Brent was surprised at the absence of a pressure ridge at the shore line, but so flat was the snow-buried beach that it was with difficulty that he determined where the land left off and the sea-ice began. The whaler he judged to be frozen in at a distance of three or four miles from shore.
The figures of men could be plainly seen, now, and soon it became evident that their own presence had been noted, for three or four figures were seen to range themselves along the rail, evidently studying them through a glass.
While still a mile or two distant, the figures at the rail disappeared below deck, but others moved about among the snow mounds in the shelter of the vessel's hull.
Upon arriving at the mounds, which proved to be snow igloos such as are used by the Eskimos, Brent halted the dogs, and advanced to where two men, apparently oblivious to his presence, were cutting up blubber.
"Hello," he greeted, "Where's the captain?"
One of the men did not even look up. The other,
presenting a villainous hairy face, nodded surlily toward an ice-coated ladder.
"Wait here," said Brent, turning to Joe Pete, "Till I find out whether this whole crew is as cordial to strangers as these two specimens."
At the words, the man who had directed Brent to the ladder, raised his head and opened his lips as if to speak, but evidently thinking better of it, he uttered a sneering laugh, and went on with his cutting of blubber.
Brent climbed the ladder, and made his way across the snow-buried deck, guided by a well packed path that led to a door upon which he knocked loudly. While waiting for a response he noticed the name Belva Lou painted upon the stern of a small boat that lay bottomside up upon the deck. Knocking again, he called loudly, and receiving no reply, opened the door and found himself upon a steep flight of stairs. Stepping from the dazzling whiteness of the outside, the interior of the whaler was black as a pocket, and he paused upon the stairs to accustom his eyes to the change. As the foul air from below filled his lungs it seemed to Brent that he could not go on. The stench nauseated him—the vile atmosphere reeked of rancid blubber, drying furs, and the fumes of dead cookery. A tiny lamp that flared in a wall pocket at the foot of the stairs gave forth a stink of its own. Gradually, as his eyes accorded to the gloom, Brent took cognizance of the dim interior. The steep short flight