Danger Signals Part 23

"'Well, young man, this s.h.i.+p--by the way, the finest whaler that was ever stuck together--is named for a friend of mine; just such a man as she is a s.h.i.+p--the best of them all.'

"'Was he a sailor?'

"'Aye, aye, sir, and such a sailor. Fight! why, man, fighting was meat and drink to him--'

"'Was he a whaler?'

"'No, he wa'n't; but he was the best man I ever knew who wa'n't a whaler. He was a navy sailor, he was, and a whole ten-pound battery by hisself. Why, you jest ort to see him waltz his old tin-clad gun-boat up agin one of them reb forts--jest naturally skeered 'em half to death before he commenced shooting at all.'

"'Wasn't he killed at the attack on Vicksburg?'

"'Yes, yes; you knowed him didn't you? He was a--'

"'He was my father.'

"'What? Your father?' yelled Captain Burrows, jumping up and grasping both my hands. 'Of course he was; darn my lubberly wit that I couldn't see that before!' Then he hugged me as if I was a ten-year-old girl, and danced around me like a maniac.

"'By all the G.o.ds at once, if this don't seem like Providence--yes, sir, old man Providence himself! What are you a-doin'? When did you come out here? Where be you goin', anyway?'

"I found my breath, and told him briefly how I was situated. 'Old man Providence has got his hand on the tiller of this craft or I'm a grampus! Say! do you know I was wis.h.i.+n' and waitin' for you? Yes, sir; no more than yesterday, says I to myself, Chuck Burrows, says I, you are gettin' long too fur to the wind'ard o' sixty fur this here trip all to yourself. You ort to have young blood in this here enterprise; and then I just clubbed myself for being a lubber and not getting married young and havin' raised a son that I could trust. Yes, sir, jest nat'rally cussed myself from stem to stern, and never onct thought as mebbe my old messmate, Duncan McDonald, might 'a'done suthin' for his country afore that day at Vicks--say! I want to give you half this s.h.i.+p. Mabee I'll do the square thing and give you the whole of the tub yet. All I want is for you to go along with me on a voyage of discovery--be my helper, secretary, partner, friend--anything. What de ye say? Say!' he yelled again, before I could answer, 'tell ye what I'll do! Bless me if--if I don't adopt ye; that's what I'll do. Call me pop from this out, and I'll call you son. _Son!_' he shouted, bringing his fist down with a bang on the table. '_Son!_ that's the stuff! By the bald-headed Abraham, who says Chuck Burrows ain't got no kin? The "Duncan McDonald," Burrows & Son, owners, captain, chief cook, and blubber cooker. And who the h.e.l.l says they ain't?'

"And the old captain glared around as if he defied anybody and everybody to question the validity of the claims so excitedly made.

"Well, gentlemen, of course there was much else said and done, but that announcement stood; and to the day of his death I always called the captain Father Burrows, and he called me 'son,' always addressing me so when alone, as well as when in the company of others. I went every day to the s.h.i.+p, or accompanied Father Burrows on some errand into the city, while the boat was being refitted and prepared for a three-years'

cruise.

"Every day the captain let me more and more into his plans, told me interesting things of the North, and explained his theory of the way to reach the Pole, and what could be found there; which fascinated me.

Captain Burrows had spent years in the North, had noted that particularly open seasons occurred in what appeared cycles of a given number of years, and proposed to go above the eightieth parallel and wait for an open season. That, according to his figuring, would occur the following year.

"I was young, vigorous, and of a venturesome spirit, and entered into every detail with a zest that captured the heart of the old sailor. My education helped him greatly, and new books and instruments were added to our store for use on the trip. The crew knew only that we were going on a three-years' cruise. They had no share in the profits, but were paid extra big wages in gold, and were expected to go to out-of-the-way places and further north than usual. Captain Burrows and myself only knew that there was a brand-new twenty-foot silk flag rolled up in oil-skin in the cabin, and that Father Burrows had declared: 'By the h.o.a.ry-headed Nebblekenizer, I'll put them stars and stripes on new land, and mighty near to the Pole, or start a b.u.t.t a-trying.'

"In due course of time we were all ready, and the 'Duncan McDonald'

pa.s.sed out of the Golden Gate into the broad Pacific, drew her fires, and stopped her engines, reserving this force for a more urgent time.

She spread her ample canvas, and stood away toward Alaska and the unknown and undiscovered beyond.

"The days were not long for me, for they were full of study and antic.i.p.ation. Long chats with the eccentric but masterful man whose friends.h.i.+p and love for my father had brought us together were the entertainment and stimulus of my existence--a man who knew nothing of science, except that he was master of it in his own way; who knew all about navigation, and to whom the northern seas were as familiar as the contour of Boston Common was to me; who had more stories of whaling than you could find in print, and better ones than can ever be printed.

