“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 the boats are skin ones like those the Huskies have they might sledge them on the ice.”
It was a suggestion that had been made several times before, but both the men realized that there was in all probability very little to warrant it. Wyllard had wasted no time endeavoring 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 appeared almost impossible to him that any three men could haul the skin boats and supplies they would need far over hummocky ice.
“The point is that we’ll have to fix on some course in the next few days,” added Dampier. “Say we run in to make inquiries”—a gleam of grim amusement crept into his eyes—“what are we going to find? A beach with a roaring surf on it, and if we get a boat through, a desolate, half-frozen swamp behind it. It’s quite likely there are people in the country, Koriaks or Kamtchadales, but, if there are, they’ll probably move up and down after what they get to eat like the Huskies do, and we can’t hang on and wait for them. ’Most any time next month we’ll have the ice closing in.”
Wyllard made no reply for another minute, and, as he stood with hands clenched on the wheel, a puff of bitter spray splashed upon his oilskins. They had been over it all often before, weighing conjecture after conjecture, and had found nothing in any that might serve to guide them. Now, when winter was close at hand, they had leagues of surf-swept beach to search for three men who might have perished twelve months earlier.
“We’ll stand in until we pick up the beach,” he said at length. “Then if there’s no sign of them we’ll push north as long as we can find open water. Now if you’ll call Charly I’ll let up at the wheel.”
Another white man walked aft, and Wyllard, entering the little stern cabin, the top of which rose several feet above the deck, took off his wet oilskins and crawled, dressed as he was, into his bunk. Evening was closing in, and for a while he lay blinking at the swinging lamp, and wondering what the end of the search would be.
The Selache was a little fore and aft schooner of some ninety-odd tons, wholly unprotected against ice-chafe or nip, and he knew that prudence dictated their driving her south under every rag of canvas now. There was, however, the possibility of finding some sheltered inlet where she could lie out the winter, frozen in, and he had blind confidence in his crew. The white men were sealers who had borne the lash of snow-laden gales, the wash of icy seas, and tremendous labor at the oar, and the Indians had been born to an unending struggle with the waters. All of them had many times looked the King of Terrors squarely in the face. As an encouraging aid to strenuous effort they had been promised a tempting bonus if the Selache returned home successful.
While Wyllard pondered upon these things he went to sleep and slept soundly, though Dampier expected to raise the beach some time next morning. The skipper’s expectation proved to be warranted, and, when Wyllard turned out, the stretch of shore lay before them, a dingy smear on a slate-green sea that was cut off from it by a wavy line of vivid whiteness, which he knew to be a fringe of spouting surf. It had cost Wyllard more than he cared to contemplate to reach that beach, and now there was nothing in the dreary spectacle that could excite any feeling, except a shrinking from the physical effort of the search. There was little light in the heavy sky or on the sullen heave of sea; the air was raw, the schooner’s decks were sloppy, and the vessel rolled viciously as she crept shorewards with her mainsail peak eased down. What wind there was blew dead on-shore, which was not as the skipper would have had it.
Wyllard heard the splash of the lead as he and the white man, Charly, ate their breakfast in the little stern cabin. There was a clatter of blocks, and on going out on deck he found the men swinging a boat over. With Charly and two of the Indians he dropped into the boat, and Dampier, who had hove the schooner to, looked down on them over the vessel’s rail.