[CONTENTS]
[ILLUSTRATIONS]
[FOOTNOTES]
[TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE]

In the
Great White Land

A Tale of the Antarctic Ocean
BY
DR. GORDON STABLES, R.N.
Author of “The Naval Cadet” “Crusoes of the Frozen North” &c.
Illustrated
BLACKIE & SON LIMITED
LONDON AND GLASGOW

“The ice was here, the ice was there,
The ice was all around;
It cracked and growled, and roared and howled
Like noises in a swound!”

Printed in Great Britain by
Blackie & Son, Limited, Glasgow

CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATIONS

BOOK I
FAR AWAY IN THE FROZEN NORTH

IN THE GREAT WHITE LAND

CHAPTER I
DAYDAWN IN THE ARCTIC REGIONS—WERE THEY SAVAGES?

“Is it a man, or is it a young Polar bear standing on end?”

Had any one seen that strange figure, shuffling slowly to and fro on the snow-clad Polar ice on this bitterly cold morning late in winter, he might have been excused for asking himself that question.

All around was a scene of desolation such as can only be witnessed in Arctic seas at this season of the year.

Desolation? Yes; but beautiful desolation—a desolation that held one spellbound in silent, solemn admiration.

It had been a long, long night of just three months or nearly, and yesterday the sun—glad herald of the opening season—had glinted over the southern horizon for one brief spell, then sunk again in golden glory.

Yesterday all hands had crowded the deck, the frozen rigging, and the tops themselves of the good barque Walrus, to welcome with cheers and song the first appearance of the god of day. And from many a hole in igloo side, in the village that clustered half hidden beneath those pearly hills, natives had crawled out, as crawleth rat from its burrow, to throw themselves on their faces, to moan, to worship, and to pray.

To-day the romance has worn off a little, and the crew of the Walrus (which a peep round the side of the one solitary iceberg that rises in the midst of this frozen bay reveals) will raise nor song nor cheer.

But the white light broadens in the southern sky, the beams of the aurora, that a little while before were flickering and dancing pink and white in the north, fade, the bright stars wax faint and beautiful, then die. A broad band of orange light low down on the horizon, with far above one crimson feather cloud—then the sun’s appearance.

Ah! We can see now that the figure is no bear, but a man, though covered with hoar frost—his skin boots, skin cap, skin coat and all, and his beard and moustache are white and hung with icicles, which tinkle as he climbs the iceberg, lifts the old quadrant, and takes his sight.

While he does so he touches a button, on a little box hung to his short belt, which sets up communication with an instrument and chronometer on the ship.

The man with the beard of tinkling icicles is Captain Mayne Brace himself. Laughing with almost boyish glee as he slings his quadrant and beats his mittened, paw-like hands to woo back their circulation, he quickly descends, and begins to round in the slack of the field telegraph.

Two huge black Newfoundlands, Nora and Nick, have found their way down off the ship, and now come rushing to meet him, making the icy rocks and hills around the bay ring back their joyous barking.

There is, I believe, no light in all the wide world half so bright and dazzling as that of the first brief day of an Arctic spring. Scarce can the human eye, so long accustomed to the soft, tender star-rays, the flickering, coloured aurora, or magic moon-beams, bear to look on the white wastes all around, which seem to have been sown with billions and trillions of tiny diamonds, the God-made prisms and crystals of the virgin snow, pure and white as brow of angel.

The ship towards which Captain Mayne Brace is slowly advancing looks, but for her masts and rigging, like a white marquee, for from stem to stern she had been roofed over, many, many moons ago, when first anchored here in the Gulf of Incognita high to the North, and west of Baffin’s Bay.

Snow-steps lead him aboard, and the surgeon himself meets him at the frozen gangway.

“Sick all doing well, sir,” says the doctor. “Every one been out to-day to peep at the sun, and the sight has done them all good, though it has made some of them long for the green glades and rolling woods of dear old England. But come below, captain, and thaw your beard. Dinner ready to dish up. Let me lead you. Mind that rope. Step high, and you’ll manage. There, now, catch hold of the rail, and I’ll go down the companion in front. Just fourteen steps. Make your feet your friends, and count.”

For Captain Mayne Brace was for the time being snow-blind.

At the foot of the ladder the steward helped him to get out of his ice-rig, and to thaw his beard and eyebrows, then led him in.

He looked old no longer, but brown-bearded, rosy, rubicund, and jolly—just as a sailor should be.

It was not, however, until the soup was finished—real pea-soup with some strength and body in it—that he once more regained his sight. He had shut his eyes and leaned back in his easy-chair while the steward was changing the plates, and when he looked again, he beheld the saloon table encircled with bright, youthful, and happy faces.

Faces with hope in them, eyes that danced with new-born joy; for after all these months of dreary darkness, of shrieking storms and blinding blizzards, had they not seen the sun at last? Yes, and the days would lengthen and lengthen till it would be all one long, bright Arctic day. The snows would melt in the glens yonder, avalanches would fall thundering into the valleys beneath, the tides would break the ice around; yonder mountain berg, which had loomed ghost-like all through the everlasting night of winter, would move seawards and away; then a week of mist, which would lift at length, and reveal hills already patched with the yellow and red of lichens and the green of mosses, soft and tender. For summer comes quickly in the Arctic.

