Edwin Balmer

“ Koehler steered for a bit of sloping beach and brought them to the foreshore upon which they could drag the boat above the tide. They climbed up and waving good-bye to the Viborg, they set off on their tramp to the old Aurora depot.
As they followed the shore about the cape and the ship sank out of sight, there was no place Geoff had ever seen with which to compare in barrenness and desolation this piece of Arctic land. Off shore as far as the eye could see there was ice, and the black rock upon which they marched was as barren. ”

“ There were few men of any age, either amateur or professional, who consistently could conquer Price Latham in any gentleman's sport, whether it was rackets in the downtown club in winter, polo in summer, or yacht racing or aeroplaning. Geoff had no need to envy his friend's lithe, strong and symmetrical figure; but Latham's perfect command of himself, his easy, effortless expenditure of strength—as now at this moment when suddenly he took his opponent entirely off guard and scored a brilliant "ace"—was Geoff's despair. ”

“ Among men of the stone age—living or dying according as to whether they were able to stab a spear through the brain of a seal as the animal rose for breath and before he dived again—Geoff and the rest had become as men of that age, with civilisation thousands of years ahead. They were not just a few weeks' journey north of the cities of America and Europe. They were living in Britain and France in the ice age when the glaciers crept down and filled the valleys, driving before them the men of the ice and snow—the Cave Men of a time so long ago that it was called by the name of a geological era. ”

“ Apparently the Eskimo who had accompanied Eric almost to the camp of the kabluna had warned the hunters of the possible approach of strangers or at all times even in that remote and lonely desolation the Eskimos kept a sharp lookout; for as Eric led into the bay, alarm ran from man to man scattered over the ice till some thirty figures swiftly gathered, men armed with spear and bow and long knife, and standing, watching, silent and wary, the advance of the strangers. ”

“ They tried to fight this sleeplessness; and in those periods of the darkness still called daytime they tied sledge ropes together and each in turn went out and, with one end of the rope fast in the tent, tramped away from the shelter and up and down, holding the other end of the rope, till the cold exhausted him. But still this brought no sleep.
Margaret, clothed in her Eskimo garments, took this exercise like the men; but she alone did not need it. Through the endless periods known as nights she lay just beyond Geoff, quietly and evenly breathing. ”

“ MARGARET delayed over putting away the articles which reminded her of Eric Hedon. She knew it was not because of what the bird had brought that she believed Eric alive; she never at any time had allowed herself to think of him as dead.
If one has become accustomed to consider a missing person as dead one cannot think of that person's doing things; but if one pictures him as lost but still living, one can always look for word to come from him. No one knew better than Margaret Sherwood that most of the men long missing in the Arctic never return. ”

“ I cannot help it."
"But nothing can come of it!"
"Of our love, anything can come, Eric!"
It brought him to his knees, frightened before her. He seized her hands and held them to his cheeks. "I have tried to think it out, Margaret. Over and over again, I have tried to think it out. I don't know of anything I could do at which I could expect to make money."
"To make money!" she cried. "Look at me, Eric! Look at me or I will kneel down too! There! Now what were you saying? What were you saying to me?"
"A man who loves and has love from a girl has to have money, dear. ”

“ Men from the Viborg now had searched every shore he might have reached had he survived the long, lonely journey over the breaking-up ice; and they found no trace of him. Eric's own record of his plan, and his promise to build cairns if he again reached land, certified to his disappearance forever.
When would Latham announce to Margaret that she could show no proof that Eric lived? When would he demand of her to redeem her word? So she waited, while slowly the Viborg worked its way south in the continuance of its hopeless search. ”

“ She stared past Eric over the snow to the men and the dog teams and sledges from the Kadiack. "But we will be saved, all the rest of us? All the rest—that must mean you and I, too, Eric—will be saved?"
"All the rest of us are saved, Margaret."
Her eyes closed and for a minute she was unsteady. Her hand groped and caught support from Eric. As she swayed, Koehler had started to her, but now he turned away. She opened her eyes again and gazed at Eric and then past him. "They are still there beyond you, Eric? I mean the men who have come and saved us. ”

