“Now don’t get excited, Bill, but let’s investigate this thing and reason out the whyness of the wherefore,” said Jack sanely, though he couldn’t understand it any more than did his “pard” Bill.
They were so close to the north-pole the needles vibrated with dynamic energy and yet they fixedly held their positions north by east.
“Maybe it’s the hardware in our outfit that’s affectin’ them, or the pemmican we had for lunch yesterday, or else the dogs have et a keg-o’-nails afore we left Circle,” suggested Bill, who had a better idea of funning than he had of science.
“There isn’t enough iron in our outfit to affect them as you can tell if you will walk around the sleds with your compass. It may be the pemmican, though, for I sort of feel as if there’s a loadstone in my stomach. Leaving all joking aside, Bill, there is something here—some phenomenon we don’t understand,” returned Jack, thinking as he had never thought before.
“It may just be,” he went on, “that there is a vein of iron ore running along in this direction which would of course account for the erratic behavior of the needles. If so we’ll soon get out of the range of its influence. What we’ll do is to call the point marked east on our compass cards north and then if we travel north by east we’ll really be going in the right direction, see?” explained Jack.
“It’s as clear as mud,” responded Bill, “we’ll have a nice time correctin’ the errors of these compasses when they are ninety degrees outen the way. You can use your compass if you want to but I’m goin’ by the blinkin’ Sun and the bloomin’ North Star, I am.”
All that day as they were mushing on Jack kept tab on his compass and Bill kept his eye on the sun and while they both firmly believed they were headed right, the compass, by which the mariner pushes boldly forward, steering always as it directs, knowing it will not send him astray, had the boys worked up into something that very nearly approached a nervous state of mind.
All the time they were on the march that afternoon the going was very much heavier than it had been on the No Name River, for they had to break the trail as they went along. Jack kept wondering what had come over the compasses that so persistently made them point east instead of north.
When they had established camp that night they were still discussing the frivolous peculiarities of compasses which enabled them to point east when they were on top-o’-the-world with the same degree of freedom that they pointed north when they were used on the rim-o’-the-world.
The weather was crisp and cold and the air as thin and clear as crystal. Bill, who had lost faith in the instrument that is the symbol of unerring accuracy, stood forth in the night, looking more like some barbarian of the glacial age than a pampered boy of the gas-house district and viewed the twinkling lights in the bowl of the heavens. He called Jack and indicating the North Star with his finger said: