We assured him, then, that we saw what he did, one real moon and two false ones, the result of some strange condition of the air. When we descended to the cabin, Gale followed singing,
“Three moons rose over the city where there shouldn’t have been but one.”
Besides these things we had the Aurora Australis, though from our position under the ice-wall we seldom got a direct view of this phenomenon, and we sometimes made excursions into the desolation of the pack to view it. On one of these we were separated from the ship by a wide waterway that opened just outside the harbor. It seemed a serious predicament for a time, but the little telephone, which we always carried, promptly “vibrated” a message to the ship, and our balloon-boat-and-sled combination was first put into actual service as a ferry to bring us safely over. From without, our harbor entrance had seemed a portal to the lower regions. Crossing to it in the boat was like being ferried over the river Styx.
To me the days did not drag, though to others of the party they may have passed less swiftly. Love did not speed the hours for them, unless in the sense that all the ship loved the lovers, and in making our lives interesting for us they found sufficient entertainment for themselves. Gale’s acceptance of the new understanding between Edith and myself had been characteristic and hearty.
“Well,” he said, “’tain’t my fault. Don’t come around now, you and Johnnie, tryin’ to blame it onto me. I told you how it would be. Oh Lord, what’s a circus without monkeys!” He took our hands then, and squeezed them together in one big, splendid palm. “Nicholas Chase,” he went on, “you’ve got the boat, and me, and now a mortgage on Johnnie. If there’s any other outlying and unattached property you’d like to have, just name it. And if you don’t see what you want ask for it. Johnnie’s the only undivided interest I had left that I cared anything about, and if you’re going to get that you might as well have all the rest.” But at this point Edith had thrown her arms about his neck, laughing and crying at once. Happy as I was, there was a moment or two just then in which I did not feel entirely comfortable.
One day, perhaps a week later, when we came in from an hour’s snow-shoeing, he suddenly greeted us with:
“Look here, Johnnie, how did it come you didn’t turn Nick down like the others?”
My sweetheart’s cheeks were already aglow, and her eyes sparkling. But I thought there came an added glow and sparkle at the unexpected question. Her eyes sent a quick look into mine that warmed my soul.
“Why, you see, Daddy, we—we were away off down here, and—and we couldn’t afford to have any unpleasantness on the ship, and——”
“Oh, yes, I see—I see! And you’re going to bounce him when we get back to New York. Great girl! Takes after her Daddy.”