Wyllard, who was clad in oilskins, stood, a shapeless figure, by the wheel, with his face darkened and roughened by cold and stinging brine. There was an open sore upon one of his elbows, and both his wrists were raw. Forward, a white man and two Siwash were standing about the windlass, and when the bows went up a dreary stretch of slate-grey sea opened up beyond them beneath the dripping jibs. Then the bows would go down again, and all that was visible was the fore-shortened slope of deck and the breast of the big undulation that hove itself up ahead. The Selache was carrying everything and lurching over the steep swell at some four knots an hour.
Dampier stopped near the wheel, and glanced at Wyllard's oilskins.
"You'll have to take them off. It's stuffed boots and those Indian seal-gut things or furs from now on," he said. "That leather cuff's chewing up your hand."
"We'll cut that out," said Wyllard; "it's not to the point. Can't you get on?"
Dampier grinned. "We're on soundings, and they and Dunton's longitude most agree. With this wind we should pick the beach up in the next two days. Next question is, where those men were?"
"Where they are," said Wyllard.
"If they've pushed on it's probably a different thing, though if they'd food yonder I don't quite see why they'd want to push on anywhere. It wouldn't be south, anyway. They'd run up against the Russians there."
"We've decided that already."
"I'm admitting it," said the skipper. "There's the other choice that they've gone up north. It's narrower across to Alaska there, and it's quite likely they might have a notion of looking out for one of the steam whalers. The Koriaks up yonder will have boats of some kind. If they're skin ones like those the Huskies have they might sledge them on the ice."
It was a suggestion that had been made several times already, but both the men realised that there was in all probability very little to warrant it. Wyllard had wasted no time endeavouring to learn what was known about the desolation on the western shore of the Behring Sea. He had bought a schooner and set out at once. It, however, appeared almost impossible to him that any three men could haul the skin boats and supplies they would need far over hummocky ice.