Dr. Walter E. Traprock and Snak

MY
NORTHERN EXPOSURE

THE KAWA AT THE POLE

BY

WALTER E. TRAPROCK

F.R.S.S.E.U., N.L.L.D.

AUTHOR OF "THE CRUISE OF THE KAWA"

WITH TWENTY-ONE FULL PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS

G.P. PUTNAM'S SONS

NEW YORK AND LONDON

The Knickerbocker Press

1922

Copyright, 1922

by

G.P. Putnam's Sons

Made in the United States of America

DEDICATED

TO

IKIK, SNAK, YALOK, LAPATOK
AND KLIPITOK

(THE ONLY ESKIMOS I EVER LOVED)

AND

SAUSALITO

[Pg 7]

FOREWORD

BY

Irving T. Grosbeak, R.O.T.C.

AT DURFEE COLLEGE, XENIA, O.

For hundreds of years men have struggled amid snow and ice to reach one or the other of the earth's poles. Why? What has attracted them? What has been the lure which has led them from warm firesides and comfortable radiators to suffer the rigors of a most annoying climate?

We search in vain among the writings of modern polar explorers for a satisfactory answer to this question.

In earlier days we find credible reasons for this fanatical zeal, reasons which were material and commercial. In the dark ages we know that hardy Norsemen sought an Ultima Thule beyond the Arctic Circle. The Irish also claim credit for the earliest discoveries. They would. These voyages were mere forays undertaken with the hope of ad[Pg 8]vantages in barter and exchange. Following the establishment by Columbus of the globular theory of earth formation we read, likewise, of many futile attempts to reach the fabled wealth of India by short cuts and northwest passages. The adventurous Cabots, fearless Frobisher and gallant Gilbert were mainly occupied with material aims, the securing of additional colonies for the crown, additional gold for the royal treasury. They were out for the cush.

But when we turn to modern days in which the forbidding character of the northland has been well understood we are more puzzled to find a reasonable explanation for its fascination. We meet frequently that strange phrase, "the lure of the North," which is later described in terms of unspeakable hardships. We are told that this or that expedition was undertaken in order "to add to the sum of human knowledge" though that addition proves to be a series of tidal observations and barometric readings which could have been arrived at with sufficient exactness by scientific computations.

Moreover, without belittling the courage and determination of our gallant Peary, it is evident that his exploit was not discovery in its strictest sense. The pole had been located for centuries as being[Pg 9] the exact point of convergence of the meridional lines. Its precise position was known. To reach it, then, was a problem in transportation rather than one of actual discovery. This problem Peary solved magnificently and since that memorable April 6th, 1909, the flags of the United States, Delta Kappa Epsilon (Gnu Chapter), the world's Ensign of Peace, the Navy League and the Red Cross have flapped concertedly at the top of the world.

And yet the mystery has remained. We can not read the stories of these brave men, from the most successful to the least, without wondering what it was which actually drew them into the regions of eternal ice and snow. We can but suspect some great, unrevealed truth, some untold secret lying back of the veil of fog, shrouded in the darkness of the long Arctic night.

May we not well ask, "Has the entire truth been told? has the last word been spoken which will forever answer the natural question, why go there?"

It has remained for Walter E. Traprock to answer that question in no uncertain terms. The writer has no hesitation in saying that since the perusal of Dr. Traprock's log the entire northern question has been illuminated with perpetual sunshine.

[Pg 10]

It is not within the province of this foreword to go into details. The reader can, at the close of this book, lay it down with the thought that he knows the whole story of the North, the truth, the whole truth, and a lot else.

But it would be wrong for us to lay our pen aside without a word of explanation as to how the Traprock Polar Expedition came to be undertaken, for the circumstances were at once so dramatic and unusual as to warrant their preservation in definite form. In the spring of 1921, following Traprock's amazing discovery of the Filbert Islands, a meeting of the Explorers Union of the United States was held in the Federation Rotunda in Cambridge, Mass. The name of Traprock was in every mouth and to many it was distinctly unpalatable. A three days meeting resulted in the formation of the Traprock Polar Expedition. One half of the necessary funds was supplied by the Federation, the remainder being pledges by individuals.[1] But here is the dramatic truth which has never before been stated.

