Adrift in the Ice-Fields

by Charles Winslow Hall

"It must be from the tower of the Tignish Chapel, then," said La Salle, "for no other land save the North Cape lies in our course."

Again a blast came whistling among the defiles, and again a calm succeeded. All listened in breathless silence, and again the wished-for sound which spoke of the proximity of human society and Christian worship, came pealing across the desolate wastes, deserted of everything having life, and impressing the fancy of the beholder as does the desolation of long-forgotten cities, or the shattered marbles of the unremembered dead.

"I know that place. That bell Tignish Chapel. Two year ago I camp on Tignish Lun. Make basket, catch trout, shoot flover. Go hevery Sunday to mass,—that same place,—take squaw, papoose, boy, girl, all folks. Know that bell, sure. To-day Sunday, and folks going into chapel."

"He must be right," said La Salle, "but we are now near the berg, and from its top we shall see if we are indeed near the North Cape. Make haste, Peter; perhaps we may get near enough to-day to make our way to the shore."

A broad, level floe was all that intervened between the party and the berg which they sought. Running across it; although with some little difficulty, for the ice was covered with slush concealed by a crust insufficient to bear the weight of a man, they soon reached the berg. It was evidently of Arctic origin, for it was much larger than any of the many "pinnacles" in sight. It was composed of ice, which, wherever the snow had failed to lodge, appeared hard, transparent, and prismatic in the rays of the sun. Its sides were steep and precipitous, and at first the members of the party began to fear that they should be unable to mount the steep escarpment of eight or ten feet high, which formed its base, which was further defended by a moat of mingled sludge and rounded fragments, cemented by young ice.

Had the opposite bank been attainable, any of the party would have readily leaped across, trusting to their speed to save themselves from immersion among the rolling fragments; but no one cared to risk the treacherous footing beneath that inaccessible wall.

"I'm afraid we shall have to go back to our own lookout, and trust to a shift of the ice," said La Salle. "Can you think of any way of climbing that pinnacle, Peter?"

"No way do that, unless cut a way into that hice, and then no safe place to stan' on, sartain, this time," answered the Indian.

"Let me have that rope," said Regnar, quietly.

Taking the light Manilla painter, he proceeded to form a large loop, and grasping it near the running knot, laid half a dozen turns across his hand. Then swinging the coil around his head, he launched the rope at a group of jagged points, which projected just above the edge of the lowest part of the cliff. Again and again the noose came back unreeved, and again and again the patient boy, with rare strength and skill, flung the ample noose over the slippery spires of ice. At last, however, success rewarded his efforts, and a strong pull, with the united weight of all three, failed to start the closely-drawn bowline. Taking the axe and bearing the most of his weight on the cord, Regnar crossed the bending surface and shifting fragments, and finding a precarious footing on the berg, wound the rope around his left arm, and with the right cut steps into the brittle ice-wall.