We rushed toward the spot in helter skelter fashion, but ten yards from the cairn a thought, almost morbid in its chivalrousness, seized me.
I must stop this mad rush.
How?
Whipping out my Colt I fired three shots in quick succession. It was the return-to-the-ship signal. The crowd hesitated, irresolute.
On the instant I dashed ahead and faced about.
"Gentlemen," I cried, "though thousands of miles from home, remember, you are gentlemen. The lady, first!"
Offering Sausalito my arm we climbed the slope together.
The others arrived en masse. Swank, Plock, Sloff, they were all like children playing a game of prisoner's base, with the Pole as home. Poor Whinney was "it."
In the excitement of the moment I had forgotten him. He was a pitiful spectacle as he came tap-tapping his way across the ice, feeling each step with his cane. We watched him in silence until I saw that he was going to miss the Pole entirely and if not stopped would soon be bound south again for an indefinite period. Tenderly Sausalito and I led him to the cairn while her rich voice murmured comfort in his ear. He was beside himself with emotion and hot tears kept welling from under his goggles.