find where Mistak landed. I’d like to know more about this island we’ve landed on, too.” When Corporal McCarthy was gone, Dick, Sandy and Toma set to work with alacrity to help Constable Sloan make camp. They were so hungry that their mouths watered when they fed the ravenous dogs their allotment of frozen fish. “I could eat whalebone and like it,” Dick said to Sandy as he watched Constable Sloan pouring beans into the melted snow water, and listened to the simmering of the tea pot. “That’s nothing,” Sandy retorted. “I know now why a goat can eat tin cans.” Constable Sloan did not wait for Corporal McCarthy’s return before he called all hands to the food he had prepared. Perhaps he sympathized with the boys, but it was true he ate as hungrily as they did, all the while telling them stories of his experiences in the land of the long day and the long night. “It hardly seems possible we’re actually seeing the midnight sun,” Dick said, when the edge was off his appetite. “The way my eyes feel, I sure feel it’s a fact. Do your eyes feel strained and tired, Dick?” “You bet they do. But how would it feel if we had as strong sunlight as they do in the south?” “We’d probably go blind,” Sandy opined. “There’s hardly a doubt about that,” said Constable Sloan. “But wait till you experience the long night, and see the moon go around and around in the sky, for day after day, not seeing anything but the stars, and then only when the sky is clear.” “Do you think we’ll be up here that long?” asked Dick. “Well, you never can tell,” Constable Sloan replied evasively, as if he had said more than he intended. After the meal the boys immediately crawled into their sleeping bags and fell into a sound slumber. They did not awaken when Corporal McCarthy returned, several hours later, and did not know he had returned until they were awakened to find the dogs harnessed to the sledges and breakfast awaiting them. “Why didn’t you wake us up so we could help get ready to start?” Dick asked the policemen. “We’ve got a long hard trip ahead of us,” returned the Corporal, “and you fellows needed your rest. I found Mistak’s trail two miles east of here. He’s started inland and not only that, but it looks like he’s crossed a glacier which seems to cover part of the interior of the island.” “Did you hear that?” Dick turned to Sandy. “We may have to cross a glacier.” “That suits me better than floating around among these icebergs in a caribou hide boat,” Sandy replied with spirit. “I like to have my feet under me, and dry land under my feet.” “In other words you’re a land lubber,” laughed Dick. “I guess I am,” admitted Sandy, strapping on his snowshoes. A little later the little company pulled out of camp, and set off at a good pace, Corporal McCarthy in the lead. After following the seashore a little way they cut inland at an angle, and after about an hour’s sledging struck the trail made by a dog team and three men. At this point they made a halt while Corporal McCarthy went ahead to look over the land before they advanced. The reason for this move was quickly evident, for towering over them, at a distance of less than half a mile, was a mass of ice that marked the beginning of a glacier, probably miles and miles in extent. Dick and Sandy were awed by the very immensity of the towering ice. The fact that they might find it necessary to brave those treacherous heights on the trail of the “white Eskimo” tested their courage to the utmost. But the boys were not the sort that back down when danger is close at hand. Truth to tell, they loved action and danger more than was good for their own safety. “There comes the Corporal,” Dick called out presently, his sharp eyes having caught sight of a fur parka behind an ice hummock. Presently the policeman came fully into view and waved for them to come on. “The trail leads over the glacier,” called the Corporal when they were within hearing distance. Dick and Sandy hurried forward after the dogs, their hearts hammering at the promise of the excitement ahead. |
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