“That sounds hopeful,” put in an optimistic fellow, edging his way forward.
“The Eskimos see us,” announced Carl. “Let’s go down there.”
The two Innuits, as the professor learnedly preferred to call them, seemed much excited over their discovery. They threw their hands over their heads and, with loud cries, started as if to ascend the steps of ice, but stopped when they saw the newcomers descending.
The next moment four gray-haired dogs, probably awakened by the cries of their masters, emerged from a cave in the ice and gazed curiously up toward the new arrivals. Guy fancied that they sniffed the air hungrily.
“We can eat them if we can’t find anything else to satisfy our appetites,” Carl suggested; and the idea did not seem in the least repulsive to Guy. There was hardly enough luxury on the iceberg to encourage gastronomic fastidiousness.
The stairway in the ice proved to have been fashioned by both nature and man. The Eskimos, desiring access to both sides of the iceberg, fortunately had a rude sort of pick-axe that made the work of creating such access comparatively easy, especially since nature had half formed the steps in advance. By the time the leaders of the visiting party had arrived at the foot of the flight near the entrance of the Eskimos’ cave, the last of them had reached the top landing, and a long zig-zag line of men was descending single file. The Innuits after their first stir of excitement, stood quietly, stoically, it seemed, waiting for developments. Fortunately the professor could speak their language well enough to make himself understood, and soon he was jabbering almost glibly with the short, round faced, narrow-eyed, brown-skinned, black-haired wanderers from the North.
The stoicism of the Eskimos was stoicism only in general appearance, as close attention to their eyes proved. The latter glistened with joy and eagerness. The delight thus expressed, however, was turned to a dull-orbed disappointment when they learned that the strangers were only a party of shipwrecked travelers in worse straits than the two Arctic inhabitants of the iceberg. There was not much encouragement in the appearance of nearly half a hundred hungry men begging for something to eat from their scanty store.
Prof. Anderson’s conjecture as to the cause of the casting away of the Eskimos was correct. They had been hunting with a sled and a team of eight dogs on a field of ice off the southern coast of Greenland. Two bears had been discovered by them on an iceberg that had become frozen fast in the field, and the two Innuits had driven to this mountain of solid water, where they left their dogs and sled and climbed up after the game.
It was then they made their discovery of the “stairway” of ice, but the ascent was more difficult and even dangerous because of the uneven, irregular character of the steps, which slanted “in all directions.” However, they reached a lofty ledge, on which one of the bears was perched, and so severely wounded him with their harpoons that he slipped and fell, bounding down the steep and jagged ice a hundred feet or more.
At this juncture, almost as if caused by the rebounding impacts of the bear’s eight or nine hundred pounds, a thunderous noise rent the frosty air, and the two Innuits knew that the ice-field was breaking. With all possible speed they hastened down to their sled and dogs, but before they had gone half-way, they realized the seriousness of the situation.