Winthrop Packard

“ A moment Harluk stood over him with the dripping knife in hand, then turned with Joe and Harry to the pursuit of the other Ankuts; but fear added to their toadstool frenzy lent them speed, and they disappeared over the hills, plunging through the soft tundra moss. The battle was over.
Harry sat down on the battlefield, feeling faint and sick. The horror of carnage was on him. True, they had fought in self-defense, and the Ankuts richly deserved death, yet the sight of men slain with his own hand filled him with remorse, and he felt for a time that his own safety was dearly bought. ”

“ Harry, Kroo, and Harluk, armed with rifles, Konwa with his great walrus spear, had spread far apart and were hunting carefully for tracks in the snow, but it was drifted so hard thereabouts that they found none. Harry was nearest ashore of any, and he suddenly felt the snow giving way under his feet. He gave a cry of alarm and went down out of sight, landing full upon something solid, that in the indistinct light of an oil lamp looked and felt like a bear. This creature turned and grappled him, yet there was no clutch of bear’s claws, but rather the arms of a man that had hold of him. ”

“ In the gloom of the igloo he could see the glare of the eyes of the savage creatures as they crouched on the floor, half lazily, yet half ready for a spring, and he expected every moment that one would attack him. This he well knew would be the signal for a rush from them all, for the instinct of the wolf pack is [264] strong even in the most docile Eskimo dog, and when one fights they all do. He could feel the quiver of Joe’s elbow where it touched his as they shrank to the igloo wall side by side, and knew that his consciousness of the danger was equal to his own. ”

“ They had ceased to shout and urge one another on now. The race for life took all their breath. Out of the unknown distance behind them the low vibrant hum had increased to a grinding roar, in which there were sounds like cannon-shots,—the bursting of the ice under the pressure of the oncoming flood. Just ahead of Harry a youngster stumbled, then sprang to his feet, limping badly. ”

“ Fortune favored them, as it does the brave. The very next day a school of belated beluga came puffing and plunging alongshore headed south through the mush ice, looking like a foam-crested wave as they rolled along.
The Eskimos seized this opportunity with keen delight, and Harry and Joe joined in the hunting. The beluga is the stupid little white whale of the Arctic, fifteen or twenty feet long and white as milk. The whole community hastened out on the floes and in the umiaks on the seaward side of the school. ”

“ This is the story of “Nunaria,” a place of ghosts and of the dead. To this day no Eskimo will willingly enter its precincts. The ice and gales of winter, the frosts and thaws of spring, the deluges of rain and the grass of summer, work hard to obliterate it, yet still it may be found, and its ruin tells the tale of one brief winter of too much plenty, and the evil effect of a sudden plethora of the good things of civilization and city life on the Innuit. With him, as with the rest of us, self-control is not easily learned where abstemiousness is continually forced. ”

“ Thus for two days they followed the course of the Kukpowrak, then they bore off to the left across a nearly level table-land a day’s journey.
There was no sign of human being on this three days’ march; bare tundra and gray limestone or blue slate rocks made the scene one of peculiar desolation, yet, though neither the highbinders nor the boys knew it, a solitary figure kept watch of all their movements and was never far behind them. All the savage hunter had been roused in Harluk, and he trailed the band with the vindictive persistency of an Apache brave. ”

“ They build their dwellings of flat stones banked with scant earth, and the icy sea, which rims them round and seems to threaten with certain death, is their father and their mother in that it provides all they have in the world. In the brief summer an occasional log of driftwood is thrown against their cliffs, and from this they fashion their canoe frames and their spear handles. During all the cold and cruel winter the ice-floes which crash and grind against the worn granite of their islands bring the seal and walrus and the polar bear. ”

“ He must meet superstition with superstition.
“Look here, Harluk,” he said, “do you not know that the white man is a great ankut, a wizard much greater than any? Did we not make the ghost ship real? Can I not make the spirit of a man or a place go into a little box and come out again so that you may see it and hold it in your hand? I tell you, if we do not find Joe and you do not help me, the ghost birds of the white man’s Nunatak shall fly away with you. They shall hang you head down in the smoke-hole of his igloo, and with fire shall torment your bones as long as the ice lasts in the sea. ”