And what then? Why, the birds would return in their tens of thousands, the gulls and gullimots, the malleys, the pilots, the beautiful angel-snowbird, and the wee snow-bunting itself. Then it would be summer, you see. Bears themselves, that slept in frozen pits or caves for months and months, would be on the prowl once more, and eke the Arctic foxes; the sea would be alive and teeming with fish, from great sharks down to the sportive and gay little ghahkas. Whales—the gigantic “right whales”—would dash into the bay, unicorns would be seen, great seals and walruses would scramble on to patches of ice to bask in the sunshine; and, spreading white sails now to woo the breeze, the Walrus barque would steam slowly away through the opening ice, all hands intent on making their fortunes, that in a “bumper ship” they might sail southwards long before the autumn winds began to blow.

Hadn’t Captain Mayne Brace told those two happy, hungry boys yonder all that would happen? And was the captain ever wrong? Not he.

“Yes, mate, I will have another slice of that brown beef,” said Charlie.

“Thank you, mate,” said Walt; “and why shouldn’t I?”

Both boys were about the same age—glorious and independent sixteen—both called the captain uncle, yet the boys were only cousins.

They loved, respected, nay, even revered, that brown-bearded skipper, as only boys that have an “uncle” who has been twenty long years on the stormy ocean can, and do.

This had been the lads’ first cruise. They were orphans, and though well educated, had been left almost penniless, and were going to adopt the sea as a profession. Their uncle had apprenticed them to the barque, and just because he liked them, they lived here in the saloon, and had a cabin all to themselves, instead of roughing it on the half-deck, sleeping in wooden bunks, and “chumming” it with the spectioneer, the carpenter, and bo’s’n.

He liked the lads, I say, and no man who is over forty, and has still a soul left in him, can help liking an innocent boy of this age, ere yet the bloom has left his healthy cheeks, or the days have come when he scores twenty and fancies himself a real live man.

Walt and Charlie to-day, being so happy at heart from having seen the sun again, were raking the skipper fore and aft with concentrated broadsides of questions.

It was “Oh, I say, uncle,” this and “I say, uncle,” this, that, and t’other all the time, until the great plum-pudding was borne in, and then they stopped their chatter for a minute at least, to wonder and admire.

No ordinary “plum-duff” this. It was large, and round, and brown, and jolly, half inclined to burst its sides with merriment, as the mate lovingly poured the rich gravy over it. Inside it was studded with real raisins, like the stars of an Arctic night in number. Those raisins were well within hail of each other, and not simply dotted and dibbled in here and there as with the point of a marling-spike.

For Captain Mayne Brace knew how a boy or man should live, to buck himself up to face the rigours of an Arctic winter.

While the boys are busy striking their share of that lordly plum-pudding below, let me say just one brief word or two about the Walrus herself.

She was almost a new barque then, and good enough to go anywhere and do anything, and belonged to three speculative merchants at Hull. These owners thought they knew quite a deal about Greenland East and Greenland West, and because they had never been to Polar seas, imagined that you had only to have a good ship and a crack crew to steam and sail away to the frozen North, pick up a paying cargo of seals or whales—skins and blubber—and sail back again, giving to the spirited owners a modest 200 per cent. on the capital.

The Walrus had been capitally found, her engines were the best, she was built of teak and braced with oak, fortified forward and all along the water-line, and carried every modern appliance that a barque could bear, with electric light, and—well, and what not?

Then Brace himself had been in the “country,” as the sea of ice is called, all his life, so had Milton the mate—both Dundee men—and the crew of Hull men, Scots, and Shetlanders could hardly have been better chosen.

“I’m going to do my level best,” Captain Mayne Brace had said to his owners, as they all sat together in the cosy saloon, while, hardly a year ago, the Walrus, with steam up, was just about to bear up and away. “I’ll do my best, gentlemen, to bring the Walrus home a bumper ship. I’ll try the sealing first. If they have been scared away by the impulsive Danes, I’ll bear up for the Bay of Baffin and do what I can with the whales, even if I have to winter there and wait for the spring fishing.”

“Bravo, Brace!” said one of the owners. “It is all a bit of a spec on our part, you know. But we’re well insured, Brace, and rather than come home a clean ship, we wouldn’t mind if you left her ribs in Baffin’s Bay.”

Brace smiled. He knew what they meant. He had heard such hints before. But these greedy owners had made just one mistake. They had chosen as skipper an honest man—the noblest work of God.

“I’m going to do the best for us all,” he repeated quietly.

Then good-byes were said, and the ship had sailed.

