The Blue Envelope Part 16

"Can--can we cross the Straits?" Marian asked, breathless with emotion.

"I think so."

"How?"

"Got a new guide. I'll show you. Be ready in a half-hour. Bring your pictures and a little food. Not much. Wear snowshoes. Ice is terribly piled up."

He disappeared in the direction of his own igloo.

Marian looked about the cozy deerskin home where were stored their few belongings, then gazed away at the ma.s.ses of deep purple shadows that stretched across the imprisoned ocean. For a moment courage failed her.

"Perhaps," she said to herself, "it would be better to try to winter here."

But even as she thought this, she caught a vision of that time when she and her companion had been crowded out of a native village to s.h.i.+ft for themselves. Then, too, she thought of the possible starving-time in the spring, after the white bear had gone north and before walrus would come, or trading schooners.

"No," she said out loud, "no, we'd better try it."

When the girls joined Phi on the edge of the ice-floe, they looked about for the guide but saw none. Only Rover barked them a welcome.

"Where's the guide?" asked Lucile.

"You'll see. C'm'on," said the boy, leading the way.

For a mile they traveled over the solid sh.o.r.e-ice. They then came to a stretch of water, dark as midnight. At the edge of this was a two-seated kiak.

Phi motioned Lucile to a seat. Deftly, he paddled her across to the other side. It was with a sinking feeling that she felt herself silently carried toward the north by the gigantic ice-floe.

Marian and the dog were quickly ferried over. Then, after drawing the kiak upon the ice, the boy turned directly north and began walking rapidly. At times he broke into a run.

"Have to make good time," he explained as he s.n.a.t.c.hed Marian's roll of sketches from her hand. "Got to get the trail."

They did make good time. Alternately running and walking, they kept up a pace of some six or seven miles an hour.

"Why, I thought--thought we were going to go east," puffed Marian.

"We're just going down the beach."

Phi did not answer.

They had raced on for nearly an hour when they suddenly came upon a kiak drawn up as theirs had been on the ice.

"Ah! I thought so," said the boy. "Now's the time for a guide. Here, Rover!"

He seized the dog by his collar and set him on the invisible trail of the men who had deserted that kiak. The dog walked slowly away, sniffing the ice as he went. His course was due east. The three followed him in silence. Presently his speed increased. He took on an air of confidence. With tail up, ears back, he sniffed the ice only now and then as he dashed over great, flat pans, then over little mountains of broken ice, to emerge again upon flat surfaces.

Marian understood, and her admiration for Phi grew. He had found the trail of the men who had crossed the Straits before them. He had put Rover on that trail. Rover could not fail to follow. The trail was fresh, only seven hours old. Rover could have followed one as many days old.

"Good old Rover," Marian murmured, "good old Rover, a white man's dog."

All at once a question came to her mind. They had been obliged to go several miles north to pick up the trail. This was due to the movement of the floe. This movement still continued. It was carrying them still farther to the north. The Diomede Islands, halfway station of the Straits, were small; they offered a goal only two or three miles in length. If they were carried much farther north, would they not miss the islands?

She confided her fears to Phi.

"I thought of that," he smiled. "There is a little danger of that, but not much, I guess. You see, I'll try to time our rate of travel, and figure out as closely as I can when we have covered the eighteen miles that should bring us even with the islands. Then, too, old Rover will be losing the trail about that time. When that bearded friend of yours and his guide leave the floe to go upon the solid sh.o.r.e ice of the islands, the floe is going to keep right on moving north. That breaks the trail, see? When we strike the end of that trail we can go due south and hit the islands. If the air is at all clear, we can see them. It's a clumsy arrangement, but better than going it without a trail."

Marian did "see," but this did not entirely still the wild beating of her heart as she leaped a yawning chasm between giant up-ended cakes of ice, or felt her way cautiously across a strip of newly-formed ice that bent under her weight as if it were made of rubber.

It was with a strange, wild thrill that she realized they were far out over the conquered sea. Hundreds of feet below was the bed of Bering Straits. Above that bed a wild, swirling current of frigid salt water raced.

Once, as they were about to cross a stretch of new ice, Phi threw himself flat and hacked a hole through the ice. Water bubbled up, while Marian caught the wild surging rush of the current.

For a second her knees trembled, her face blanched. Phi saw and smiled.

"Never fear," he exclaimed; "we'll make it all right. And when you get back home you'll have a story to tell that will make Eliza's crossing on the ice seem like a picnic party crossing a trout stream on stepping-stones."

It was not long after that, however, when even this daring boy's face sobered. Old Rover, who had been following the trail unhesitatingly, suddenly came to a halt. He turned to the right, sniffing the ice.

Then he turned to the left. After that he looked up into the face of the boy, as if to say:

"Where's the trail gone?"

Phi examined the ice carefully.

"Been a sudden jam here," he muttered; "then the ice has slid along, some north, some south. It has all happened since our friends pa.s.sed this way. You just wait here. I'll take Rover to the north and let him pick up the trail. When I find it, I'll come back far enough to call to you. May be to the south, though, but we'll soon see."

He disappeared around a giant ice-pile and, in a twinkling, was lost to view.

The two girls, placing their burdens of food and Marian's sketches on an up-ended ice-cake, sat down to wait. They were growing weary. The strain of the adventure into this puzzling, unknown ice-field was telling on their nerves.

"I wish we were safe at Cape Prince of Wales," sighed Marian.

"Yes, or even East Cape," said Lucile. "I think I'd be content to stay there and chance the year with the natives."

"Anyway, Phi's doing his best," said Marian. "Isn't he a strange one, though? Do you think he has the blue envelope?"

"I don't know."

"Well, I think he has."

"I don't know," Lucile said sleepily. Fatigue and the keen Arctic air were making her drowsy.

Presently, she leaned back against an ice-cake and fell asleep.

"I'll let her sleep," Marian mused. "It'll give her strength for what comes next, whatever that is."

An hour pa.s.sed, but no call echoed across the silent white expanse.

Marian, now pacing back and forth across a narrow ice-pan, now pausing to listen, felt her anxiety redoubled by every succeeding moment. What could have happened to Phi? Had some mishap befallen him? Had a slip thrown him into some dangerous crevice? Had thin ice dropped him to sure death in the surging undercurrent? Or had he merely wandered too far and lost his way?

Whatever may have happened, he did not return.

At length, with patience exhausted, she climbed the highest ice-pile and gazed away to the north. The first glance brought forth a cry of dismay. A narrow lane of dark water, stretching from east to west, extended as far as eye could see in each direction. It lay not a quarter of a mile from the spot where she stood.