Mostly the islands were mere snow-swept mountains protruding above the waters, at a distance seemingly as gray as the rest of the toneless landscape. Only the less mountainous of the islands had human occupants, and these were in small, far-scattered Indian villages. Seemingly they had reached the dim, gray limits of the world: surely they must soon turn back. Indeed, these were the Skopins, the group that comprised Ned’s first trading ground, and Muchinoff Island, the northern-most land in the group and the point selected as his first stopping place, from which he would begin the long homeward journey from island to island, was only a few days’ journey beyond.
Yet they sped northward a while more, nothing changing except day and night. Indeed, day and night itself seemed no longer the unvarying reality that it used to be. Between the dark clouds and the dark sea, night never seemed to go completely away. Day after day they caught no glimpse of the sun.
The islands were seen but dimly through mist, as might the outlying shores of a Twilight Land, a place where souls might come but never living men,—a gray and eerie training camp like that of which Ned’s father had spoken. It was all real enough, truly, remorselessly real; yet Ned couldn’t escape from the superstitious fear he had known at first. The gray, desolate character of the islands seemed to bear it out. It grew on him, rather than lessened.
Yet his standards were changing. Things that had not concerned him a few weeks before mattered terribly now. For instance, the bareness of the islands oppressed him, and he found himself longing for the sight of trees. Just trees,—bending in the wind, shaking off their leaves in the fall. They hadn’t mattered before: he had regarded them as mere ornaments that nature supplied for lawns and parks, if indeed he had ever consciously regarded them at all; but now they were ever so much more important than a hundred things that had previously seemed absolutely essential to his life and happiness. Had his thought reached further, he could have understood, now, the joy of Columbus—journeying in waters scarcely less known than these—at the sight of the floating branch; or the exultation in the Ark when the dove returned with its sprig of greenery.
Lately the ship had taken a northeastern turn, following the island chain, and the cloudy, windy, rainy days found them not far from the mainland, in a region that would be wholly ice-bound in a few weeks more. And when they were still a full day from their turning point, Knutsen sought out Ned on the deck.
“Mr. Cornet, do you know where we’re getting?” he asked quietly.
Unconsciously startled by his tone, Ned whirled toward him. “I don’t know these waters,” he replied. “I suppose we’re approaching Muchinoff Island.”
“Quite a sail between here and der, yet. Mr. Cornet, we’re getting into de most unknown and untraveled waters in all dis part of the Nort’. De boats to Nome go way outside here, and de trut’ is I’m way out of my old haunts. I’m traveling by chart only; neither me nor McNab, nor very many oder people know very much the waterways between dese islands. You’re up here to trade for furs, and you haven’t got all winter. You know dat dese waters here, shut off from the currents, are going to be tighter dan a drum before very many weeks. Why don’t you make your destination Tzar Island, and start back from dere?”
“You think it’s really dangerous?”
“Not really dangerous, maybe, but mighty awkward if anyt’ing should go wrong wit’ de old brig. You understan’ dat not one out of four of dese little islands is inhabited. Some of de larger islands have only a scattered village or two; some of ’em haven’t a living human being. Der’s plenty and plenty of islands not even named in dis chart, and I’d hate to hit the reefs of one after dark! Der’s no one to send S. O. S. calls to, in case of trouble, even if we had wireless. De only boat I know dat works carefully through dis country is anot’er trader, the Intrepid—and dat won’t be along till spring. Mr. Cornet, it’s best for you to know dat you’re in one of the most uninhabited and barren countries——”