“ The air was thick with snow, but in a lull they sighted what seemed to be the ship, and cries of thanksgiving went up from the weary wayfarers.
“The ship! the ship!” they cried once more, confident that this could be no mirage. The Eskimo shook his head.
“Bad magic,” he said; “ghost ship.” But the boys knew better. The Bowhead lay at anchor in mush ice and among floes, ghostly [144] enough in the whirl of flying snow that made the outlines of spar and sail white against the leaden sky, but the ship in very truth, and never so welcome a sight in any man’s eyes. ”

“ To the westward the Olympic Mountains, clad with the finest timber in the world, lift their snowy cloud-capped summits to the sky, and glow rosy in the light of the setting sun; while, between the city and these mountains beautiful, flow land-locked waters which might hold all the navies of all the world without being crowded, and which seem destined to be the centre of the commerce of the coming century, borne over seas that are yet new to the world’s traffic. ”

“ At the igloos Harry’s call for Joe was answered by the furry Eskimo head of Harluk. He put this carefully out from the tunnel-like entrance and calmly said Joe was no more. He was a good man and a noble friend, but he was no longer even a spirit. The ghost wolves had no doubt eaten him, and thereby he became as nothing. Killed in battle, eaten by real wolves, his spirit would yet remain, but when the ghost wolves of the Nunatak people got a man, he simply vanished. If Harry did not wish to vanish, it would be well for him to come into the igloo. ”

“ Some fortunate men acquire this serenity, self-poise, in the face of fortune, good or ill, early in life; some never acquire it, and they, as well as the world, are the worse off for that.
They slept warm and long that night, had a good hearty, hot breakfast the next morning, and felt fit to face the world. It was a bright morning, with the sun struggling through frost mists, and as they came on deck they found quite a change in the position of the small floes overnight, and some open water near the ship. ”

“ The noise of the blow was plainly heard, though the whale was more than a half mile away. The humpback gave a sort of moaning bellow, and sounded.
“’Vast there with your boats,” cried the captain; “the killer has got ahead of us.”
The orca, or “whale-killer” as the whalers call him, is one of the most powerful and rapacious animals in the world. Himself a whale, he is the only one of the species that lives on other whales, and does not hesitate to attack the largest of them. He grows to a length of thirty feet, and his activity and strength are extraordinary. ”

“ He had never for a moment given him up for lost, yet when the first summer passed without news of the absent ones the stoop came into his shoulders again, and the lines of care deepened on his face. More and more he had come to depend on the simple, cheery faith of Mrs. Desmond, whose hope and trust in the watchful care of Divine Providence had never for a moment seemed to waver. What it had cost her to keep up this cheery calm, no one but a wife and mother can tell. It is upon the good women of the world that these burdens come, and right nobly do they bear them. ”

“ A long unheard but familiar sound came to the ears of both boys, and Harry’s face reflected the dismay that was in Joe’s.
The sound was the rhythmic click of oars in rowlocks, and it came up the placid waters of the inlet from the sea.
A few days before, how gladly they would have heard that sound. Oars in rowlocks meant white men. Eskimos and Indians paddle. Each stepped to his rifle and saw that it was loaded, and then they stood ready to defend their claim against all comers. So quickly does a white man distrust another when there is gold at stake. ”

“ What do you say, old chap, if we go south?”
“What do you say if we have a little excursion to the moon?” said Harry bitterly; “the one seems as likely as the other.”
“I don’t think you ought to feel that way,” replied Joe. “The tundra and the rivers are frozen, the dogs have come back, and I have a plan. We will not attempt to find a ship. I doubt if one is up as far as this this year. Nor will we try to meet one at Lisburne, the chances are too slim. We will pack up and start straight south. The traveling is good. The north wind will be at our backs, and we are used to the cold. ”