Nor’wards, ever nor’wards, the Walrus had gone cracking on, under steam or under sail, leaving the green British shores on which spring was already spreading bourgeon, wild flower, and leaf. Nor’wards, and past the Orkneys, the Shetlands, and the Faroes; nor’wards, into wilder, bluer, blacker seas and shorter days, encountering storms such as cannot even be conceived by sailors in other parts of the world, with waves as high as pyramids, foam-crested, and madly, demoniacally breaking around, or against, or over the barque; nor’wards, with ice-bound bows, and snowstorms raging on the deck, and seas that sang in the frosty air as they went curling past; nor’wards as defiantly as ever sailed ship from British shore.

Nor’wards, but all in vain. For the Danes, who had ploughed their way in their sturdy high-freeboard ships through the darkness of winter itself, had been there before them.

Long months’ fishing and hardly fifty tons of oil. British though they were, the daring Danes had kept ahead of them, leaving naught for them to gaze upon save blood-stained ice and gory krengs, on which gaunt bears were feeding.

Captain Mayne Brace, disgusted, had left the country, and, after a long voyage, had arrived in Baffin’s Bay.

A few “right whales” had been seen, but even they were hunted and wild, and so they had fished all the summer and caught nothing.

Well, but Captain Brace only shook his brown beard and laughed. He wasn’t the man to let down his heart in a hurry.

He was just the very life and soul of his crew; he bore all his own hardships with never a murmur, and had taught his men to do the same. All through the darkness he studied to keep them active. They had games on the snow under stars and aurora; they fished in the ice-holes, tobogganed on the one great ghostly berg that lay not far off; and, on board, hardly an evening passed but some sort of amusement had been on the boards—a play, a dance, a sing-song, a yarning-and-story-telling spell, or a concert itself.

They had often gone on shore in sledges, the men drawing each other time about, and Nick and Nora lending a shoulder.

The doctor was a plucky, clever young fellow about twenty years old, who, having to wait for another whole twelve months before he should be old enough—though he had passed—to be gowned and capped, thought he might as well put in that year at sea, and so here he was.

Next to the skipper himself young Dr. Wright was the best-loved man on board. He was really the quintessence of kindness, and you never would have found him in his bunk if one of the men were seriously ill.

To-day he would not wait the conclusion of dinner, but, with his telescope strapped across his shoulder, he had scrambled right up to the crow’s-nest itself, to have one look round before the sun went down again.

At sea it is always the strange and the unexpected that is happening.

But when Wright turned his glass towards the great snow-lands of the west, he started back and rubbed his eyes.

Were those eyes deceiving him?

He wiped the glass and looked again.

“Mercy on us!” he muttered. “Who or what are these?”

It was a team of some kind that had just come over the horizon, and was now wending its way adown the league-long slope towards the head of the bay.

And now he can make them out more distinctly. It was some wild and wandering tribe of semi-savages from the interior, with dogs and sledges and men on skis,[A] or snow-shoes.

He knew that these roving bands were dangerous, and that they came but to rob or even to carry off into exile the more peaceable Yaks who live along the shores.

So he went hurrying down now to make his report, and soon the news spread through the ship, and the excitement was very great indeed.

The warriors—if warriors they were—delayed their coming, however.

The sun set, darkness fell, and it seemed evident that the natives had made a détour, or gone away entirely.

But watchful eyes guarded the Walrus and the village on shore through all the dreary hours of darkness that followed.

The Yaks ashore yonder had been altogether friendly to the Walrus people, and Captain Mayne Brace determined that he would defend them to the last in case of attack.

But night passed by without a single event happening; and about half-past ten, just as the dawn began to appear in the east, like the reflection from a great city, Wright went up to the crow’s-nest, and once more turned his telescope westwards.

Yes; yonder they were, sure enough, at the very head of the bay not five miles off. He could see their gesticulations, and watch the men as they went scurrying to and fro seeking for errant dogs to harness to the sledges.

They were coming! And before day dawned or the sun rose they would be all around the ship.

The best way to secure peace is to be ready for war.

But Captain Mayne Brace was soon prepared to welcome either friend or foe.

Were they savages?

CHAPTER II
“HEAVE ROUND, SIR,” SAID CAPTAIN MAYNE BRACE

When the Walrus, in the shortening days of autumn, had steamed slowly into Incognita Bay, she had to force her way through the pancake ice with which the whole extent of the water was covered. Flat pieces these are, probably no more than a foot thick, covered of course with several inches of snow, and with an average diameter of, say, eight feet. They are really the débris of a baby-floe which the waves, raised by some far-off gale of wind, have broken up. The snow-edge all around them is raised by the constant contact of the pieces of ice with one another, and this gives them a fancied resemblance to gigantic pancakes. Hence their name.

But soon after the Walrus had anchored, the sky had cleared, and in the dead, unbroken silence of an early winter, they were frozen together by strong bay-ice. Then snow had fallen and fallen and fallen, with never a breath of wind strong enough to lift one feathery flake, till, on looking out over the bulwarks one morning after the decks had been cleared, and the sun was shining again, lo! the whole surface of the bay was one unbroken, unwrinkled sheet of dazzling snow.

Had that fall continued it would have buried ship and crew and all.

Then the glass had gone down somewhat, and the snow-field fell and shrank.