"I learned first to respect, then to admire, and finally to love this old salt. How many times he told me of my father's death, and how and when he had risked his life to save the life of Father Burrows or some of the rest of his men. As the days grew into weeks, and the weeks into months, Captain Burrows and myself became as one man.

"I shall never forget the first Sunday at sea. Early in the morning I heard the captain order the boatswain to pipe all hands to prayers. I had noticed nothing of a religious nature in the man, and, full of curiosity, went on deck with the rest. Captain Burrows took off his hat at the foot of the mainmast, and said:

"'My men, this is the first Sunday we have all met together; and as some of you are not familiar with the religious services on board the 'Duncan McDonald,' I will state that, as you may have noticed, I asked no man about his belief when I employed him--I hired you to simply work this s.h.i.+p, not to wors.h.i.+p G.o.d--but on Sundays it is our custom to meet here in friends.h.i.+p, man to man, Protestant and Catholic, Mohammedan, Buddhist, Fire-wors.h.i.+per, and pagan, and look into our own hearts, wors.h.i.+ping G.o.d as we know him, each in his own way. If any man has committed any offense against his G.o.d, let him make such reparation as he thinks will appease that G.o.d; but if any man has committed an offense against his fellow-man, let him settle with that man now and here, and not worry G.o.d with the details. Religion is goodness and justice and honesty; no man needs a sky-pilot to lay a course for him, for he alone knows where the channel, and the rocks, and the bar of his own heart are--look into your hearts.'

"Captain Burrows stood with his hat in his hand, and bowed as if in prayer, and all the old tars bowed as reverently as if the most eloquent divine was exhorting an unseen power in their behalf. The new men followed the example of the old. It was just three minutes by the wheel-house clock before the captain straightened up and said 'Amen,'

and the men turned away about their tasks.

"'Beats mumblin' your words out of a book, like a Britisher,' said the captain to me; 'can't offend no man's religion, and helps every one on 'em.'

"Long months after, I attended a burial service conducted in the same way--in silence.

"In due course of time we anch.o.r.ed in Norton Sound, and spent the rest of the winter there; and in the spring of sixty-eight, we worked our way north through the ice. We pa.s.sed the seventy-fifth parallel of lat.i.tude on July 4th. During the summer we took a number of whales, storing away as much oil as the captain thought necessary, as he only wanted it for fuel and our needs, intending to take none home to sell unless we were unsuccessful in the line of discovery--in that event he intended to stay until he had a full cargo."

Here our entertainer gave out, and had to rest; and while resting he went to sleep, so that he did not take up his story until the next day.

In the morning our guest expressed a desire to be taken on deck; and, dressed in warm sailor clothes, he rested his hand on my shoulder, and slowly crawled on deck and to a sheltered corner beside the captain's cabin. Here he was bundled up; and again Enoch and I sat down to listen to the strange story of the wanderer.

"I hope it won't annoy you, gentlemen," said he, "but I can't settle down without my pack; I find myself thinking of its safety. Would you mind sending down for it?"

It was brought up, and set down beside him; he looked at it lovingly, slipped the rude strap-loop over his arm, and seemed ready to take up his story where he left off. He began:

"I don't remember whether I told you or not, but one of the objects of Captain Burrows's trip was to settle something definite about the location of the magnetic pole, and other magnetic problems, and determine the cause of some of the well-known distortions of the magnetic needle. He had some odd, perhaps crude, instruments, of his own design, which he had caused to be constructed for this purpose, and we found them very efficient devices in the end. Late in July, we found much open water, and steamed steadily in a northwesterly course. We would find a great field of icebergs, then miles of floe, and then again open water. The aurora was seen every evening, but it seemed pale and white.

"Captain Burrows brought the 'Duncan McDonald's' head around to the west in open water, one fine day in early August, and cruised slowly; taking a great many observations, and hunting, as he told me, for floating ice--he was hunting for a current. For several days we kept in the open water, but close to the ice, until one morning the captain ordered the s.h.i.+p to stand due north across the open sea.

"He called me into his cabin, and with a large map of the polar regions on his table, to which he often referred, he said: 'Son, I've been hunting for a current; there's plenty of 'em in the Arctic ocean, but the one I want ain't loafing around here. You see, son, it's currents that carries these icebergs and floes south; I didn't tell you, but some days when we were in those floes, we lost as much as we gained. We worked our way north through the floe, but not on the surface of the globe; the floe was taking us south with it. Maybe you won't believe it, but there are currents going north in this sea; once or twice in a lifetime, a whaler or pa.s.sage hunter returns with a story of being drifted _north_--now that's what I want, I am hunting for a northern current. We will go to the northern sh.o.r.e of this open water, be it one mile or one thousand, and there--well, hunt again.'

