CHAPTER XIII
BRUCE AND THE BEAR
During this time of mishaps and adventures for the submarine party, what was happening to the boys and the Major in their airplane? With fair wind and weather they might well have been on the return journey from the Pole. But fair wind and weather are not for long in the Arctic. They were, indeed, on their way. As they shot away into the air from the native village near the trader's schooner, they heard the natives calling one word in unison. It was the Eskimo name for Thunder-bird.
The Major smiled happily at the boys as the plane soared upward.
Barney was again at the wheel. Two things he dreaded now: engine trouble, which might be brought on by poor gasoline, and an Arctic blizzard. If forced to land at any time, they would be in great danger of a crash, and a storm would double the danger.
But there could never have been a more wonderful day than that on which they left the little camp for the great adventure. Not a cloud whitened the blue dome of the sky, not a breath of air stirred. Soon the sun sank from sight, and twilight, strange and wonderful, lasting through three long hours, faded slowly into night. Then below them lay yellow lights and deep purple shadows, with here and there a stretch of black, which told of open water between floes.
The air grew colder as night came on, and speeding northward they saw the thermometer dropping degree by degree, and felt the chill creep through their garments in defiance of their electrical heating device. Barney began to worry about the effect of this intense cold on the tempered steel of his engines and the many-layered wood of his propellers; but as they sped on hour after hour, this restlessness left him.
But what was this? He found the machine shooting through space with greater freedom. One answer there was: a storm. They had been caught in the advance of a blizzard; how great and terrible, none could tell.
"Going to storm. Better land," telephoned the Major.
Obeying his orders, the boy dropped to a lower level. Here the wind was more intense and the air was filled with fine particles of snow which raced with them, only to glide away into the background. The whole ice-floe was already gray and indistinct from the drift. To pick a landing-place seemed impossible. For several moments of agonizing suspense they sped on; then, just as they were about to despair, there appeared before them a long expanse of white. Wide as three city boulevards, endless in extent, it appeared to offer just the opportunity they were seeking.
With a sign Barney shut off his engine, and, sailing on the wind, waited for a lull to give him a safe landing.
The lull came, then with a swoop, like a wild duck seeking water, they hovered, settled, then touched the surface.
The landing-wheels were shooting along over the snow with Barney's keen eyes strained ahead that he might avoid possible rough spots, when there came a cry of dismay from Bruce. With one startled glance about, Barney saw all. To the right and left of them the ice seemed to rise like the walls of an inverted tent. "Rubber-ice," his mind told him like a flash. They had attempted to land where the water had but recently frozen over, and was covered with a deceptive coating of snow. Only one hope remained: to rise again. Once the weak rubber-ice—thin, elastic salt-water ice—gave way, nothing could save them.
Tilting the planes and tail to their utmost capacity, Barney set first one engine in motion and then the other. But the yielding ice gave them no purchase. At the same time, it impeded their progress by offering them the slope of a mountain side to climb. One thing favored them. The peril of a moment before became a blessing. The wind freshened at every blast. At last, with a terrific swoop, it seized them and sent them whirling upward. In the down-swoop, they were all but crashed on a towering pile of ice, but escaping this fate, once more they were away.
Despite this near-catastrophe, Barney was determined to make a landing. The chill of the storm was so benumbing to muscles and senses that further flying could only result in stupor, then death.
Again he sank low and scudded along on the wings of the wind. To his great joy, he soon saw that they were passing over flat stretches of white. There could be no mistake this time; they were ice-pans, perhaps a quarter-mile across, such pans as form in quiet bays, to float away and drift north in the spring. Again he stopped his engines, determined, if he must, to circle and return to the flats he had passed. This did not prove necessary, however, and, to their great relief, the three were soon threshing their arms and stamping their feet on a solid cake of ice, and so vast that it seemed they must be on land, not hundreds of miles from shore on the bosom of a great ocean, which might, at the very point they stood, be a half-mile in depth.
Their first concern was to make camp. This storm might rage for days, and already they saw white spots forming on one another's cheeks, telling of frost-bites.
"We can't camp here in the open," said the Major. "Have to carry our blankets and sleeping-bags to the rougher ice yonder, where we can build a house of snow."
The suggestion was no sooner made than the boys were delving into the inner recesses of the plane and dragging out equipment and supplies.
"Primus stove, dried potatoes, pemmican, evaporated eggs, pickled butter, hard-tack, chocolate, beef tea, coffee," Barney called off. "Not bad for near the Pole."
The dogs were hitched to the small sled and soon all were racing away before the wind to the spot chosen for the camp. In a short time they were busy constructing a rude shelter, and the airplane for the moment was forgotten.
In the meantime, the wind was increasing, and the wings of the plane, catching first this swirl, then that one, began making great gyrating circles, cutting the air with a crack and a burr that might be heard rods away. Though these sounds did not reach the men, busy with the snow-shack, they did reach listening ears—a great white bear, wandering the floes in search of some sleeping seal, stood first on all fours, then on his haunches, to listen. Then, with many a misgiving and many a pause, he made his cautious way to the edge of that particular ice-flat where the plane rested. Thence, after more misgivings, he trundled his awkward body across the flat and took a position close to the plane, where, on his haunches, he stood and watched the apparently playful antics of the plane as if he thought it some great bird that had come to infest his domain.
