Stirling recalled the method employed by the natives in capturing bowheads. They usually fastened from kayaks or umiaks and drove in as many irons as they could. To each iron was fastened a skin line which terminated in a seal poke inflated with air. These, if in sufficient numbers, prevented the whale from sounding and allowed it to be finished with long, ivory-pointed lances.
Drunken natives staggered from the poop and swarmed about the waist and forepeak of the ship. Marr had distributed whisky for what trade stuff he needed. He bought three heads of bone for twelve kegs of alcohol and water mixed. This bone came out in umiaks and was stored with the other baleen in the forehold.
Time passed at the Point. Marr seemed in no great hurry to enter the Arctic, even going ashore and remaining overnight with the native chiefs. Sounds of their mirth and drunken carousing floated out.
Stirling chafed at the delay. The skipper was evidently waiting for some message from across the sea. Each ship which passed or dropped anchor at East Cape was gammed; each time the captain returned without word of his purpose. Five whalers went through to the summer whaling ground which extended all of the way to the mouth of the Mackenzie River and beyond.
A night came when the sun barely dipped below the western waters. Stirling had tried to sleep, but finally emerged to the deck with hot, fevered eyes. The air was heavy and sultry, and mosquitoes buzzed. They had been blown from off the Siberian tundra.
The pack long since had gone through the Straits and down the long reach of the Bering Sea. A group of natives slept on the forepeak of the Pole Star, while a single member of the crew walked slowly from port to starboard and back again, holding the anchor watch.
Some slight noise upon the quarter-deck caused Stirling to turn aft till he stood in the gloom of the galley cabin. He glanced keenly upward, to where the drab canvas of the rail showed, with a shadow behind it. A faint light shone from the open companion.
Then, and suddenly, he heard his name called. He started for the lee poop steps, then paused as a warning was whispered to him. He stared upward in rising perplexity. A white hand reached over the rail, its fingers uncoiled, and a dark object fell to the deck. There followed the sound of soft feet over the quarter-deck's planks and of the shutting of the cabin companion.
Stirling stooped and picked up the object. Unrolling it slowly, he blushed through his sea tan as he held out a tiny glove. It was such a glove as only a dainty woman could wear.
"By the jumping bowheads!" he exclaimed. "A pretty girl's aboard and she's noticed me. I wonder who she is?"