"Well, it was in September when we at last got to what seemed the northern sh.o.r.e of this open sea. We had to proceed very slowly, as there were almost daily fogs and occasional snow-storms; but one morning the s.h.i.+p rounded to, almost under the shadow of what seemed to be a giant iceberg. Captain Burrows came on deck, rubbing his hands in glee.

"'Son,' said he, 'that is no iceberg; that's ancient ice, perpetual ice, the great ice-ring--palaecrystic ice, you scientific fellows call it. I saw it once before, in thirty-seven, when a boy; that's it, and, son, beyond that there is something. Take notice that that is ice; clear, glary ice. You know a so-called iceberg is really a s...o...b..rg; it's three-fourths under water. Now, it may be possible that, that being ice which will float more than half out of water, the northern currents may go under it--but I don't believe it. Under or over, I am going to find one of 'em, if it takes till doomsday.'

[Ill.u.s.tration: "What seemed to be a giant iceberg...."]

"We sailed west, around close to this great wall of ice, for two weeks, without seeing any evidence of a current of any kind, until there came on a storm from the northwest that drove a great deal of ice around the great ring; but it seemed to keep rather clear of the great wall of ice and to go off in a tangent toward the south. The lead showed no bottom at one hundred fathoms, even within a quarter of a mile of the ice.

"It was getting late in the season, the mercury often going down to fifteen below zero, and every night the aurora became brighter. We sailed slowly around the open water, and finally found a place where the sheer precipice of ice disappeared and the sh.o.r.e sloped down to something like a beach. Putting out a sea-anchor, the 'Duncan McDonald'

kept within a half-a-mile of this icy sh.o.r.e. The captain had determined to land and survey the place, which far away back seemed to terminate in mountain peaks of ice.

"That night the captain and I sat on the rail of our s.h.i.+p, talking over the plans for to-morrow's expedition, when the s.h.i.+p slowly but steadily swung around her stern to the mountain of ice--the engines had been moving slowly to keep her head to the wind. Captain Burrows jumped to his feet in joy. 'A current!' he shouted; 'a current, and toward the north, too--old man Providence again, son; he allus takes care of his own!'

"Some staves were thrown overboard, and, sure enough, they floated toward the ice; but there was no evidence of an opening in the mighty ring, and I remarked to Captain Burrows that the current evidently went under the ice.

"'It looks like it did, son; it looks like it did; but if it goes under, we will go over.'

"After we had taken a few hours of sleep, the long-boat landed our little party of five men and seven dogs. We had food and drink for a two weeks' trip, were well armed, and carried some of our instruments. It appeared to be five or six miles to the top of the mountain, but it proved more than thirty. We were five days in getting there, and did so only after a dozen adventures that I will tell you at another time.

"We soon began to find stones and dirt in the ice, and before we had gone ten miles, found the frozen carca.s.s of an immense mastodon--its great tusks only showing above the level; but its huge, woolly body quite plainly visible in the ice. The ice was melting, and there were many streams running towards the open water. It was warmer as we proceeded. Dirt and rocks became the rule, instead of the exception, and we were often obliged to go around a great boulder of granite. While we were resting, on the third day, for a bite to eat, one of the men took a dish, scooped up some sand from the bottom of the icy stream, and 'panned' it out. There was gold in it: gold enough to pay to work the ground. About noon of the fifth day, we reached the summit of the mountain, and from there looked down the other side--upon a sight the like of which no white men had ever seen before.

"From the very summits of this icy-ring mountain the northern side was a sheer precipice of more than three thousand feet, and was composed of rocks, and rocks only, the foot of the mighty crags being washed by an open ocean; and this was lighted up by a peculiar crimson glow. Great white whales sported in the waters; huge sea-birds hung in circles high in the air; yet below us, and with our gla.s.ses, we could see, on the rocks at the foot of the crags, seals and some other animals that were strange to us. But follow the line of beetling crags and mountain peaks where you would, the northern side presented a solid blank wall of awful rocks, in many places the summit overhanging and the sh.o.r.e well under in the mighty shadow. Nothing that any of us had ever seen in nature before was so impressive, so awful. We started on our return, after a couple of hours of the awe-inspiring sight beyond the great ring, and for full two hours not a man spoke.

"'Father Burrows,' said I, 'what do you think that is back there?'

"'No man knows, my son, and it will devolve on you and me to name it; but we won't unless we get to it and can take back proofs.'

"'Do you think we could get down the other side?'

"'No, I don't think so, and we seem to have struck it in the lowest spot in sight. I'd give ten years of my life if the 'Duncan McDonald' was over there in that duck pond.'

"'Captain,' said Eli Jeffries, the second mate, 'do you know what I've been thinkin'? I believe that 'ere water we seen is an open pa.s.sage from the Behring side of the frozen ocean over agin' some of them 'ere Roosian straits. If we could get round to the end of it, we'd sail right through the great Northwest Pa.s.sage.'