The seaman's voice trailed off into silence. He thrust out a strong jaw, drilled Stirling with a meaning glance, then was gone with a swift turn across the deck.
Stirling was still thinking of the whisky; like all strong natures, he dwelt too long on one subject.
He moved to the rail and leaned his elbows upon the chains where they were spliced to the shrouds and standing rigging. He swept the native village with a painstaking glance; it was not the same as first he had known it. The igloos back in the valley, which was still crusted with winter snow, were few and small in dimensions. The frame shacks and rude tents of the summer village bore the certain stamp of neglect and carelessness. Dogs hunted about for scraps of meat. Children in trade calico played with a listless air. The umiaks and kayaks were patched and broken.
Stirling frowned. Other villages along the Siberian and Alaskan shores were similarly stamped. They had been touched and polluted by the influence of those whalers who found it easier to allow the natives to secure the whalebone than it was to go out to sea and get it.
A sharp command broke through Stirling's thoughts, and he turned from his view of the village. Marr stood at the weather poop steps.
The little skipper pointed toward the waist of the whaleboat. "Lower that!" he snapped. "You and Eagan and about two seamen drop up to East Cape. See if there's any bone there."
Stirling answered the skipper's command with a slow glance, moved not too hastily toward the whaleboat, and climbed inside. From this position, he called Eagan and two seamen who were idling on the forepeak.
The boat was cleared of lashings and lowered, with Stirling in the bow and Eagan in the stern, then the seamen came down the dangling falls and dropped aboard. They thrust out two long oars and shoved the whaleboat from the ship.
Stirling glanced at the telltale on the Pole Star, then motioned to up the single sail and lower the centerboard. The light craft sailed into the wind and canted far to leeward, gliding from the shadow of the headland as the sun swung over the shoulder of Siberia.
East Cape was reached soon after dark. Stirling sprang ashore and shouted; then repeated the call. Lights shone from the windows set in the summer shacks.