Harder frost than ever rendered Nature’s winter winding-sheet after this so solid and hard, that a regiment of artillery could have passed over it and left not a trace behind.

When snow had again fallen, it had been accompanied by such high, wild winds, that the flakes were ground into choking ice-dust, and swept clean off the surface of the bay.

The head of this inlet was about five nautical miles from the ship, but as soon as the advancing natives got on to the level snow-bay, with dogs and sledges, they commenced to make short work of this, and their strange, shrill cries, as the dogs were urged madly onwards, could now be distinctly heard by those on board the Walrus.

They were coming on like a whirlwind!

Faded the rich orange bar on the southern horizon, and the first rays of the great silver shield of a sun fell athwart the bay.

The advance was stopped in a second’s time. Down dropped men and dogs, the dogs to rest and pant, the natives to pray, their heads turned sunwards.

Two figures in the tallest sledge, who were wrapped in the skins of the big ice-bear, did not descend. Yet even they bent low their heads in reverence.

“We will have no fight,” said Captain Mayne Brace. “Men who pray never fight, save in a cause that is just.”

“For all that,” said “Dr.” Wright, “look yonder!”

He was pointing northwards, where the Teelies, as the friendly natives were called, could now be seen rapidly advancing in a compact body, all armed with that terrible battle-axe, the seal-club.

They were evidently bent on intercepting the newcomers. Perhaps they knew, of old, those semi-savages from the far interior.

“Now,” said the skipper, “this affair enters on a new phase, and if we cannot intervene as peacemakers, the snow out yonder will soon be brown with blood.”

“I have it, sir,” cried bold young Wright. “Give me ten men, and I will go and meet the Teelies. I don’t want to see bloodshed, captain. I have enough on the sick-list as it is, without the addition of wounded Yaks.”

“Take your men, and off you go, Wright,” cried Mayne Brace, laughing; “but I believe you are just spoiling for a fight all the same.”

Before an Englishman could have said “Auchtermuchty” without choking, Wright and his ten merry men were over the side and away.

He soon reached the Teelies and stopped, but these men seemed very excited, and brandished their clubs threateningly.

The sleigh Eskimos had also halted, and appeared to be preparing.

At that moment a battle appeared to be imminent, and, if it took place, a queer one it would be.

The Teelies were like a bull-terrier straining wildly at the end of its chain, mad to make a dash for the enemy.

And poor Wright found that, do what he might, he must speedily let them slip, then stand idly by and look on.

Donnybrook fair on an election day, or a wedding at ancient Ballyporeen, wouldn’t be a circumstance to the fight that would follow.

But lo! just at that moment the Gordian knot was unexpectedly cut.

For the high sledge, with the two men in it, was seen to detach itself from the main body, and, with but four dogs harnessed thereto, was driven at tremendous speed towards the Walrus.

Speed was slackened, however, before it got much over half-way, and now the faces and figures of the men on board could be distinctly seen.

And Captain Mayne Brace and his crew stared silently and wonderingly.

These men were evidently not Eskimos, far less were they savages. One was very tall and squarely built, and, had he not been so dark in skin, would have been very handsome.

His companion was evidently very short, but as broad in the beam as any athlete would care to be.

Both were armed with rifles, but these were slung carelessly in front of the sledge.

Presently they were close at hand. Then the taller of the two, who had been driving, ordered the dogs to “down-charge,” and threw the reins to his companion.

When he stood erect on the snow, with his spear-like pole in his left hand, and pulled his skin hood off, the volume of long dark brown hair that tumbled down over his shoulders, his splendid fur-clad figure and dignity of bearing, would have brought down the house in any theatre.

Then he tossed his head, and shook back his locks.

“Ingomar, sir, at your service!” he said, smiling.

The captain stood in the gangway.

“Ingomar, is it?” he said, smiling in turn. “Well, indeed, you look it, young fellow. But won’t Ingomar honour us with his presence on board?” he added.

“With pleasure, captain; and, come to think of it, that is what brought me here.”

Almost ignoring the assistance of the Jacob’s ladder thrown to him, he swung himself easily on board, and stood before them all.

“Heigho!” he said. “This is a nice wind-up to a windy day. What will happen next, I wonder?”

Boy-like, Charlie at once stepped forward and shook Ingomar by the hand. Boys all love heroes. So do men, only they don’t like to show it.

“I’m sure,” said Charlie, impulsively, “uncle will make you welcome.”

“Hurrah!” cried the men.

“Your welcome, young sir,” said Mayne Brace, “shall be second only to that we gave the sun, as soon as we know a little about you, and what you desire.”

“Prettily spoken, captain. Forgive my familiarity. And I tell you straight, gentlemen, that what I desire most at the present moment is a piece of soap, a basin of water, and three towels. This hospitality to be followed, if you’ll be so good—and, being British, you are bound to be—by a good square meal and a cigar!”

Charlie would have led Ingomar straight away down to his own cabin on the spur of the moment.

But Ingomar held back.