Presently, when the plane nearest him seemed about to swoop down and touch the ice, he moved to a position beneath it, and, with tongue lolling, stood on his haunches again and swinging his giant paw to accompany the swing of the plane, struck out as it approached him. To his surprise, the plane did not come within twenty feet of the ice surface. He sank back on his haunches and awaited further developments.
When the snow-hut was completed, the first thought of the Major and the boys was of something to eat.
"Something hot!" exclaimed Barney, rattling away at the primus stove.
Then he sat up with a look of disgust on his face.
"The needles for the primus," he groaned. "They're still over in the plane!"
"I'll get them," said Bruce, beginning to draw on his heavy parka. Soon he was fighting the wind back to the position of the plane. He had not battled with the elements long before he began to realize that all would not be well if the plane were left in its present position, unanchored as it was. And when he caught the hum and whirr of the wind through the wings, he was more thoroughly convinced of the fact than ever. As he came near and could see the long tilting toss of the wings, he realized that something must be done and at once. For a second he hesitated; should he return and call his companions, or should he attempt to anchor the plane, temporarily at least, unaided? He decided upon the latter course, and went at once to the body of the plane where were stored light, strong ropes of silk, and ice-anchors. He did not see the bear sitting patiently on his haunches beneath the tip of the long wing. Indeed, the snow-fog made it impossible, and it was equally impossible for the bear to see him.
Having secured four ropes and four ice-anchors, Bruce took two of the ropes and began climbing out on the right wing of the plane. His plan was to attach the ropes to the extremity of the wing, cast them down to the surface where he would anchor them later in each direction away from the tip of the wing. He would repeat the operation with the other wing, and, drawing the ropes down snugly, thus make the plane tight and steady.
He had climbed quite to the extremity of the wing and was about to tie his first rope, when a fierce gust of wind threatened to tear him from the rigging and crash him to the ice, a dangerous distance below. With a quick clutch, he saved himself but lost the rope. It was with a grunt of disgust that he saw it wind and twirl toward the white surface below. Then it was, for the first time, that he saw the yellowish-white object huddled there on the ice waiting.
"A bear!" he groaned, and instinctively reached for his automatic.
But at that instant there came a fresh swoop of wind that set the plane gyrating more violently than ever.
Clinging grimly to the bars, Bruce felt the wing swing down, down, then in toward the bear, till it seemed it must crash into the great creature. Before the plane rose Bruce felt a chill run down his spine. Not ten feet beneath him was the savage face of the bear. All his gleaming white teeth showed in an ugly grin, as he stood on his haunches one mighty fore-paw raised in air, like a traffic policeman signaling a car to stop.
Then again the wing whirled to dizzy heights. Bruce was now quite ready to climb back the length of the wing and depart for camp to summon assistance. But to loosen his grip, even of one hand for an instant, was to court death. Again he felt the sickening sink of the plane, as if it were an elevator-car loosed from its cable. And this time, he felt instinctively, the wing would scrape the ice. And the bear, if he were still there? Well, there was going to be a crash and a general mix-up.
Bruce had been a football player in his day and was aware that there were times, if one were at the bottom of the heap, when relaxation was the play. As far as his position made it possible, he relaxed. And, in the meantime the plane swept downward.
For one fleeting instant he saw the white traffic cop of the Arctic wilderness still standing with paw upraised. Then everything was a blinding, deafening crash of ice and snow, wood, canvas and white bear.
Bruce gathered himself up some rods from the scene of the crash. Relaxed as he was, he had rolled like a football over the ice and had escaped with a few bruises. But the plane? As he caught a fleeting glimpse of it disappearing in the murky fog, he felt sure that it would take days, perhaps weeks, to repair it.
"And the worst is not yet! She's still swinging!" he groaned, rising stiffly.
But immediately his mind was turned to the white "cop." How had he fared? The boy felt for his automatic. Fortune favored him; it was still in his holster. This was well, for the white bear, very much shaken but still game, having wrought further havoc with the debris left by the demolished wing, was charging down upon him.
Standing his ground, Bruce waited until the bear was within six paces. One stroke from that giant paw would end the struggle. His aim must be true and certain. Suddenly his hand went to his side for a hip-shot. Put-put-put-put. Four bullets smashed into the bear, bringing him to a standstill. Put-put-put-put. With a roar, the bear sank to the ice. In a second he was dead.
It was with a feeling almost of regret that Bruce bent over the giant beast. But it was with a sense of new power that he noted that seven of his bullets had crashed through the Arctic Goliath's skull.
Again his mind was turned toward the plane. Cold and hungry as they were, he realized that he and his two companions must spend the next hour making their craft safe from further damage.
Three hours, indeed, elapsed before they were again seated in the snow-cabin. This time the primus stove was going and the coffee coming to a boil.
"Well," said the Major, "I'm glad we're all here. We'll be delayed for several days. We may have lost the race. But we won't give up. As long as our plane has wings we'll keep on. No race is ever lost until the goal is reached and passed. Let's eat."
"Anyway," said Barney, as he sipped his cup of hot coffee, "we won't run out of dog meat and hamburger soon. I'll bet Bruce's bear weighs a thousand pounds dressed."
"Fourteen inches between the ears," grinned Bruce proudly.