"The Bolsheviki," said Marr. "What do you say we take a look at the island? Stirling can put us through the early ice. We'll skirt the Siberian shore afterward. I want to drop in at East Cape, they say trading is good there."
Stirling gripped a glass and raised it to his lips. He stared at the chart, then fastened a penetrating glance which bored into the little skipper's brain, and smiled faintly as Marr remained silent.
"I'm willing," he said. "I'll take you anywhere. We're all together. I see no harm in looking over Disko Island."
"All we want," said Cushner, rising, "is to follow the skipper, here, and keep our jaw tackle closed. He'll bring results!"
Stirling was watching Marr's face, which lightened perceptibly.
The captain of the Pole Star thrust his hand out, palm upward. "Well spoken," he said. "I'll guarantee good results!"
Marr rolled up the chart with a swift whirl of his hands, then rose and stared at Baldwin, who had remained silent.
"Have you everything aboard?" the little skipper asked.
"Yes; we're coaled. I can safely say the engine-room force is complete. Naturally we'll have to recoal at whatever point we can on the Siberian coast or at Unalaska. The bunkers are chockablock, but you know that ice work takes the steam. And coal is high; it'll be about twenty dollars a ton at Dutch Harbor or Point Barrow, if there's any there at all."
"Confounded little!" blurted Stirling. "There's an on-shore whaling station there and a missionary settlement. But"—the Ice Pilot paused and smiled at a memory—"there's a spot on the coast east of Point Barrow where we can dig out all the coal we need. I know it. I was there in the old Northern Lights, and I saw more coal than you could find in Pittsburgh. There's mountains of it hidden under the snow."