“No,” he said politely, “let me wash—scrub, if you like it better—forward at the fo’c’sle. Every day for six months I have stripped, and my body has been scoured with snow. But my face——”

“Here you are, sir. Follow me!” This from one of the men, who had brought a wooden, rope-handled bucket of steaming water.

Ingomar was conducted to the half-deck, and, when he emerged, but for his romantic dress of skins, no one would have known him.

The skin, even of his hands, was now as white as a lady’s, and his complexion perfect.

And his every action, movement, and sentence were those of a well-bred man of the world.

He looked about ten years younger than he did when he stepped on board.

“By the way, Captain—eh——”

“Mayne Brace,” said Charlie.

“Captain Mayne Brace, I have been dreaming for weeks in my tent, far away over the hills yonder, that I was sailing southwards in a British barque. The fact is, sir, though life in these regions may have a spice of romance about it, one gets tired after a time of the winter’s darkness; and a diet of dried fish, seal-mutton, and whale-blubber becomes irksome at last, even if a bear-steak is now and then added to the menu.

“Do you know, sir,” he added, interrupting himself, “that if your tailor could make me a serge suit of some sort, and if I had my hair cut, I’d really have the audacity to ask you to grant me a passage back to temperate regions with you?”

“We will be delighted, Ingomar,” from the captain.

“Oh, that isn’t my name, but the name of the play in which I last took part in a Chicago theatre. But I should be glad to tell you who and what I am after I have munched a ship biscuit.”

As they went below to dinner, Captain Brace leaving orders for the man in the sledge and the dogs also, to be fed, Charlie found time to seize Ingomar’s hand again and pull himself up, while he whispered—

“Don’t have your hair cut, and don’t wear a serge suit. You look ever so much better in skins.”

* * * * *

After dinner Ingomar consented to sit in an easy-chair, but well away from the fire.

He lit his cigar.

“I’m very happy, Captain Brace,” he said.

“So pleased!” said Brace.

“You promised to tell us your story,” said Charlie.

“Well, yes,” returned the stranger, “and for your sake I’m sorry it must be brief. But, Captain Brace, may I first go and give Humpty Dumpty his orders, if I am to sleep on board all night?”

“Humpty Dumpty, as you call him, is perhaps, like yourself, an Englishman?”

“Oh, pardon me, captain, but neither Humpty nor I have the honour to be English. I am an American, sir, born and bred, and so is my mate. I don’t drawl, and I don’t ‘guess’ and ‘calculate,’ and I don’t use my nose much to talk with. Humpty does a little. But Humpty Dumpty was only a man before the mast when we became first acquainted. I’ll run up and speak to him over the side.”

“No, no,” cried the captain. “We’ll have Humpty down here for a minute.”

“What a strange name!” said Walt.

“Well, yes, but it fits him. It fits his shape and build. His real name is a deal too—a—aristocratic, don’t you call it, for him. Hampden is his surname, so I call him Humpty Dumpty for short.”

“Hullo, here he is!”

Humpty stood in the doorway, cap in hand.

He was about five feet or less in height, and in his Eskimo dress, with his tremendous breadth of shoulder, shaped somewhat like the capital letter V.

“You called me, sir?”

“Um, yes, Humpty. You are to drive back to our tribe, and tell them they must get away over the horizon again and camp there, but to return to-morrow before sunrise, because I believe these young gentlemen would like to ride in a dogsledge, and see the village of which I am king.”

“Oh!” from both boys.

“Right, sir; I’m off straight’s an arrow.”

“One minute, Mr. Hampden. You’ll have a glass of wine?”

“Excuse me, capen, but I’ve tasted it before, I reckon. Yes, sirree, once I took a thimbleful too much, and next day, sez I to myse’f, ‘No more liquor for Dumpty.’”

In a minute or two after this Dumpty was dashing over the snow to the spot where his tribe had been left.

The doctor entered now.

The steward had kept his dinner hot.

“The Teelies have gone back, sir, and peace is restored.”

He bowed and smiled to Ingomar, then sat down to dinner; but while he ate, only ordinary subjects were talked about.

Then Wright joined the circle round the fire, and, having cleared away, the steward considered himself privileged to stand in the doorway for a short time to listen.

For on board Arctic ships faithful servants are allowed quite a deal of freedom, which, by the way, I have never known them abuse.

“Well, my friends,” said Ingomar, “you must excuse my shortcomings as a story-teller. I suppose I’m not old enough to tell fibs, so my yarn, if short and stupid, has at least truthfulness in its favour.”

“Heave round, sir,” said Captain Mayne Brace.

And Ingomar, smiling, obeyed.

CHAPTER III
“MY PRIDE WARRED AGAINST MY BETTER FEELINGS”

“Well, gentlemen, Ingomar being merely my stage name because I played in that piece more than in any other, I ought at the very offset to tell you my baptismal one. That was Hans, and my father being an Armstrong, I very naturally adopted his surname. Hans Armstrong, then; and here you have me clad in skins, of which rig-out I am beginning to be slightly ashamed.”

“Pardon me,” said Captain Brace, “you tell us that you belonged to Chicago. Do you happen to have any personal acquaintance with the Dutch-American millionaire Armstrong?”

