Polaris of the Snows

by Charles B. Stilson

Some three hours later, the dawn light shone revealingly on the soles of his bare feet, thrust from under the bush. They caught the eye of a policeman who was good-naturedly clearing the park of its "boarders." He investigated. The appearance of the man who owned the feet was so different from that of the ordinary "vag" habitués of the park, that the bluecoat decided he must "run him in."

Still sleepy and only half understanding, Polaris went meekly with the policeman. He knew that he was in the hands of a representative of the law of America, a law that his father had taught him must be reverenced and obeyed in all its manifestations.

With every instant unfolding to him a new wonder—from the startling height of a many-storied skyscraper to a belated messenger boy puffing at a cigarette—he was haled to a nearby station-house.

Because he could not, or would not, explain how he came to be in the park, and because his intense interest in the proceedings about him tended to make his answers casual, the judge dismissed him with a curt, "Ten or thirty." The son of the snows went to jail and knew no help for it.

He grew restive with the passing of the days in confinement. He had left but one object in life, and that was the delivery of his father's message. He had guessed for a long time that it had to do with a quest similar to that of Scoland. Now the name of the captain was on every lip. He had gone to Washington, to receive the official recognition of his discovery.

In Washington, Polaris would also liked to have been. And his message? He had given it into the keeping of Rose Emer. Where was she? Would she keep faith?

Then it struck him with the suddenness of a blow that his message might, even now, be in the keeping of the captain, the man who was to be her husband. When he was on the verge of delirium, he had put his most sacred trust into the hands of his enemy!

He laughed at the irony of it. Still, he would go to Washington. The rest was on the knees of the gods. She would keep faith, he knew, but did it rest with her?

Polaris learned much in those thirty days, for there is excellent wisdom even in the bowels of a jail. Came at last the day of his release, and found him in the middle of a puzzle. Not in all America was there a person to whom he could turn in his extremity. He was friendless and penniless. Under the circumstances, he could not bring himself to ask aid of Rose Emer, even if he knew where she was to be found.

Then it was that his dead friend Kalin raised up friends for him, friends and the power to carry out his project.