CHAPTER XVIII
THE PERIL OF THE SURF
After Jean and Loll had left for the West Camp that morning Harlan, Boreland and Kayak Bill set to work repairing the roof of the cabin and the porch. From his position astride the peak Harlan could hear Ellen busy at her tasks indoors. As the tide began to run in he saw her come to the door from time to time and walk down onto the beach to look for the absent ones. Apparently she was vaguely uneasy. The Island's possibilities for good or bad were yet unknown to her and she was evidently never quite secure in her mind when any of her household was out of her sight. After one of the last excursions to the beach she had spoken of the fact that the waves had reached the base of the cliff.
"They won't be able to come now for a while," she said, addressing the men on the roof. And then she added: "Could two of you give me a little help inside, Shane? I need to move the bed."
Kayak and Boreland accordingly slid down from the ridge and followed her into the house.
Gregg paused in his work of nailing tar-paper over the boards, and stretched wide his arms. He was taking a cursory glance toward the incoming tide when his attention was attracted by the figure of Kobuk ambling up the trail from the beach. The dog was dripping wet and at intervals he stopped to shake himself violently. Kobuk must have been playing along the edge of the surf, Harlan thought. And yet, he must have crossed the sands below the bluff . . . and the tide was only an hour from the flood. . . . But of course Jean would not dream of attempting a crossing now. He took up his hammer again. . . . Suddenly he hooked it over the ridge. At any rate, he would go down and make certain. . .
Slipping off the roof he ran down to the beach. There he sped along its curve until his eye could command the length of the bluff. . . . He stopped aghast. Midway Jean and the boy were coming on, stumbling across the sand left bare by a receding wave, dashing to the ragged base of the cliff and clinging to it while the incoming comber broke and seethed about them, then rushing on again! Owing to the storm of the past days the billows were higher than usual. Also there was yet the most dangerous portion of the way to be traversed.
With a call for help Harlan started toward them, he also racing as the breakers ran out, and climbing the cliff out of their reach as they broke.
He shouted to Jean to attract her attention. If he could only sign to her to ascend the bluff and hold fast till he came! Vainly he tried to make his voice heard above the deafening roar. She neither heard nor saw him. . . . Desperately he plunged on, not taking time now to climb up for his own safety, but ploughing through the onrushing waves. Once a crashing comber caught and threw him flat on the shifting gravel. Before he could right himself it had sucked him almost into the maw of the next down-curling sea. Fortunately it was a small one. He was able to regain his feet and stagger to a hand hold.
Then at the same instant that Jean's eye caught it, he became aware of the huge, unbroken billow advancing toward the struggling figures of the girl and boy. He saw her snatch up the child and toss him to the safety of the ledge, saw her ineffectual efforts to follow . . . then the dancing crest broke and Jean became but a formless dark object tossed like a drift-log on the foaming waters that spouted against the foot of the bluff.
With a despairing cry, Harlan plunged forward, and as the great wave, the first of three, receded, he reached her.
Limp and unconscious she hung from the rope that bound her to the terrified small boy above, and he saw that the little fellow had taken a turn with it about a jagged rock. But for this timely precaution the girl must have been drawn back into the sea and the child with her.
An extra long recession of the water gave him time to lift the inert body and throw it across his shoulder, and thus, while the second giant roller broke at his hack he gripped with his torn hands into the sharp shale and held on. As it ebbed he hoisted her to the ledge above him.
From the temporary safety of this narrow shelf he considered their chances. It was impossible to scale the face of the bluff above him, yet the tide would not be full for an hour. Owing to the enormous sea, they would all three be swept into the ocean if they remained where they were. There was but one thing he could do.
He laid a hand on Loll's quaking shoulder.
"Pal," he said quietly, "will you be afraid to stay here while I carry
Jean to the other side of the bluff?"
The boy looked down at the clamorous, booming tide and hesitated. . . . He swallowed hard, blinking. Then he looked at the inert form of his aunt, and meeting Harlan's eyes, shook his head bravely.
"Good! Hang on tight then, old man, and I'll be back for you before you can say 'Jack Robinson'!"
He cut the rope about Jean's waist, and backing down from the ledge, took her again across his shoulder. As Lollie's hand reached out and began coiling the rope, he turned to watch the breakers, that he might time the first dash of his flight back to safety.
The tide was higher now, the combers nearer, and he had but one free hand with which to cling to the base of the bluff when the enveloping waters rose about him. He plunged. He staggered. . . . His senses after a few moments were bludgeoned into numbness by the roar of the sea; his body was sore from the impact of beating water and stinging gravel. He struggled on step by step, feeling his way along the shifting beach, until only the primal instinct of self-preservation was guiding him in the grim game with the tide.
At last he reached the other end of the bluff. He reeled up to the dry sand and let the body of the girl slip from his shoulder. As he did so he heard a shout. Boreland and his wife were running down from the cabin trail. He did not pause but plunged back again through the drenching maelstrom.
In a moment their frantic calls were swallowed up in the deafening roar of waters. Would he have strength to fight his way back? Would he find the boy where he had left him, or had a comber swept him off the narrow shelf? Harlan was unutterably weary now. He longed to let go his hold on the rocky wall, to cease fighting, and let himself be taken out into obliteration; but he drove himself on . . . and on. . . . After a long while he gained the perilous perch where Loll bravely awaited him above the roar.
He rested a moment. The little fellow's absolute faith in him gave him the will to fight his way back again. He took the child on his shoulders and once more plunged into the watery hell.
How he returned to safety he never knew. He was conscious only of reaching the place where Jean lay . . . of asking whether or not the girl was still alive . . . then the great weariness overpowered him. He sank down on the sand beside Jean, and Lollie's glad shout, as he was clasped in his mother's arms, floated through his mental numbness like a clear toy balloon drifting up in a fog.
Three hours later Harlan was resting on the bed in the living-room. In the adjoining room where Jean lay in her little bunk he knew that the girl was hearing, from Ellen's guarded lips, the story of her rescue. On recovering consciousness she had tried to rise, but one side, where she had struck against the rocks, was bruised and so painful that, though she rebelled, she would be obliged to remain in bed for the remainder of the day at least.
Loll had already told the story of the mysterious animal tracks by the lake, and the scattered flour at the cache. Boreland had taken his rifle and gone down to the place as soon as the tide permitted. As Harlan lay there thinking, he was filled with an intense relief—he knew now that the spectre of the tundra that had so worried him was no creature of his own disordered brain. Whatever it might be, it was of flesh and blood. He could speak of it now.
Boreland returned about supper time.
"Did you see 'em, dad?" shouted Loll as his father came in the door.
"What was it, Shane?" Jean called from the other room.
Boreland replaced his rifle in the rack over the head of the bed.
"Bear tracks," he answered succinctly. "Hind foot measures fourteen and a half inches!"