Out of the white turmoil of death and terror it is hard to tell how the two boys escaped. Certainly neither of them knew. There was a confused recollection of planks bursting beneath their feet, of spars that, falling, mercifully spared them, of leaping and scrambling from toppling cakes to unsteady, crumbling ridges, of the howling of winds in their ears, and the sting of brine on their faces. Then they were being pulled and hauled and hustled across the heaving shore floe by Kroo and Harluk and others, who had rushed to their rescue and endangered their own lives to help their friends. Panting, exhausted, both in body and nerves, they lay in the little tents and listened to the howl of the gale.
They were safe; but the ship and its contents, their furs, their whalebone, and all their dear and valuable possessions, were being rolled and hammered in the mass of broken ice that the great Arctic pack was still crushing and piling shoreward.
Yet they did not give way to grief or repining. Nothing could show the manly spirit and self-reliance which their lonely life had bred in them more than this. They were calm, even serene, thankful for their lives, and confident that, having been spared those, they would yet be able to win their way back to civilization with honor, if not with fortune.
It cured their homesickness, too. Nothing is so good for this as a batch of real and present trouble and physical discomfort. Physical weariness, a moderate amount of hunger, and something with which to battle, along with a feeling that you can overcome it, will make any real man satisfied with his lot. I know this sounds like a paradox; but just try it, as Harry and Joe did.
CHAPTER IX
IN THE ENEMY’S POWER
There are no tides on the Arctic coast as we of the temperate zones know tides. In calm weather the rise and fall of the sea is scarcely noticeable. In time of southerly storm, however, the wind and ice carry the water out across the shallow sea, and when the winds rage from the north they crowd it back again upon the land. Hence, with the rush of the ice pack to the shore there came a small tidal wave, with the result that the pack and the shore ice, crowded and crumpled together, were carried far up on the land. With the subsiding of the gale two days later, the receding waters left this great ridge piled there thirty to fifty feet high, a monument to the brave ship that it had wrecked, and to the power of the primeval Arctic forces. Scattered through this rough ridge were the remnants of the wreck. Here a mast protruded, there a shattered plank of the hull, but to find anything of use to the wrecked Crusoes was difficult. When the ice melted, as it would in part during the brief summer, more might be revealed, but for now they were dependent on the hospitality of their Eskimo friends.
Right royally was this hospitality exercised. The boys had reached shore with only the clothes on their backs, but, thanks to the trade supplies which they had earned in their whaling, the Eskimos were rich beyond the dreams of Eskimo avarice. They had food supplies of all sorts, clothing, blankets, and calico in plenty, rifles, shotguns, ammunition, cooking utensils. Out of all these they outfitted the boys, even giving them an extra tent of their own in which they might set up their own housekeeping. To be sure the disaster was a bonanza in a way to the men of the ice. The broken timbers and spars of the staunch vessel would furnish fuel and wood for them for a long time to come, any iron which they might find as the ice melted would be eagerly seized upon, and they might even hope, as the summer proceeded, to get much in the way of food supplies. Yet their hospitality was in no wise tinged by this. The custom of sharing prosperity with all has come down to the tribes from time immemorial, and is never questioned except by the outlaw “highbinders.” The boys, aided by their dusky friends, searched long and diligently, and were finally rewarded by finding a portion of the galley. This was buried in the top of the ridge half a mile from where the disaster had occurred and a mile from the place where other portions of the ship, the spars and one mast, protruded. Such is the rending and disintegrating force of the floes grinding one on another.
In this portion of the galley they found the chest which contained the ship’s log and other papers, including Harry’s report of the conditions of the whaling, some extra paper, and his entire camera outfit. There also was Joe’s journal of the events of the trip to date. They were overjoyed at this, but search as they would, nothing further of value turned up. The hull below decks seemed to have been carried down in the crush and sunk; at any rate, they never saw it more. Two busy weeks passed thus, and they were not altogether unhappy. They had seemingly lost all chance of returning with wealth, but their lives were spared and the summer was at hand, when ships would surely appear and rescue them. They talked this matter over together and with Harluk and Kroo. The ships, said Harluk wisely, would be late in that summer, if they came at all. He knew this, because each storm had ended in a wind from the north which brought the pack in. He had noticed that when the storms began this way, they kept it up through the summer. The main pack was very heavy, and was crowded up against the shore now. It might not move for weeks. If there did come a southerly blow and carry it off for a day or two, the wind would end up in the north and bring it back. The boys had seen.
Harluk indicated the mighty ridge of ice alongshore with a sweep of the hand, and Kroo nodded confirmation of this. The boys looked at each other.