“ Koehler again commanded Geoff.
Geoff started off for the sledge, hearing them still talking behind him. A hundred questions, a thousand wonders, rushed to his mind, but he put them off and hurried ahead. Wherever Hedon had come from and whatever he had gone through, he seemed to be strong and in fair shape. The wound in his head, even if not dangerous, would have more seriously disabled a weak man. ”

“ The bear had not yet noticed the dogs. In another moment they must be upon him and either send him scurrying away or, if he stood at bay, he must destroy the hunger-weakened dogs as they came up. They were gaunt, slow, in no shape to dodge quickly or to give fight. The big animal came up over another ice ridge. The three hunters called to each other, crouched, aimed and fired almost together, then fired again and again. The big animal seemed not struck by the first fire; only the roar of the rifles or now the noise of the dogs seemed to reach him. ”

“ Latham turned without a word from the land and looked back over the sea to the south. The morning was clear and sunny, and as far as the eye reached only open water stretched; and all knew that for mile after mile beyond the grim, green horizon was water where the ice must have broken up early and treacherously in the spring of the year before—the ice over which Eric Hedon alone must have tried to travel.
"If he reached land again south of here," Latham said quietly, "we will find his cairns. He was very definite about that in his report." ”

“ At midnight, in bright sunlight, the Viborg bumped out between the icebergs, alone, deep laden and heavy, and steered on up Baffin Bay.
"Now to get as far as we can while the ice may give us a channel!" McNeal cried to his engineers. "Full speed all the time till the ice tries to stop us; and then we'll just begin really to use the engine." ”

“ Geoff still gazed dazedly. With his mind filled with thoughts of the ancient people of Greenland he was slow to recognise his find. His senses came to him and he knew that any bit of wood not left recently must have decayed; he saw the object was what Koehler had said, half of the spool upon which is rolled the film of a hand camera. As he himself exposed a roll of film and prepared his camera for another, he had seen scores of such little wooden and copper spools. And here, lying in this hut was one of them, which must have been manufactured in the state of New York within a few years. ”

“ The speamen still at their work looked up often over the sea ice to the south and along the snow-covered shores; and the women came often out of the igloos to look for signs of the return of the men who had stolen the meat and of those who had gone after them. But the moon was beginning to sink in the sky before, far away, some one saw four men with a team of dogs and a sledge approaching. Then behind it appeared three men and another dog team and sledge; then three more men and another team. ”

“ Geoff and Latham likewise still were clothed as for a winter tramp through the Maine woods. McNeal and Koehler had changed only partly to Arctic costume; but this day, as they stood on the shore in the drifting snow and looked over the long, endless reaches of barren, drift-streaked rock and the freezing sea edging it, most of them shivered.
"I make this the northeast coast of Victoria Land," McNeal announced as they stood on the shore. "The whole of Victoria Land is a good deal bigger than Britain; and it's all Arctic, with the bulk of it lying below us. ”

“ If he was to go—as he certainly would if Margaret persisted—he had better be a leader rather than a follower. At eleven the next morning he met Latham at the country club to run their ponies for the first practice over the soggy field. Some other men were out and they divided into fours and ran through two rapid, rough periods; but as Geoff went back to the dressing room, bruised and shaken from two hard tumbles and strained from riding off heavier men, for the first time he took no great pride in his daring and endurance. ”

“ The two thousand eight hundred gallons of gasoline—as he stooped and dipped his buckets into the icy water desperately and straightened and handed up his buckets, seized the emptied ones and stooped and filled again, Geoff remembered the exact estimate of the amount remaining—two thousand eight hundred gallons of gasoline would go together.
Fear, terror, made him weak, and he dropped a pail he had filled. He tried not to think of it, but to work, work, work. As long as the men going down into the flaming hold would stay, he would stay. ”