THE FEDERATED EXPLORERS NEVER EXPECTED DR. TRAPROCK TO RETURN!

[Pg 11]

The entire expedition was a deliberate plot on the part of jealous scientific men to forever remove from the field of action their most brilliantly successful rival. How this dastardly effort failed is told in the succeeding pages, which add fresh lustre to the crown, fresh laurel to the brows of America's intrepid son, Walter E. Traprock.

A mere statement of the fact that the first condition of Traprock's contract was that he should not only reach the Pole himself but that he should take his ship there will indicate the handicaps which were imposed from the start.

Did Traprock flinch or evade? Did he hesitate or shilly-shally?

Let the ice-bergs answer! Let the seals bark reply! Let the north wind howl its answer.

Better still, let the testimony of Traprock be graved on the Palisades of Time, that the world may know forever just exactly "Why Explorers Leave Home!"

Irving T. Grosbeak. Hall of Applied Ceramics, Durfee College, Xenia, O.

[Pg 13]

CONTENTS

[Pg 15]

"The Camera Cannot Lie"

ILLUSTRATIONS

Dr. Walter E. Traprock and Snak

Triplett the Undaunted

Un Déjeuner à la Bougie

What the Well-dressed Explorer will Wear

The Big Hunting

The Two Bears

The Nine o'Clock Bottle

Intensive Optimism

The Avowal

About to be Captured

Something New in Dramatics

After the Bath

Dinner is Served

A Far-off Fashion Plate
[Pg 16]
A Nimrod of the North

An Arch Archeologist

The Battle on the Brink

Ode to the Aurora

A Moment Musical

Dirty Work at the Igloo?

A Consultation

Photographs by
N. COURTNEY OWEN

[Pg 17]

MY NORTHERN EXPOSURE

Chapter I

The Origin of the Expedition. A memorable meeting. Inklings of a plot. My innocent enthusiasm. Our personnel. I put the proposition up to Triplett.

[Pg 19]

MY NORTHERN EXPOSURE

Chapter I

"Mush!"

The cry of command rang out on the frosty air.

"Mush!"

Again the surrounding ice echoed the word which seems, more than any other, to tell the whole story of the North.

At its repetition, my sturdy followers hurled their bulks against the trace-collars while a babel of exhortation shattered the silence. "Let's go!" "We're off." "Attaboy!"

The Traprock Polar Expedition was on its way!

We had reached the edge of the great polar-pack. Those of my readers whose knowledge of ice packs is limited to those which can be wrapped in an ordinary hand-towel can, of course, form no impression of the magnitude and desolation of the scene which lay before us. As far as the eye could see....

But I am far north of my narrative. It would[Pg 20] be an obvious injustice to my companions and fellow-polarists to omit mention at this time of the personnel of our extraordinary expedition, the most complete and carefully organized that ever set out toward the Big Peg.

Let us go back, then, in memory to the eventful meeting of the Explorers Union, held in Cambridge on Friday, April 1st, 1921. I can see the picture with vivid distinctness, the shining bald-heads and snowy crowns of the aged members, o'er arched by the larger but no more dignified dome of the Rotunda itself, the bright spots of light on the polished mahogany table, the swift fingered secretary, who had gorgeous henna hair, I remember—I can see it all;—and I can hear clearly the voice of old Dr. Waxman, the President, (whose exploits in the Ant-Arctic will be well remembered,[2]) as he rose and said,

"Well then, gentlemen, it is settled. Traprock must go."

The company as one man echoed the President's remark.

"Traprock must go!"

With the sound of this verdict ringing in my ears I delivered a short speech of appreciation. Little[Pg 21] did I realize at the time the sinister influences which had been at work to bring about the very result which so filled my heart with pride. Little did I know that among the men who sat by my side that evening sharing with me the hand and hip of friendship, passing me an occasional peanut from the store which the President was cracking with his gavel, little did I imagine that among them were some to whom the words "Traprock must go" meant a far different thing from what it did to me. But as old Tertullian has it, "Nemo me impune lacessit"—"What you don't know won't hurt you"; and so from a full heart I thanked them.

