Fur coats, skin boots, woollen socks with moss filling, mittens, and watch caps were broken from the slop-chest and distributed to the crew.
At high noon of the third day from the gamming by the Japanese sealer, Stirling mounted to the crow's-nest, paused on its edge for a glance at the deck, then dropped down into a snug, far-swinging berth from which he had command of a hundred leagues of icy water.
He reached and secured a pair of twelve-diameter glasses which had been placed in a small chart rack, rested his elbows on the rim of the crow's-nest, and swept the horizon with keen eyes.
Mile by mile he searched for signs of whale slick or spout, but none showed, then he turned and squinted ahead. Two needlelike peaks showed well to the eastward. They were the highest points of the Aleutian group, and marked the pass through to the Bering Sea.
The day unrolled and lifted the archipelago up and into the Northern sky. It seemed a white-robed mountain chain—with each spire and crag forming the teeth of a giant saw. A rose light gleamed and reddened this barrier as the sun rimmed the Western world. The light paled to a flamingo and then to purple night as the ship drove on.
It was midnight, with Whitehouse and Marr standing watch on the poop, and Stirling and Cushner in the crow's-nest, when they reached the overhanging shadow of the pass to the Bering. The ship steadied, swung, then darted under the lee of a barren island; the strait with its score of sharp turnings lay ahead.
They passed the entrance to Dutch Harbor and Unalaska, raised the Rock of the Bishop, sheered and drove with all steam through the narrow outlet to the strait, entering at morning the waters of the Bering.
Stirling breathed, for the first time sure of sea room. Raising his glasses, he greeted the morning sun that slanted cold and bright along the arctic waters which rose and fell in slow gliding. He lowered his elbows and leaned far out over the crow's-nest edge, studying the small patches of spring ice through which the ship's sharp prow cut like a knife going through satin.
Floes, in the form of old "grandfathers," were passed to starboard and port. These had drifted with the current down through the Bering Strait and were destined to melt in the warm waters of the Japan Current. Some were small cakes, which had been formed that winter, and upon some of these arctic birds and hair seals sported.
A larger formation appeared ahead—part of the great North pack. Walrus and polar bear dove overside as the whaler bore down upon this floe, sheered, and entered a wide lane leading toward the north and east.