“I have known that gentleman, sir, since I was eighteen inches long. He wasn’t much of a millionaire then. I do myself the honour of believing that it was I who brought all the good luck to that well-known family; and although when I was a child Mrs. A. occasionally showed her extreme affection by spanking me, I loved and love her very much. If alive, young gentlemen, she is my mother; if dead, she is a saint in heaven. They have just one other child, a girl, my dear sister Marie, years younger than myself, and she will fall heir some day, I suppose, to all my father’s millions.”

“But you yourself, Hans?”

“Well, sir, I—I suppose I am a fool, sir, or, more probably, a born idiot. I am likewise the prodigal son. For the last six months and over I have not certainly been eating husks with the swine. It would be wrong and cowardly in me to allude to my friends the Yak-Yaks as swine; but I have been living, as I have already told you, in a somewhat unrefined way.

“The Armstrongs, I think I have heard my father say, first went to Britain and settled there, then across the sea to America, and fought against you during the War of Independence. But that has nothing whatever to do with me. My parents have been very, very good to me, and my education has been quite up to the Boston standard. Only when I reached the advanced age of seventeen—I am now two and twenty—I began to grow reckless. Civilization was not good enough for me. It was too much in the same groove. I determined therefore to shake the dust of Chicago off my shoes—there is a good deal of dust in Chicago—and find my way into regions remote, where, if the people were not rich, they were at least honest. My sister’s wild entreaties, my mother’s tears, prevailed not against my headstrong self.

“My adventures among the Rocky Mountains and forests of the Far West would fill a book. I thought seriously of living in the wilds for life, and marrying the daughter of a chief.

“He was ugly enough to have stopped a clock, but a splendid warrior, and his braves were all that braves should be. Cheena, the daughter, was but a child of twelve. But she interested and amused me, and perhaps captivated me with her beauty and her innocent ways. One of these innocent ways was to play with snakes. She even taught me to boldly touch and handle the rattler.

“No wild beast would harm Cheena, and she went fearlessly into the dens of even grizzly bears, and played with their puppies as if they had been dolls.

“I lived in the wilds with this wandering tribe for nearly three happy years. Cheena knew English, and I taught her more. Shakespeare was my constant companion. Better perhaps had it been my Bible. But Cheena and I played many a scene together in glades of the beautiful forest.

“I must hurry over all this, though.

“Well, one day, with three men and two tame wolves, I went away on a big shoot. When we returned, I found that a warlike tribe had attacked the chief’s camp, and that he and his braves had been defeated and scattered.

“I never saw him again, nor poor Cheena, though I wandered about in search of them for three long, dreary months.

“Then one day I returned to my father’s house. It was late at night, but I climbed up into my own old bedroom, just as I used to do when a lad.

“Nothing was changed. Everything had been kept sacred as a temple.

“I went quietly to bed, and when next morning I coolly rang for water and old Roberts entered, he shook with fear so that he would have fallen had I not supported him.

“‘Is—it—you, Master Hans?’ he quavered, ‘and not a dead—go—go—ghost?’

“‘Is that like the hand of a dead go—go—ghost, Roberts?’ I said, grasping his arm with my forest-hardened fingers.

“‘Oh—no—no,’ he almost shrieked. ‘Lor, sir, how you’ve growed! Your mother and Sissie will be skeered, I guess, when they sees you.’

“‘And they are all well?’

“‘That’s so, Master Hans; and the old man too.’

“‘Well, some hot water, Roberts. I’ll wash and come downstairs to breakfast.’

“I was down before anybody, and sitting quietly in a rocker, smoking one of dad’s best Havanas, when Sissie and mother entered.

“You may judge what followed, boys.”

“But,” pleaded Charlie, “you’re not making the story half long enough.”

“I settled down now, sir, to the hardest work ever I had in my life.”

“And that was?”

“Doing nothing. But I couldn’t keep it up. It was ruining my fine constitution.

“I was always fond of the stage, and took Marie to see Ingomar one evening.

“She was delighted. I was not. Ingomar was not written by Shakespeare, I believe, but it was a pet play of mine, and I knew I could act the part better.

“But somehow I went back several nights running. Then, as my good or my bad fortune would have it, one evening the excited manager rushed before the screen to announce that, to his grief and chagrin, the principal actor had been taken suddenly ill, and that the play could not be put on. Yes, of course, he added, the gate-money would be refunded.

“After this, some impulse seized me. I stood boldly up in the box, and shouted with arm extended—

“‘Stay, I know the part, and if the manager will but give me a chance, I will try my best.’

“Every eye was turned towards my box, while Sissie shrank behind the curtain. I am told, sir, that I am not bad looking, and my figure is fairly good.

“There was a wild ‘Hooray!’ now, at all events, and that evening found me before the footlights.

“I played with heart and soul. I had the people with me, and felt I had; and when at the end of the first act I was called before the curtain, I received an ovation that would have satisfied a far better actor than I.

“Hardly thinking about the disgrace my people would imagine I was bringing on them, I accepted the manager’s terms to play for three weeks.