At the end of twenty minutes, President Waxman interrupted me to ask, "When can you start?"

I heard one of the older members whisper, "Not 'when can he start?' When can he stop?"

"Now." I answered with characteristic brevity, giving the whispering member a look which he will never forget.

The meeting broke up forthwith. Before leaving the Rotunda, Adolph Banderholtz, Secretary-for-Polar-Affairs of the Explorers Union (which I shall hereafter refer to as the E.U.) handed me a typewritten list of names.

"These are our nominations for the expedition,"[Pg 25] he said with his shallow smile. "You will find them admirably equipped in their respective departments. Good-bye."

TRIPLETT THE UNDAUNTED

Captain Ezra Triplett, the navigator of Dr. Traprock's metamorphic yawl needs no introduction to students of marine accomplishment. To lay-readers perhaps a brief preamble is in order. Born a not-too-simple son of New Bedford, Mass., Triplett has climbed the rope-ladder of success from cabin-boy to Captaincy, from poop-deck to mast-head. Gifted with uncanny nautical skill this Captain Courageous is equally at home on ice.

Seldom if ever has the camera been more successful in catching the very soul of the sitter, who in this case is standing. But whether assis or debout Ezra Triplett is always master of the situation. The animals in the background are not dogs but Amoks, those wild vulpines of the North which have been trained by hand to obey their master's voice.

The whip, coiled snake-like about the Captain's friendly artics, is an entirely superfluous emblem of authority, for this remarkable man achieves his results by the power of the human eye alone. In this connection it should be noted that Triplett is limited to a single optic. The one on the right as one faces the photograph is phony, the original having literally leaped out of its socket many years ago during an exciting kangaroo hunt. The eye, rolling away into the bush, was never recovered in spite of a handsome reward-notice in the Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide press. Thus Triplett lost not only the sight of the eye but the eye itself. What the Captain achieves with his single orb is nothing short of amazing and we have frequently seen him face-down such fearless fellow-men as George Jean Nathan merely by turning towards them his blind eye.

Both attitude and costume are superbly characteristic, the massive oak-timbered frame filling to repletion the bearskin jerkin with its practical one-man-top. As a protection for the nether limbs Triplett invariably wore light woolen pajamas with gee-string exits and entrances. This scant covering was ample even in the severest weather, owing to the fact that Triplett's own limbs are clothed with a heavy coat of natural fur which, in his own words, is "grown on the place."

Triplett the Undaunted

He extended a limp hand which I hurt as much as possible by using a peculiar grip taught me by an old swaboda in the Malay peninsula. He went deathly white and faded from my view. I fear I do not always realize my strength.

Banderholtz is one of the type of arm-chair explorers which I particularly detest. Everything he does is superficial. In the early days when airplanes were safer than they are now because they would not rise more than six feet from the ground, he gained a great reputation as a birdman on the strength of once having been up in a captive-balloon in the Bois de Boulogne.

But this is no place for personal animosities. I caught the midnight train to New York, rang for the Porter and insisted that my section be un-made and a table furnished. Now that the matter was settled I was burning with a desire to work out the details. All night I toiled away, the click of my typewriter being the only sound except an occasional curse from the occupants of nearby berths. An old gentleman in upper-seven disturbed me somewhat with his snoring but gradually the sound[Pg 26] blended itself with the snorts of the sea-lions which I was already hearing in imagination and I became oblivious to all interruption. When the train pulled into Grand Central my preliminary work was complete. My various lists, personnel, food, equipment, scientific objects, etc. had all been sketched out. The remaining weeks of April were devoted to the detail of complete organization, all of which I attended to personally.

Since I have already spoken of the E.U. list of names, I may as well dispose of the subject at this time. Quite naturally it was composed, in the main, of scientific men, men famed each in his particular field. I knew them by their works, and a casual glance at the list convinced me that our expedition would compare with the best in its scientific departments.

