“The tundra is the great, rolling plain. They call it ‘the steppes’ in Siberia. A few inches below the arctic moss that covers it, it’s frozen, even in summer, as hard as iron. And it never melts. It’s been frozen like that for millions of years.”
“Why did ve man want to go up on ve—ve—?”
“Well, he seemed to think he’d like to go to sleep. So that’s what he did. He slept a long time. When he woke up he went down to the beach, and the first thing he saw was his friend. It looked as if the friend had been sleepy, too. He was taking his ease down there on the sand, in a tangle of seaweed. His face was hidden. The other one went down to him, as fast as his wound would let him, and he called several times. Then he took hold of his friend’s shoulder and shook him. But the friend never stirred—he was dead. Up there, above the line of seaweed and driftwood, either he or the surf had flung his rifle—the butt rather battered, but nothing a handy man couldn’t put right; only a rifle isn’t much good without cartridges. By and by, the live man dug a grave for the dead one up above tide line in the sand; and when he had buried the body, he sat down and wondered how long it would be before the end would come for himself. While he sat there tinkering at the rifle, a couple of natives came down the coast.”
“Cannibals?” In his excitement Jack dropped on the floor like a small Turk, with his legs curled under him. But he had steadied his precipitate fall into that position with a hand on his friend’s leg—and, as ill-luck would have it, not the good leg, but the stiff, forbidding member that poor Mar dragged about the world with the help of his stout walking-stick. Now, to touch that leg would have been like touching the leg of a table, if somehow it hadn’t been more like touching a corpse. Jack’s friend didn’t seem to mind. But the boy felt the contact the more keenly for the fact that Mar felt it hardly at all. That was the horror of a wooden leg—that it couldn’t feel. Jack snatched away his hand as if it had been burned. But Mar was saying calmly, “Cannibals? Oh, no. Esquimaux, quite good fellows. They must have seen white men and firearms before, for they took a deep interest in the rifle. The castaway made them understand he was hungry. They nodded and pointed back the way they had come. The white man got up and hobbled away with them.”
“What made him hobble?”
“Oh—a—it’s quite common after a wreck—you’ll notice people often hobble for a while. Well, they went along the beach, till they came to a place so rocky it drove them up on the edge of the tundra; and up there the white man saw across the plain to the nor’ard, a low line of hills streaked with snow. And there was one bare peak in particular that stood out very plain. It looked only about eight or nine miles away, and you could see quite well there was something curious about it. Yes, it was queer.”
“What was ve matter wiv it?”
“It had a curious-shaped top. Even from the coast it didn’t look natural. You’d swear it was a monument of some kind. The natives didn’t seem to know anything about it. There was a river flowing down from the hills through the tundra to the sea, and all the mouth of it was choked with driftwood, though there wasn’t a tree in sight and hadn’t been all along. Beyond the driftwood, a long sand-spit ran out into the sea, and spread itself right and left, parallel to the coast, and on this sand-spit were a lot of little driftwood huts, skin boats drawn up, and people in fur standing round a fire. The two Esquimaux took the white man across in a boat, and told the other Esquimaux about him. And they gave him some food, fish. Everybody took so much interest in his rifle that he had to sit on it. They talked a good deal, but the white man didn’t know what it was all about. So he ate and slept, and ate and slept, always with his rifle under his arm. When he got tired of eating and sleeping, the castaway sat and looked at the sea. Never a sail. And sometimes he would turn and look at that queer peak over beyond the tundra. He gathered that these people didn’t live here on this sand-spit—they were only camping. Kind of Esquimaux summer resort. No, they couldn’t take him to a white settlement. They knew nothing about any white settlement. Then he would show them, he said. Let them bring down their best boat, and he would give his gun to them if they’d take him off there to the southeast, to St. Michaels. They shook their heads and bustled away. The white man saw with horror signs of a beginning to break camp. Where were they all going? Over the hills? No, on up the coast by sea. When?” Mar pantomimed their answer—placed his two hands palm to palm, laid his head down on them sideways and shut his eyes, opened them briskly, and took hold of his stick as if about to start on a journey.
Jack was grinning with delight. “Was vat ve way vey said ‘to-morrow morning?’”