“I told them that night what I had done. Mother was silent, Sissie looked frightened; and when next morning we all met at breakfast, I could see that both had been crying.

“Scarcely a word was said, but that forenoon my father asked me into his sanctum.

“‘Boy, boy,’ he began, ‘why this madness? Do you wish to bring my grey hairs down with sorrow to the grave?’

“I sat quietly down that our eyes might be more on a level, for I am very tall.

“‘Dear father,’ I said, ‘I am foolish enough to think that I shall be an honour to you as an actor.’

“‘Honour! Actor!’ he cried.

“‘It is a noble profession,’ I said quietly; ‘and when you come to listen to my interpretation of Hamlet, you will believe that God has gifted your son with genius. There will be no sorrow then, dear daddy.

“‘Besides,’ I added mischievously, ‘you haven’t got a single solitary grey hair in head or whiskers.’

“Some people are hard to convince. My father is one of them.

“‘I will cut you off with a dollar,’ he thundered, ‘if you do not give up this disgraceful fad. If you do I will take you into partnership.’

“Then I told him grandiosely that the resolution I had taken was fixed, immutable; but that rather than bring disgrace upon him, I would change my name as soon as this engagement was over, and go into a far country to act where no one would know me.

“‘I began life,’ he said, as he sunk back in his chair, ‘with fourpence in my pocket.’

“‘And I, daddy,’ I replied, ‘am beginning life without a penny, but possessed of one of the dearest old fathers that ever a young man was gifted with.’

“He was softened.

“‘Boy,’ he said, after a pause, ‘I am wealthy, but your sister must be my heir. If you must go—then go. I will place a trifle at your disposal in my bank at New York. You will have that to fall back upon, when your fad and folly leave you. Good-bye. I may never see you more.’

“He started from his chair and marched straight out of the room.

“Here, boys, ends the second act of the prodigal son.

“Just two months after this I found that my father’s words were coming true. I had attempted Hamlet, but was playing to very poor houses.

“When I came home one evening and found a very humble dinner waiting for me, I became very sad indeed.

“But worse was to follow, for in a week’s time my engagement at the theatre was over, and I was politely told I was not good business, and could not be retained.

“I went quietly and, I thought, calmly away; but happening to enter a club that evening where my presence had always been welcome before, I found only coldness. When a rival actor taunted me as to my success, I completely lost control of myself. I flew at the fellow, picked him up, armchair and all, and threw him to the other side of the room.

“I heard no more of the matter, but in a week’s time I found myself alone in my dingy lodgings without a copper in my pocket.

“I was alone with my pride. I might beg, but never again, I told myself, would I darken my father’s door.

“It was two days after this when, while strolling along near to the docks, I was met by a French seafaring man. He looked at me and I at him.

“‘Do you want work?’ he asked.

“‘That I do. I’ll do anything.’

“‘Well, you look a likely sportsman. I’m off in a day or two on a curious kind of cruise to the very far north.’

“‘I’ll go with you,’ I answered, ‘if the wages are not starvation.’

“‘Come with me now,’ he said. ‘We will soon settle matters.’

“He had a boat, and we were both rowed off to a strange-looking but strong and sturdy brig.

“Every man on board except this same Humpty Dumpty was French. What cared I? Surely I could hold my own in a fight against a score of little sailors.

“‘You are not a sailor,’ said my new friend, when we were together in his little cabin.

“‘No,’ I said; ‘but I can shoot, and wield an axe, and I can fish.’

“‘You’re my man. But I must explain. We are engaged by a celebrated firm of chemists to go to Greenland waters and fish for sharks. The oil of the livers is not only finer and richer but more abundant than that of the cod, and it is considered an infallible cure for consumption.

“‘You’ll have to rough it,’ he added. “‘Thank God to have the chance.’

“And the bargain was speedily made, and the articles signed.

“I was to join in two days’ time.

“That night it suddenly occurred to me to visit my father’s bank here. I still had his letter, and by its aid could identify myself.

“I must confess that I went to that bank in bitterness of spirit against my poor daddy. But I felt sure that the trifle he had deposited to my credit, would be but the traditional dollar with which prodigal sons are often cut off. I meant to bore a hole in it, and wear it round my neck.

“I had no sooner made myself known than the manager, to my great surprise, shook me by the hand.

“‘Come into my room,’ he said. ‘Your father has sent me your photograph, so that there is no need for identification. And the cheque is a handsome one.’

“‘I hope, sir,’ I said, ‘you will not tantalize me. I expect nothing from my father except one dollar.’

“‘The cash standing to your credit,’ he said, ‘is two millions sterling.’

“I answered scarcely a word. I was too dazed to speak. This, then, was the dollar with which my father had cut me off.

“I arose from my chair, and, hardly taking time to shake hands with this business-like banker, I walked straight out, and away home to my dingy, dismal lodgings.

“I wanted to think, and to be alone.

“‘My poor father!’ These were the first words I said to myself. And at this moment I would have given a good deal to be sitting once more in our old-fashioned parlour, with mother and sister near me, and my father studying the markets as he sat in his chair.