The first name was that of Warburton Plock, whose reputation in anthropology, zoology and biology fitted him to size up and classify any living thing. Plock's work on simians and femurae is the accepted monkey-manual in most menageries. I shall never forget the impression it made upon me the first time I read it.

The important studies of cartography, oceanography, topography and kindred subjects were[Pg 27] allotted to Elmer E. Miskin, of the E.U. library forces. Miskin was what one might call a self-made explorer. He had worked his way up from the bottom of the paper basket, through a long course in filing and cataloguing. While a boy in the grade schools of his native town of Peapack, N.J. he had shown early promise by winning five consecutive gold stars in map-drawing and one of his prize-winning creations with the Orange Mountains represented by caterpillars glued on the cardboard now hangs behind the door of the Principal's office of the Hooker Avenue School. This was his first experience in the field.

Three other names complete the E.U. list, Croyden Sloff, magnetician, electrician and victrologist, Winchester Wigmore, snow- and ice-expert and Bartholomew Dane, egyptologist.

It was with surprise that I saw the name of Warburton Plock. We had met frequently in the old days when we used to gather round the keg at the E.U. meetings and our feelings had always been antipathetic. But I resolved that no fancied grudges should cloud the sky of our venture and immediately wired Plock a cordial telegram saying, "Am counting on your loyal support and hope I shall get it."

[Pg 28]

It is hardly necessary to say that my own selections for travelling companions included my old friends Herman Swank, the artist, and Reg Whinney, scientist, whose loyalty and devotion during my South Sea travels have forged links of friendship which can never be broken. Swank's enthusiasm at the prospect of actually painting the aurora borealis from life was unbounded. He at once thought of his colleagues in the colorful modern school. "I'll have them skinned a mile," he cried.

Other men may possibly excel in special lines, but I am confident that as an all-round scientist, Whinney can give them all cards and spades. His fund of general information saved me thousands of dollars for he combined several people in one. For instance he knew quite enough about medicine to be our official doctor. As soon as he received the polar invitation he set about studying polar diseases, snow blindness, scurvy, chill-blains, frost-bite and so on. He was an expert photographer and got results from a 3¼ × 4¼ Kodak that surprised everybody including himself. He had also become keenly interested in radiography and brought a complete outfit aboard with him, using his own body as a spool upon which to coil his antennae until they could be rigged in a proper manner. Most[Pg 29] men have two sides, but Whinney had at least a dozen. He combined many men in one. Way back in our college days I recall that he was taken on the Christmas trip of the Glee Club because he could play the banjo and he made the banjo-club because he could sing. He wasn't good at either but he averaged well.

In addition to Swank and Whinney, I made another selection based on painstaking thought. I asked my life-long friend, Sydney Freemantle Frissell, to go along as recreationist and entertainer. Northern expeditions, especially through the long hours of the Arctic night are very dull affairs. Along about midnight, with morning three months away, the party is apt to die. Then is when a man like Frissell is invaluable. He has no brains whatever, but the most amazing vitality and can wake up any assembly by sheer audacity. I deliberated a long time as to whether to get Ed Wynn or Frissell, but finally decided in favor of Frizzy as he could come and Wynn couldn't.

Needless to say, our Captain was the same staunch old oak-framed navigator, Ezra Triplett, who had gotten the Kawa into so many tight holes in the past.

"What ship?" he asked when I put it up to him.

[Pg 30]

"Kawa," I said.

"Done, by thunder," he roared.

Honest Ezra Triplett! Loyal, staunch friend, quaint, saturnine, creature that he is.

"Doc," he said, "I'd like darn well to take one of my wives along. It's gonter be kinder lonely up there in the ice with all you boys off gunnin'."

I smiled indulgently at the old man's foibles.

"Which one do you want to take?"

"The gal from Sausalito," he explained. "I ain't seen her in about a year, an' I'm gettin' kinder fed-up on ... you know ... Noo York."

I nodded. "We'll have to keep it secret. You know I've absolutely forbidden it. She can join us at St. Johns and come aboard as wardrobe woman. No one must suspect that she is your wife."

Triplett shifted his quid and slowly winked his false eye.

"She ain't," he said.

