“Joe didn’t,” the other assured him. “And say, he could have told you a bully good yarn. I don’t know as I can spin the whole of it for you, but he an’ his squaw come down on a cake of ice. That is, they come most o’ the way.”
“Oh, tell us about it!” cried Tom. “How did he happen to be on a cake of ice and how could he come down on it?”
“Well, there don’t seem to be much to do right now, so I expect I can spare a couple o’ minutes to tell you,” agreed Mr. Kemp. “Especially,” he added with a grin, “as long as the owners is tellin’ me to.”
“You see,” he began, seating himself on a coil of rope and lighting his pipe, “Eskimo Joe was one o’ the hunters an’ pilots on the old Polaris—a ship what was up huntin’ for the North Pole long afore my time—back in 1871 ’twas. Well, the Polaris got froze in hard an’ fast, and the crew, thinkin’ she might get stove, put most of the stuff on the ice and was gettin’ ready for a bust up. But it come afore they expected of it. Ice broke up and left some of the folks on the ice ’longside the ship and the rest of ’em on a big piece of floe adrift in the water. Eskimo Joe was with that crowd along with his squaw and Captain Tyson of the Polaris and a bunch o’ men—twenty there was all told—and nary a mite of food.
“Just as soon as the ice got adrift it commenced to travel in a current, and there they was, driftin’ about on an ice island that might go to bits or capsize any minute. Times was when they pretty near starved, but they caught gulls and murres and auks and other birds, and Joe fixed up a fishin’ tackle and got fish now and then. Sometimes, too, a seal would come aboard the cake and Joe’d get him; and once a white bear clumb on to the ice and Joe nailed him, too. I don’t guess bear’s any too good meat, but it sure was welcome to those folks. Well, to make a long story short, they was driftin’ on that ice cake for six months, yes, sir and the cake gettin’ smaller all the time as it drifted along south. Then, along in April ’72 a sealin’ ship—steamer, Tigress, o’ St. John’s, Newfoundland ’twas—hove in sight and picked ’em up, and every man jack o’ the twenty-one safe and hearty.”
“Why, I thought you said there were only twenty!” exclaimed Tom.
Mr. Kemp grinned. “So I did and so there was,” he declared, “when they went adrift. But you see, while they was navigatin’ ’round on their ice island, Joe’s squaw had a baby an’ that was the kid I used to be chums with.”
“Gee, I hope we don’t get adrift like that!” exclaimed Jim. “But it must have been some adventure!”
“Well, you can’t never tell,” remarked Mr. Kemp as he rose and hurried off. “But I guess after bein’ sunk by a sub, driftin’ on a ice floe wouldn’t be so bad as it might be.”
The Elizabeth Islands were now close ahead, and the Narwhal was soon passing through the narrow channel between Naushon and Woods Hole and, to the south, Martha’s Vineyard was in plain sight. With every stitch of canvas set, the schooner sped on across Nantucket Sound towards distant Monomoy Light.