CHAPTER XXII
THE WOLF TRAIL
The hole into which Mark fell was not many yards across; but when he came to the surface of the icy water he found that the edge of the strong ice was fringed with open jaws and lolling, blood-red tongues. The wolves had surrounded the open bit of water and were prepared to welcome him with wide jaws wherever he sought to climb out.
The lad knew well enough that he was helpless against these foes. To seek to reach the ice would be to give himself up to the savage brutes. Nor could he remain long afloat in this ice-cold water. He was already chilled to his very marrow.
Mark was in a perilous position indeed. He could bear up but a few moments. He knew that if he again sank beneath the surface he would never rise again.
And so he struggled mightily to keep his head above water. The wolves did not dare leap in to seize him; they did not have to. In their canine minds they probably knew that the boy would have to come to them. But fortunately for Mark the wolves had given tongue when they chased him over the ice. Otherwise the boy's friends might not have been warned of his predicament until too late to be of assistance to him.
But the moment the wolves gave tongue Andy Sudds had started with a whoop for the cache of bear meat. Jack and Phineas Roebach followed with their weapons.
Coming in sight of the slavering pack, as they whined about the open water-hole in the lake, Andy advised his companions as to the situation and they deployed so as to shoot into the pack of wolves without sending their bullets in the direction of the half-drowned Mark.
All using magazine rifles, they were enabled to send such a fusillade into the wolves that the pack was scattered in a few moments. Then they ran on to the edge of the broken ice, finding at least a dozen dead brutes lying about the water-hole.
Jack lay down and reached his gun barrel out to his chum and by its aid Mark got to the edge of the ice and scrambled out of the water. They ran him back to the campfire in short order and then Andy set out to make a second attack upon the wolves, the pack having returned to eat up their comrades.
However, the beasts had already been punished enough. They could not stand before the old hunter, and ran howling down the glacier.
"One thing about it," Andy Sudds said, "we can make up our minds there is an outlet from this field of ice in that direction. To escape we have only to follow the wolf trail."
They were not in shape to travel at once, however. Jack's hand pained him frightfully after his work in helping Mark escape from the water, and Mark, himself had a serious chill before sunrise. Treated by the professor, however, the youth quickly recovered from his plunge into the lake.
But it was decided, nevertheless, to wait over another of the short, torrid days before leaving the trees, for the traveling by night would be much more practicable. So they were leisurely eating another meal of bear steak when the sun touched the horizon with rosy light.
The dawn broke in what Jack termed "record time," and Washington White gave vent to his surprise in characteristic language:
"I done seed de sun rise in eb'ry clime, f'om de Arctic t'rough de tropical to the Antarctic kentries. But de speed wid w'ich disher sun pops up is enough ter tear de bastin 't'reads loose from de Universe—it suah is! I finds mahself," continued Wash, reflectively, "circumnavigatin' ma mind to de eend dat disher 'sperience we is all goin' t'rough is a hallucination ob de brain. In odder words, we is all climbin' trees an' makin' a noise like de nuts wot grows dere. Do you hear me?"
"We hear you," said Jack. "And if you think you're crazy, all right.
I don't feel like joining you in the foolish factory yet awhile."
"I more than half believe the darkey's right," muttered Phineas Roebach. "This experience is enough to turn the brain of any man. I don't myself believe half the things we are seeing."
The heat of the sun, as soon as it had well risen, was a fact that could scarcely be doubted, however. They were glad to seek the shade of the fir trees, and the surface of the glacier began to melt with a rapidity that not only surprised, but startled them.
A flood of water, like a great river, began to sweep by the narrow bit of earth on which they were encamped. The roar of the falling water into the crevasse from which they had so fortunately escaped soon became deafening.
They all had to remove their outer garments. The smell of the heated fir branches was like the odor of a forest on a hot August afternoon. Professor Henderson watched the melting of the ice with a serious face. When Mark asked him what he thought threatened their safety, the old scientist replied:
"I am serious, that is true, my boy. I see in this terrible heat the threat of a great and sudden change in this glacier. We must start as soon as the freeze comes on to-night, and travel as fast as we can toward the far end. Mr. Roebach knows the trail, I believe?"
"I've been over it several times; but I must say that the glacier has sunk a whole lot since I was across it before," the oil man declared.
"We can follow the wolves," said Andy Sudds, stoutly. "They knew their way out."
"That is true, we will hope," Professor Henderson said. "For I must state that I believe our peril is very great."
"How so, sir?" Jack queried.
"We do not know how soon this glacier may move on."
"Another earthquake?" cried Mark.
"Oh, gollyation! I suttenly hopes not," wailed Wash.
"No. I do not think we need apprehend any further seismic disturbance. Such gaseous trouble as there is in the heart of this island will find escape—if I do not mistake—through Mr. Roebach's oil well."
"Then what is troubling you, sir?" queried the boys in chorus.
"The knowledge I possess of the nature of glaciers leads me to fear this peril," replied the aged scientist. "Under the immediate conditions this vast river of ice may move forward at any moment."
"Impossible, I tell you!" interrupted Phineas Roebach. "I tell you this is a 'dead' glacier. It has not been in motion for ages. I have seen the face of it at the lower end of this valley. There is only a small stream of water trickling from under it, and the forest has grown right up to the base of the ice wall."
"And how big a stream do you suppose is flowing from beneath the glacier now, and working its way toward what was once the Arctic Ocean—or Beaufort Sea?" queried the professor.
"Why—why—-"
"Exactly," concluded Mr. Henderson, sharply. "You had not thought of that. You see this vast amount of water pouring into yonder crevasse? Water cannot run up hill. It is bound to seek a lower level. It must force its way down the valley, beneath the glacier, and so stream out from beneath the ice at the far end.
"Gradually this flow of water is going to wear away the ice—is going to loosen the entire glacier. And then, suddenly, with no warning at all, the field will plunge forward—break up, sink, grind itself to powder against these cliffs! And where will we be?"
"My goodness gracious gollyation!" cried Washington White. "I wants to git out o' disher right away—me an' Buttsy is ready ter go ter onct, an' no mistake!"
"What will you do—swim?" queried Jack, pointing to the river that was now washing the shore of the strip of soil on which they stood—a river which seemed to stretch the entire breadth of the glacier.
Jack and Mark were deeply impressed by the good sense of the professor's observations; and both Andy and Roebach were disturbed. They watched the disintegration of the ice with considerable worriment. It seemed to melt away much quicker during these hours of sunshine than it had on the previous occasion when the orb of day shone fully upon the surface of the island in the air.
The soil they had camped upon began to crumble away, too, for the heat was insidiously melting the ice under the morainial deposit. At the time which should be high noon—when the sun was directly overhead in its course—one end of the patch of soil, forest and all, slumped into the water with a loud crash, and at once the fierce current tore the rubbish apart and carried it onward to the brink of the crevasse, into the maw of which it fell.
"Wash is perfectly right in his statement," Jack Darrow said. "This is no place for any of us. As soon as the ice freezes up after the sun sets we must travel as fast as we can after the wolves."
"And I wish we could travel as fast as they can," muttered Andy Sudds.
"I wish we had Mr. Roebach's dogs and sleds," said Mark.
"All right. As long as you're wishing, though, why not wish for the right thing?" demanded Jack.
"And what is that, Master Jack?" asked the oil man.
"Wish we were aboard the Snowbird and that she was all right. That's what I wish."
"And I reckon the boy's right," said Phineas Roebach, with a sigh. "As much as I object to flying through the air, an airship now would be a God-send indeed."
What bear meat the wolves had not destroyed the water now washed away. The party had only that which Andy had smoked over the fire. But this was easily carried and their packs were not heavy when they prepared to leave the camp as soon after sunset as the frost would allow.
The terrific change from the heat of midsummer to the cold of midwinter, and all within something near twenty-four hours, was hard indeed to bear. The professor calculated that the drop in temperature from high noon was, two hours after sunset, exactly seventy degrees Fahrenheit.
"Human life will become extinct upon this fragmentary planet, if nothing further happens to it, in a very few years," he said, thoughtfully. "We are not attuned to such frightful changes."
They had eaten, and had packed their supplies. The earth had long since appeared again and the radiance she reflected fell softly upon the ice-field. It glistened like silver, stretching, miles and miles away before them when they climbed down from the fringe of trees in which they had encamped, and set out down the glacier.
They traveled carefully at first, for there were sinks in the ice which had barely skimmed over since sun-down. The thermometer registered 18 above zero, however, and the biting cold was congealing all lakes and pools very rapidly. Where they tramped through the slush their footprints froze behind them. In an hour the mercury had fallen ten degrees more and they were beating their gloved hands across their breasts to keep up the circulation.
They tramped on at good speed for several hours. Here and there along either edge of the glacier, were groves of fir trees like the one they had encamped in. But in places the ice had melted from under and around these patches of rock and soil and the roots of the trees were exposed, while the earth had slumped away in small land-slips until nothing but a heap of debris was left.
The old professor grew weary and Andy insisted upon making camp again and resting. While they were warming themselves over the fire the old hunter built, and Wash was boiling some coffee, Jack suddenly beheld several shining points of light in the little wood on the edge of which they had halted.
"Look out! We're being watched," he whispered in Andy's ear.
The hunter grabbed his rifle and looked where Jack pointed. At once he seemed relieved.
"The wolves," he said. "They know their way out of this valley. I don't want to travel on this ice any longer than I can help."
With a word to the professor, and taking Roebach with him, the old hunter made a determined charge into the brush at the lurking wolves. The pack scattered at first, but finding themselves determinedly followed, and both hunters having been wise enough to take torches with them (for wolves are very much afraid of fire) the pack finally gathered once more and trailed away up a narrow path upon the rocky wall close at hand.
In the white light furnished by the earth-planet Andy counted thirty and more of the beasts climbing this rugged path. He was sure it was no mere lair they went to among the rocks, but a path leading out of the valley altogether. Therefore, when the party was again refreshed, they took up their line of march, in single file, following the wolf trail.