[Pg 31]

Chapter II

Our triumphant departure. A man missing. Wigmore's gallant embarkation. The Kawa herself. A new idea in construction. A few boresome details.

[Pg 33]

Chapter II

From her berth in the Harlem, the Kawa steamed, or to be more exact, gasolined, to the landing stage of the N.Y.Y.C. station at the foot of East Twenty-second St. Our progress had been one of triumph. Every passing ship had hailed us by bell, whistle or horn, to which was added the hoarse blare of sirens from the converted breweries which line the banks. Gay stevedores threw their caps in the air and tossed lumps of coal in our direction, surely a magnificent tribute with coal at its present price. Street urchins shouted unintelligible remarks and all manner of citizens joined in the usual riparian rites. Passing under the stern of a United Fruit Company steamer, the cook waved a farewell from his galley and dumped a bucket of potato peelings in our path.

Off Blackwell's Island the scene was particularly affecting, the inmates giving me an appreciative greeting, the trusties rushing to the sea wall and[Pg 37] gazing longingly in my direction while those in durance vile plucked off their shoes and beat upon the cell bars to attract my attention. With my glasses, I thought I recognized one or two familiar faces but I can not be sure. At any rate I feel certain that their hearts went out to me even as mine went in to them, and I could but paraphrase the remark of Dean Bullock, "There, but for the Grace of God, is the whole Traprock Expedition."

UN DÉJEUNER À LA BOUGIE

The candle which Dr. Traprock presented to the beautiful Ikik as a love-token was generously shared by her with her co-wives. Its appeal, curiously, was entirely gustatory, the flavor of refined wax being a revelation to the native taste after their customary fare of seal-fat and fish-oil.

Here we see the charming Yalok nibbling her share of the prized dainty. The candle shown is one of six, specially cast for Dr. Traprock by the Candlemas Club of Pittsburgh. Each one was designed to last a month and thus bring light into the Arctic night. The donors doubtless will be surprised and pleased at the knowledge that the heroic-size of their gift met with great appreciation though not, perhaps, in the way intended.

"Evening after evening," says Dr. Traprock in a private letter to the editor, "the maidens sate about our Primus, passing the candle from hand to hand much as we pass a loving-cup, though with less reluctance. Each would nibble perhaps an inch from the coveted cylinder and then hand it to her neighbor, crying, 'Lapatok's turn!' or 'Klipitok's turn!' with the heartiest good-will imaginable."

The eminent explorer adds in a later paragraph, "Yalok seemed the most greedily fond of the great taper and on one occasion narrowly escaped death from choking on the wick which became wound about her palate. Seeing her inordinate appetite for the strange food, Ikik gallantly ceded her share, but I solaced the latter by secretly giving her the beeswax tomato from my mending kit upon which she feasted in private with vast delight!"

It is hard to imagine a more touching human sidelight than the above intimate incident. The Editor has forwarded a copy of Dr. Traprock's letter to the Candlemas Club where it is suitably framed and hung in the swimming-pool.

Un Déjeuner à la Bougie

The reception at the Yacht Club station was a gay affair. It was positively my first appearance upon any landing-stage. The efficient steward had arranged an authoritative punch and many a hearty toast was pledged and responded to with feeling. But we were soon on our way again. My final orders sealed with the official-seal of the Explorers Union, were placed in my hands by the venerable President, Waxman, who was greatly affected at parting. He had been eating peanuts of which he was passionately fond, and I recall that he thrust a few of them into my hands after saying, "Traprock, we expect a great deal ..." he choked, and was unable to complete his sentence.

At exactly two o'clock, on the flood tide, we backed out of the pier and under Triplett's guidance worked our way sideways to mid-channel. The[Pg 38] steward at the Yacht Club dipped his colors and fired a commodore's salute with his brass half-pounder to which I replied in proper fashion, lining up the entire expedition at the rail, eyes-right, while Triplett blew our Klaxon and shook a chain of sleigh bells which Frissell had brought along "because they seemed so northern."

