Part 13 (1/2)

He produced the borrowed cigaret. A sigh of hope escaped from the group of natives and a match was thrust upon him.

”Thanks.”

The match was of the sulphur kind, the sort that never blow out.

Nonchalantly Johnny lighted the cigaret, then, all too carelessly, he flipped the match. Though it seemed a careless act, it was deftly done.

There came a sudden cry of alarm. But too late; the match dropped squarely into the keg of alcohol. The next instant the place was all alight with the blaze of the liquor, which flamed up like oil.

”This way out,” exclaimed Johnny leading the procession for the door.

Lightly he bounded down the hill. He caught one glimpse of the young woman as he pa.s.sed, but this was no time for lingering farewells. The owner of the still was on his trail.

Dodging this way and that, sliding over a wide expanse of ice, Johnny at last eluded his pursuers in the wildly tumbled ice piles of the sea. As he paused to catch his breath he heard the soft pat-pat of a footstep and glancing up, caught a face peering at him round an ice pile.

”The Russian,” he exclaimed.

When the j.a.p girl awoke after several hours of delicious sleep in her ice palace bedroom, she looked upon a world unknown. The sun was s.h.i.+ning brightly. The air was clear. In a general way she knew the outline of East Cape and the Diomede Islands. She knew, too, where they should be located. It took her some time to discover them and when she did it was with a gasp of astonishment. They were behind her.

Realizing at once what had happened, she stood up and held her face to the air. The wind was off sh.o.r.e. There was not the least bit of use in trying to make the land. A stretch of black waters yawned between sh.o.r.e and ice floe by now.

Shrugging her shoulders, she climbed a pile of ice for a better view, then hurrying down again, she picked up the harpoon and began puzzling over it. She coiled and uncoiled the skin rope attached to it. She worked the rope up and down through the many b.u.t.tons which held it to the shaft. She examined the sharp steel point of the shaft which was fastened to the skin rope.

After that she sat down to think. Over to the left of her she had seen something that lay near a pool of water. She had never hunted anything, did not fancy she'd like it, but she was hungry.

There was a level pan of ice by the pool. The creature lay on the ice pan. Suddenly she sprang up and made her way across the ice piles to the edge of that broad pan. The brown creature, a seal, still some distance away, did not move.

Searching the ice piles she at last found a regularly formed cake some eight inches thick and two feet square. With some difficulty she pried this out and stood it on edge. The edge was uneven, the cake tippy.

Rolling it on its side she chipped it smooth with the point of the harpoon.

The second trial found the cake standing erect and solid. Gripping her harpoon, she threw herself flat on her stomach and pus.h.i.+ng the cake before her, began to wriggle her way toward the sleeping seal.

Once she paused long enough to bore a peep hole through the cake with her dagger. From time to time the seal wakened, and raised his head to look about. Then he sank down again. Now she was but three rods away, now two, now one. Now she was within ten feet of the still motionless quarry.

Stretching every muscle for a spring like a cat, she suddenly darted forward. At the next instant she hurled the harpoon deep into the seal's side. She had him! Through her body pulsated thrills of wild triumph which harkened back to the days of her primitive ancestry. Then for a second she wavered. She was a woman. But she was hungry. Tomorrow she might be starving.

Her knife flashed. A stream of red began dyeing the ice. A moment later, the creature's muscles relaxed.

The j.a.panese girl, Cio-Cio-San, sat up and began to think. Here was food, but how was it to be prepared? To think of eating raw seal meat was revolting, yet here on the floe there was neither stove nor fuel.

Slowly and carefully she stripped the skin from the carca.s.s. Beneath this she found a two-inch layer of blubber, which must be more than ninety per cent oil. Under this was a compact ma.s.s of dark meat. This would be good if it was cooked. She sat down to think again. The fat seemed to offer a solution. It would burn if she had matches. She felt over the parka for pockets, and, with a little cry of joy, she found in one several matches wrapped in a bit of oiled seal skin. Every native carried them.

Hastily she stripped off a bit of fat and having lighted it, watched it flare up and burn rapidly. She laughed and clapped her hands.

But before she could cut off a bit of meat to roast over its flames, the soft ice began melting beneath it and the flames flickered out with a snapping flutter.

This would not do. There must be some other way found. Rising, she drove her harpoon into the snow at the crest of an ice pile. To this she fastened her deer skin, that it might act as a beacon to guide her back to her food supply. Then she turned about the ice pile and began wandering in search of she hardly knew what.