“ Harry was eager to start back for the ship at once, but Joe, wiser in the ways of the Arctic, wanted to wait. He knew that in that driving snow it would be almost impossible to reach her unless constantly guided by sound. Without that they might row within a dozen yards of her and not see her. More than one whaleman has lost his ship while wintering in the Arctic, and died in the storm within a few rods of her, never knowing that he was so near safety. So Joe, backed by the Eskimo, judged that they would better wait until they were sure in what direction to go. ”

“ Perhaps the daintiest spirit, the most chastely exquisite creature of the whole Arctic summer, is the little bird known to the naturalists as the hyperborean snowflake. Verily, a snowflake it is as it flits through the rosy glow of misty mornings over the tundra bog so richly carpeted with purple, yellow, and white. ”

“ The weaponless man would be torn to pieces. Harry felt the devotion and courageous self-sacrifice which could make this priceless gift to a friend at such a moment, and his heart swelled within him as he [265] clasped Joe’s hand in the dim light. He tried not to take this rude weapon, but Joe pressed it on him, and after a little he consented, mentally resolved that he would wield it in Joe’s defense in preference to his own. It is such deeds and such resolves that try the temper of men’s souls and prove them truly noble. ”

“ So while Joe stood by the steering paddle, Harry busied himself in making all snug aboard, and tried not to fret about the weather.
Meanwhile the weather was fretting all about him. An hour, two hours passed, and [343] what had been a little blow grew into a big one. The skin boat, light as a cork, fairly flew before it. Often it seemed to skip from wave to wave, taxing Joe’s skill at the steering paddle to the uttermost to keep it head on. To turn sidewise to the wind and sea was to be rolled over and over in the icy waters and be lost. Yet Joe kept her straight. ”

“ There the ancient ferryman, who takes people across from Germantown to the Point for a nickel, had suddenly waked up to the catastrophe and nearly swallowed his pipe, which he had been smoking placidly when it happened. He saw the need of immediate help, and sprang into the stern of his skiff and snatched an oar from the thwarts, swinging it hastily into the scull hole, very nearly upsetting himself in his excitement. Then he vigorously plied the oar and sent the clumsy boat through the water toward the scene of the accident. ”

“ Then out of the [91] night came a wild, despairing cry, and something fluttered aboard, crashed against the mizzen rigging, and fell in a draggled white heap at his feet. The thought of Maisie was so strong that he sprang forward, with a great cry of alarm, to pick her up where she had fallen, when a sudden tremendous gust of the gale threw the Bowhead on her beam ends. A wall of white water roared down upon him, lifted him up with Maisie in his arms, and he went out into the night with it, still clinging to the limp figure he had clutched as he went down. ”

“ So Harry fell to chafing the cold, skeleton-like hands, while Joe eagerly lighted the little oil lamp and soon had a pot of hot tea made, sheltered from the wind in the forward locker of the dingey. He poured this between the clenched teeth of the unconscious man, who choked a bit as it went down and opened his eyes.
“There!” said Joe; “I thought that would fetch him. It’s strong enough to raise the dead and—well, I guess it’s pretty hot, too. Lucky we stocked the dingey this way, ain’t it? Whew! how it does snow. ”

“ It is also a weapon of defense far more formidable than the horns. A blow from it is like that of an axe, and woe to the hunter who comes within reach of the fore hoofs of a wounded and desperate caribou. ”

“ Harluk would not join Harry and Joe in their exploration of Nunaria. It sufficed for him to point it out from the bluff opposite. They set out alone. Strange sights met their eyes in this village. Traces of former topeks could be found here and there by the white bones, which showed in the grass. Others built of stone had partly fallen in, but still in part retained their shape. From one of these a white fox bounded, and, on looking within, they found a litter of young foxes snuggled within the remnants of some ancient fur garments, among the bones of the man that had worn them. ”

“ But while the Siberian deer is easily domesticated and is bred and handled in vast herds by the natives, the American type is wild and untamable. He loves the barren wastes of the far north, and every summer migrates to the northernmost shores, even passing on to the unexplored islands off the coast in the Arctic sea. Here he roams and feeds until the fierce gales of winter drive him south to the first shelter of the low clumps of firs and birches which mark the limits of the barren grounds. ”