“But evil thoughts began to take the place of good, and my pride warred against my better feelings.

“These two millions were a million times more than I deserved, though it would leave him but little poorer. This was true, but nevertheless I felt that I was cut off.

“‘Here is thy portion, boy,’ he seemed to have said. ‘Get thee away into a far country, and come not near us again.’

“I was banished. I would keep to my engagement with the French shark-hunter strictly and to the letter. My millions might lie there. I would not draw a cheque even for a dollar. I was proud, and my pride bred bitterness of heart.

“I wrote at least half a dozen letters to Sissie and mother, read them over, and tore them up as soon as penned. For somehow that bitterness of heart breathed all through each one of them.

“Then, when calmer, I wrote one simple, loving letter, bidding all good-bye. And it ended thus: ‘When I am worthy to be my good old father’s son I will return.’”

* * * * *

“Ah, gentlemen,” he continued, after a pause of silence that no one cared to break, “my long banishment to this dreary country, though self-inflicted, has done me good and changed my mind. Before, I could see men but as trees walking, now I can read all my father’s motives. Like all our forbears, he is proud, but he is true, and—well, I must confess I love him. There!

“My adventures since I left home are too numerous to tell you. Our ship was wrecked, and Dumpty and I alone were saved. Then I joined a band of wandering Eskimos—the Yak-Yaks. I did not care what became of me. I felt I was running away from myself, from my evil, prideful nature, and so here I am, a changed and, I trust, a better man.

“One thing, however, I have determined upon. I will not return to my father’s house, until I have done something which shall show him that I possess some of the sand and grit in me, which has descended to us from the old fighting Armstrongs.

“But, I say,” he added comically, “you will get me that serge suit, won’t you? And you will let me and Humpty Dumpty join your ship, and let me have my hair cut, and—well, and just share your adventures, won’t you?”

“By all means,” replied Captain Mayne Brace.

“One minute before you finally decide,” said Ingomar. “For all you know, I may be a mere adventurer or a madman. But see, I have some business-like method in my madness.”

He pulled from an inside pouch a bundle of papers.

“I have kept these, Captain Brace. I place them before you, and, unless you promise me you will glance over them, I shall return to-morrow to my igloo among the Yak-Yaks, and trouble you no more.”

“I will take them to my cabin, young sir, though I think there is no need to. I can read honesty in your eyes.”

Ingomar’s manner changed now at once. He was brimful of happiness apparently, and addressed himself more to the boys than the others.

“I say, lads,” he cried, “won’t we have a day of it to-morrow, if your good captain will permit you to cross the mountains with me?”

“Oh, we shall enjoy it!” cried Charlie.

“Won’t we just,” said Walt.

“I’ve never driven dogs, but I think I could if I tried.”

“Hurrah!”

And the evening passed very happily away.

CHAPTER IV
THE AGREEMENT DRAWN UP AND SIGNED

Like all men who are ever likely to do any good in this world, and leave footsteps in the sands of time, Captain Mayne Brace was an early riser.

The stars were still glowing like diamonds in the sky, then, and the merry dancers—the aurora—were still at their revels when he turned out to have his bath. A quarter of an hour after this found him on deck.

Here, to his surprise, he met young Ingomar. He stood on the poop, his face skywards and to the north.

“Is it not a grand sight, sir?” he said. “How near and how brightly these stars and planets burn! It seems as if one could touch them with one’s rifle or fishing-rod. And the aurora-gleams—the positive magnetism that comes from the far-off Southern Pole—how beautiful their transparency of colours! Those ribbons of light seem to me like living things. And in the stillness of this early morning do you not hear them talking? Shsh—shs—shs—shs! Oh, sir, is it not God Himself who is speaking there—the God of power, the God we know so little of, the God whom in our pride of knowledge we sometimes venture to impugn, to correct, to criticize! Forgive me, sir, for speaking thus before an older man than myself. But oh, sir, there is a glamour about that sky, about these northern solitary wilds, which gets around the heart and soul, and makes one feel one is really face to face with the Creator—Maker not alone of this puny earth, but of yonder universe—of infinity itself!”

He scarcely gave Captain Brace time to reply.

“Down in one’s bunk,” he continued, “one belongs to this world. Up here among the stars and aurora one is with God. But down below last night, sir, I was thinking of my father, my mother, and sister. To say that I was not longing a little for home would be to insinuate that I was more than a young man. Yet my resolution has not been one whit shaken. When I can do something that no one else has ever yet done, or at least made an attempt to do this something, the prodigal son will return to his father’s house; not till then. My father is a very Napoleon of finance. In that line I may never, can never, hope to equal him, nor do I desire to do so. Yet I may become a great explorer, and help to add to the world’s fund of knowledge for the world’s benefit.

“I had made up my mind never to finger a frank of those two millions, but I shall, and will gladly, spend one million, if need be, for the furtherance of a plan I have in view, and have well thought out. It is an ambitious one, sir. I feel I ought to blush even to mention it.”