“ Little rough ice appeared and few ridges, and all was covered deep with snow. As the nine white people turned into this bay, far ahead over the smooth snow showed a score or more of tiny snow roofs, and scattered away from these in every direction were dark spots—the Eskimo seal hunters watching for seal to spear for food for their hungry people. ”

“ Every man who was north with him is sure of it. Every man has told you so. It's not necessary to question whether or not you would have been happy with Hedon. He is lost. Since you loved him—or believed you did—it was right for you to wait as long as you have. But now to have this fraud start you to hoping and expecting again and waiting—I can't let you."
"I'm not going to wait any longer!"
"What?"
"I'm going to do something now!"
"Margaret!"
"I'm going to send a ship up north with a search party to do nothing else but look for him—for them, for Eric and Mr. Thomas!" ”

“ Ten years had had to pass, Margaret remembered, and a dozen expeditions were made into the Arctic, before the fate of Franklin's two great ships and his hundred and thirty men could be learned. Might the little Viborg with its crew find two men alone in all that northern wilderness?
Lost men, in passing down a shore, would build cairns on headlands to tell their line of travel to any other party. Now and again, as piles that might be cairns appeared, the Viborg halted and a boat took men ashore to search the heaps for messages. But only one might have been a cairn built by man ”

“ Upon that march the three men with the last sledge soon caught up with Linn and his three dogs, then with Michaelis and his four, though at first these had had no trouble in keeping ahead. The day scarcely lightened to twilight; only the chance that the sky was clear and the stars shining bright gave them light to pick their way for the first hours of the march. At two o'clock, by the watch Koehler carried, the sky clouded over and light was gone. A blizzard with black, blinding snow suddenly blew down from the north. ”

“ So all we need to know to-night, dear, is just that we love; and now we've said it. So I know that you'll be going away only to come back to me; and you will know that no matter how long you are gone or whatever happens or whoever else comes or whatever any one says or does while you are away, I will be waiting for you! ”

“ Fifteen generations of Europeans lived and died on the west coast of Greenland before serious troubles came. Hostilities began with the Eskimos; and, with wars and difficulties in Europe, few ships sailed for the distant settlement; those which set out were wrecked and when after many years another ship came to Greenland, the fiords were deserted; the stone houses, churches, cattle barns and sheep pens stood echoing empty. The first men to tempt the Arctic had disappeared into it. ”

“ Yet she also knew that many men had remained unreported for a longer time than Ian Thomas and Eric Hedon and still had returned to civilisation safe at last. There were Greely's men, three-fourths of whom starved to death on their barren cape of Ellesmere Land, but seven finally were found alive by a relief ship; scores of others had come back after suffering disasters which it seemed they could not have survived.
Of course the explorers entering the Arctic in the last two years had made inquiry and search for the missing men. ”

“ And as her brother looked toward her he wondered with a deeper feeling of sympathy what the occasion for her would be.
Her eyes were bright and her lips closed firmly together, and her little hand clenched at her side as she gazed toward the shores that must tell her whether her lover might yet be alive. ”

“ His voice cracked as he tried by his tone to enforce his command. "Every man get back there. I'm all right."
The doctor could do all that might be done for McNeal at that moment; so the other five went back to the ship, leaving only the girl with the injured man and physician. Yet the return of the rest nearer to the ship proved useless. The whole hulk of the Viborg was in flames, devouring food, supplies and gear, and cartridges popped in the blaze. All about the ship on the ice were boxes or fragments of boxes and other material scattered by the explosions. ”

“ No Eskimo of pure blood ever has light eyes. See, his hair is not black, as usual. There's been no contact of this tribe with the whites in any historic time."
"Then how does he have light eyes?"
"We can only guess; but perhaps the spear handle will tell us."
The Eskimo, pleased with the white man's interest in his work, looked up and then continued his cutting.
"You see, Otto," said Hedon, continuing with Koehler a discussion they had begun before, "counting this man, there are at least three people in this tribe with eyes and hair lighter than any true Eskimo can have. ”