"I'm kinda summing things up, Sam. First the shanghai party; then the seaman who wanted to come aboard. Then, Sam, there's the mystery of the gamming by the Jap. All looks as if Marr has a fixed purpose. Looks like a crooked compass point to steer by!"
"Darn crooked!"
Stirling wound his strong fingers about the second mate's arm. "I'm a simple sailorman," he said, heavily. "I've sailed the Arctic and the Bering and the North Pacific, man and boy, for thirty years. I have no kith or kin. I've one star to guide. That's truth and right doing, Sam. It's over there!"
The Ice Pilot pointed along the leader stars of the Great Dipper and notched his fingernail on the lodestar. "That's my guide," he said. "I play square! I never made anything much by playing square, but I'm going to steer my course by that light point. Marr won't mislead me a quarter point."
"Spoken fair!" declared Cushner. "You can call on me."
The mate vanished in the gloom of the waist.
Stirling dragged on his pipe, held it out, tapped it against the rail and dumped the glowing coals overside with a sweeping motion. He paused at the door to his galley cabin. The ship was plunging eastward with her screw turning over at three-quarter speed. A soft halo capped the funnel, like the tip of an ashless cigar, and the throbbing shook the deck which was canted ever so slightly under the influence of the northeast wind.
"Headin' full and by," said Stirling. "We're making for Dutch Pass. I'll be glad to see the ice. Somehow or other that Bering always seemed like a man's sea."
The days which followed the assault upon Eagan were hard ones for the mixed crew of the Pole Star. The course of the whaler was into the teeth of a wind which swung over the watches from point to point.
The night between the spume-filled days revealed the stars overhead in all their Northern glory—steel pointed they seemed. Within them and over the Northern world a pale sheen glowed, and vanished and glowed again. This was the reflection of the aurora upon the great north barrier.