Part 26 (1/2)

”Anyway,” he said, after a long pause, ”we'll stand on, and run into the creek we've fixed on, if it's necessary.”

Dusk had closed down on them, and it had grown perceptibly colder. The haze crystallized on the rigging, the rail was white with rime, and the deck grew slippery, but they left everything on the _Selache_ to the topsails, and she crept on erratically through the darkness, avoiding the faint spectral glimmer of the scattered ice. The breeze abeam propelled her with gently leaning canvas at some four knots to the hour, and now and then Wyllard, who hung about the deck that night, fancied he could hear a thin, sharp crackle beneath the slowly lifting bows.

Next day the haze thickened, and there seemed to be more ice about, but the breeze was fresher, and there was, at least, no skin upon the ruffled sea. They took off the topsails, and proceeded cautiously, with two men with logger's pikepoles forward, and another in the eyes of the foremast rigging. They struck nothing, fortunately, and when night came the _Selache_ lay rolling in a heavy, portentous calm. Dampier and one or two of the men declared their certainty that there was ice near them, but, at least, they could not see it, though there was now no doubt about the crackling beneath the schooner's side. It was an anxious night for most of the crew, but a breeze that drove the haze aside got up with the sun, and Dampier expected to reach the creek before darkness fell.

He might have succeeded but for the glistening streak on the horizon, which presently crept in on them, and resolved itself into detached gray-white ma.s.ses, with openings of various sizes in and out between them. The breeze was freshening, and the _Selache_ was going through it at some six knots, when Dampier came aft to Wyllard, who was standing at the wheel. There was a moderately wide opening in the floating barrier close ahead of him. The rest of the crew stood silent watching the skipper, for they were by this time more or less acquainted with Wyllard's temperament.

”You can't get through that,” said Dampier, pointing to the ice.

Wyllard looked at him sourly, and the white men, at least, understood what he was feeling. So far, he had had everything against him--calm, and fog, and sudden gale--and now, when he was almost within sight of the end of the first stage of his journey, they had met the ice.

”You're sure of that?” he questioned.

Dampier smiled. ”It would cost too much, or I'd let you try.” He called to the man perched high in the foremost shrouds, and the answer came down: ”Packed right solid a couple of miles ahead.”

Wyllard lifted one hand, and let it suddenly fall again.

”Lee, oh! We'll have her round,” he said, and spun the wheel.

The men breathed more easily as they jumped for the sheets, and with a great banging and thras.h.i.+ng of sailcloth the vessel shot up to windward, and turned as on a pivot. As the schooner gathered way on the other tack, the men glanced at Wyllard, for the _Selache's_ bows were pointing to the southeast again, and they felt that was not the way he was going.

Wyllard turned to Dampier with a gesture of impatience.

”Baulked again!” he said. ”It would have been a relief to have rammed her in. With this breeze we'd have picked that creek up in the next six hours.”

”Sure!” replied Dampier, who glanced at the swirling wake.

”Then, if we can't get through the ice we can work the schooner round.

Stand by to flatten all sheets in, boys.”

They obeyed orders cheerfully, though they knew it meant a thrash to windward along the perilous edge of the ice. Soon the windla.s.s was caked with glistening ice, and long spikes of it hung from her rail, while the slippery crystals gathered thick on deck. Lumps and floes of ice detached themselves from the parent ma.s.s, and sailed out to meet the vessel, cras.h.i.+ng on one another, while it seemed to the men who watched him that Wyllard tried how closely he could shave them before he ran the _Selache_ off with a vicious drag at the wheel. None of them, however, cared to utter a remonstrance.

They brought the schooner around when she had stretched out on the one tack a couple of miles, and, standing in again close-hauled, found the ice thicker than ever. Then she came around once more, and, until the early dusk fell, Wyllard stood at the jarring helm or high up in the forward shrouds.

”We can't work along the edge in the dark,” he said to Dampier.

”Well,” answered the skipper dryly, ”it wouldn't be wise. We could stand on as she's lying until half through the night, and then come round and pick up the ice again a little before sun-up.”

Wyllard made a sign of acquiescence. ”Then,” he said, ”don't call me until you're in sight of it. A day of this kind takes it out of one.”

He moved aft heavily toward the deck-house, and Dampier watched him with a smile of comprehension, for he was a man who had in his time made many fruitless efforts, and bravely faced defeat. After all, it is possible that when the final reckoning comes some failures will count.

For several hours the _Selache_ stretched out close-hauled into what they supposed to be open water, and they certainly saw no ice. They hove her to, and when the wind fell light brought her round and crept back slowly upon the opposite tack. Wyllard had gone to sleep after his day of anxious work, and daylight was just breaking when he next went out on deck. There was scarcely a breath of wind and the heavy calm seemed portentous and unnatural. The schooner lay lurching on a sluggish swell, with the frost-wool thick on her rigging, and a belt of haze ahead of her. The ice glimmered in the growing light, but in one or two places stretches of blue-gray water seemed to penetrate it, and Dampier, who strode aft when he saw Wyllard, said he believed that there must be an opening somewhere.

”By the thickness of it, that ice has formed some time, and as we've seen nothing but a skin it must have come from further north,” he added.

”It gathered up under a point or in a bay most likely, until a s.h.i.+ft of wind broke it out, and the stream or breeze sent it down this way. That seems to indicate that there can't be a great deal of it, but a few days' calm and frost would freeze it solid.”

”Well?” Wyllard returned impatiently.