Provisions aboard the trading schooner Sealth were low, but her skipper ignored that as he picked his way through narrow leads into the very jaws of the pack. It had been ten years since Madison had been rescued from an iceberg, and he had never forgotten it. Veterans of the Arctic shook their heads in doubt as they glanced from the icy fangs of the floes to the grim figure in the wheelhouse. He was reckless at times, daring, but never had he seemed to cast discretion to the Arctic winds. Always he was lashed with the thought that if he went a mile farther into the ice, his quest might be successful—that if he turned back, he might leave fellow-humans to perish.
The man in the bow fending off smaller bergs with a pike-pole cursed, for his parka hood was frozen where the moisture from his breath had congealed. One mass larger than the others loomed up. Beyond that, man could not go, unless he was fitted with wings. And then—the man in the bow dropped the pole to the deck; forgotten was his frozen beard as he cried out and pointed dead ahead.
Ice was knocked off from the blocks and falls, and a boat gotten over the side. Madison stood in the stern, steering. Two held it to the ice while the skipper and two others leaped to the floe. Out in the lead the mate was already maneuvering the schooner about for the southerly flight. “Old Walton’s kid,” muttered Madison. “Looks about like I did when they found me. He’ll live. Lucky thing the old man radioed me to take a look.” He picked up a bit of gnawed skin that had once been fashioned to hold seal-oil. Except for the extra pair of mukluks, all clothing was on the man. The mukluks had been gnawed at the tops. “The ancient code!” reflected Madison.
“That the race may go on,” whispered the rescued man painfully as in a dream.
Madison nodded.
Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in the November 1924 issue of Blue Book Magazine.