I’m not a praying man, Mr. Link, but somehow I asked GOD then to help me.
CHAPTER XVI
The Sequel
I worked my tried and still most workable and useful raft to the shore, and stepped from it to the sand, between some ragged floes of ice—a kind of ice foot. The loss of the hamper was a heavy blow, and to confront the unknown future with a few morsels of meat and some soaked tortillas seemed only a desperate and suicidal bravado. I was for a while stunned into a torpor of inaction. I had managed to force the raft somewhat up on the shore, but I took the precaution of further loading it with stones. Until I had more clearly made up my mind what would be my next step, I would not part company with this friend, for somehow to me then, the mute bundle of logs had become almost animate with a human affection.
And now the reaction against fatigue and all the sleepless hours made me faint and weak. I must first sleep. I untied the welcome sleeping bag and the rug, and disengaging the heavy gold belt—what a mockery its value seemed in this sterile solitude—and the small hatchet which it held, I rolled myself up, and instantly fell into unconsciousness. I must have slept almost twenty-four hours, for the sun which had been declining to the horizon was in almost the same position when I awoke. I was ravenously hungry, but my courage had returned, and at least I felt equal to considering my plans.
But first it was food. I made a fire, warmed or toasted the flat pancakes and roasted the meat chunks, and these with water contrived to satisfy my hunger. The contents of the pack were now my sole resource. They had been well soaked, but I had spread them on the white sands, and in the heat of the sun they had dried, even the matches proving serviceable again. My gun, which had been well greased (swagged) was uninjured, and the wax-smeared cartridges retained their murderous facility of exploding. If game was to be had the life in my body might yet reasonably expect considerable prolongation. And why not game? I recalled our first encounter when we were unceremoniously introduced to Krocker Land—the musk oxen. But was I to become a prowling Robinson Crusoe; were the days, the weeks, the months—there could not be years—before me to be a savage struggle to just live and then realize—starvation? At any rate there must be a plan. What should it be? It was then that my mind working feverishly over a few projects—the only ones I could conceive of, and all of them preposterous—was suddenly arrested by recalling that this very summer, even during this month, Coogan and Stanwix, Phillips and Spent would be pushing the “Astrum” through that very sea—but farther east—to find us. On that peg of suggestion I hung my hopes. I would work eastward if I could, or as far as possible, keep a watchout, and hope for the best. What else?
At first I thought I could make use of the raft, as there was much open water, but it required only a little circumspection to show me that the plan was impracticable; worse, fatal. I must fight my way somehow along the coast eastward, replenishing my larder with game, possibly with fish, not going farther than the inevitable angle—there must be such a turning point—where the land contours bent northward. That was a plan, it had a significant value. Immediately my spirits rose, so quickly does the mind recover its equipoise in an emergency when it is set about a rational scheme of action. It was really difficult for me to desert the raft. In that long drive through the canon of Homeward Bound, the irrepressible instinct of companionship had nurtured a curious hallucination of impersonation, and the bundle of dead logs had assumed an indefinite but real vitality. Could not I shape or build from it a serviceable sledge, and still, transformed, keep it in my service? Then again, could I spare the time to effect this change? I had only my hatchet for an implement, and the thongs and strands, rope and cords that had so stoutly kept it intact for nails and iron bands.
I abandoned the project, but before I started on my desperate search, I hacked enough timber from it to build a fire and cooked or roasted my last meal over it. It partook to me of the fantastic feeling of a valedictory.
The shore along which I now made my way was favorable for a rapid advance. It was a low upland, mainly detrital in composition with a beach apron of sand, gravel, and mud flats. It sloped upward to a semi-piedmont zone of hills, beyond which towered the monarchs of the Rim. The view landward was inspiritingly beautiful, and when the fogs that rolled inward from the vast ice-flecked and iceberg-studded sea, were absent the picture was entrancing. Rich verdure covered the upland, inundating, like a green flood, the opening valleys, slopes and sheltered ingles, and bearing on its bosom the Arctic yellow poppy and even the golden stars of the dandelion. Surely in this land I might expect to find game.
Nor was I to look long. I could just see, far off against a protruding dazzling granite mound, a moving spot. It was the Ovibos hopkinsi. I almost laughed. I recurred to our first encounter with this new mountain sheep, when Hopkins and I first saw it, in an almost identical environment, when we landed at Krocker Land. I watched it with the eye of a voluptuary. Fresh meat would taste—Ah! my mouth watered—I could not venture a simile.