Stirling sprang from the rail to the deck and rubbed his frosted hands. He stepped to Cushner's side and clapped him on the back. "Not yet!" he said. "No whales, but there's an ocean of fine slick. It's a whaling day if ever there was one."
"Waal," yawned Cushner. "Waal, I'll call the watches and get ready. We might as well drop away from the pack."
Without consulting Marr, the second mate gave the order to bring in the hawser and hoist easy canvas on the fore and main. The Pole Star sheered and drifted toward the southward. Stirling emerged from the galley house, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, felt the glow of the strong coffee he had drunk, then crossed the deck and mounted again to the crow's-nest where he took position to observe any signs of whales or white water.
The whaler was hove to, with her yards braced, and steam pluming from the pipe after the raking funnel; the boats were swung outboard; the gear was gone over and the water kegs filled.
Marr appeared at one bell. He glanced toward the distant pack, frowned slightly, then leaned over the rail of the quarter-deck. "Who gave the order to drop down here?" he asked Cushner.
The second mate stood erect in the starboard-waist boat. "I did," he said, slowly. "I thought, seeing as how there was whale slick, that we better get in position for lowering. We could only lower three boats where we were."
Marr motioned for Whitehouse, who sprang up the weather poop steps, and the two men went aft behind the canvas screen. Cushner glanced toward Stirling in the crow's-nest, and Stirling nodded. He seemed to say without words that he would stick by the second mate's statement.
Whitehouse appeared and glanced upward. "What d'ye make out?" he asked, pointing over the ship's rail. "'Ow's the sea to lee'ard?"
"Plenty of signs," said Stirling. "There's a sail far down toward that big floe. Looks like the first of the Frisco fleet. She's headin' for the ice. Likely there'll be more. Old 'Hank' Peterson and his Beluga always fasten around about here. That looks like the Beluga's fore-topsail. It's dirty enough!"
The Beluga, so it proved, tacked and went about with its long row of white boats showing clear and distinct in the Northern sunlight. Peterson was cruising over known ground. He drove the ship away from the pack and vanished through the smoke of the seas with the patches of his ancient sails allowing the last sight of him.