It was during this lining-up process that I discovered that one man was missing. It was Wigmore, the snow and ice expert, who had failed to put in an appearance and I was greatly depressed by the fact which seemed to me to be an evil omen. Moreover he was an extremely valuable man with vast experience in alpine work as well as in the practical phases of glaciology with which he came in contact in his work as general-manager of the Higley Ice Cream Cone Co. But marine law is rigid. We were due to sail at two sharp, Wigmore or no Wigmore, and we sped off without him.

But my disappointment was to be almost immediately assuaged. When we were about an eighth of a mile above the Canal Street bridge, the last of the great arches which spans the river, Swank rushed up to me and cried, "Look, look. There he is——!"

I followed the direction of his pointing finger.[Pg 39] Sure enough, there was Wigmore, a tiny speck, running along the center span of the bridge. He was in full Alpine costume with rope, ax, pick and felt hat, and I saw to my amazement that he was going to board us. With the nimbleness of a chamois he scrambled over the railing, instantly beginning a spider-like descent of his rope which he had hooked above. Silhouetted against the sky I could see the curved feather in his cap, a minute question mark. The question in my mind was one of hair-raising anxiety. Would he make it, or not? Upon the answer seemed to depend the whole success or failure of our venture. His descent was timed to a nicety. Just as the Kawa plowed beneath him he gave a shake of his body, loosening the fastening, and dropped lightly to the deck amid our resounding cheers. Was it only in imagination that I saw the Goddess of Liberty wave her gigantic, torch-bearing arm, as if she too felt the thrill of a brave deed, nobly done?

"Bravo, Wigmore," I cried. "But what detained you?"

"My equipment, sir," he said, coming to attention. "They wouldn't let me into my apartment. The clerk thought I was a line-man for the Edison Company."

[Pg 40]

We all laughed heartily at the incident and settled down to routine-life on ship-board. Our last farewell from the great port of the Metropolis was from the Detention Ward on Ellis Island. The Pesthouse band was out in full-force and blew germs into the air with much enthusiasm, but Triplett had laid a course to windward so that we felt no apprehension.

It is perhaps not amiss at this point to say something regarding the highly important part played in our expedition by the Kawa herself. She may be said, I think, to be the star of a distinguished cast, or more accurately, that she divided stellar honors with me. For one of the conditions which was part of my bargain with good old Waxman and his associates was that I should actually take my ship to the Pole!

The expression on the faces of the worthy committee of the E.U. when I accepted this astounding condition is something that I must leave to the reader's imagination.

"Yes, gentlemen," I had said to them. "It can be done, and it will be done. Either I hitch the Kawa to the Pole or I never return!"

My announcement was greeted with cheers.

Immediately upon my return from Boston I[Pg 41] closeted myself with Captain Triplett in the cozy nautical room of the Book-lovers Library and we jointly went over the layout of the Kawa from stem to stern. We were surrounded by files of drawings and a great mass of data upon naval architecture with special reference to Arctic conditions. From the outset I was imbued with a conviction that we should find nothing of real importance in what had been done before. A careful study of my predecessors convinced me that they had uniformly been on the wrong track. What they had tried to do was to fight the ice. What I proposed was to humor it.

The outstanding feature of such vessels as the Fram and the Roosevelt was their rigidity. Their construction followed the general principle of the onion, consisting of numerous layers of heavy oak sheathing shored up from the inside with a veritable cob-web of balks, stanchions and braces. In addition to this, the sides of these ships were shaped so as to offer as small a vulnerable target as possible. The idea was that the stupendous pinch and pressure of the ice-pack failing to get a firm hold of the vessel should project her up from and out of the ice. This idea is graphically illustrated by an ordinary, household orange seed pinched sharply[Pg 42] between the thumb and forefinger. But I could not help smiling at the naive short-sightedness of these earlier men, for, assuming as sometimes happened, that the constructive features functioned as outlined, what then? The ship was merely lifted up until she canted over at a ridiculous and uncomfortable angle where she lay on the ice, a helpless and absurd spectacle. Further motion in any direction was plainly impossible except at the whim of the floe itself which often evinces a contradictory tendency to move southward instead of northward as per schedule.

While not wishing to discard entirely the idea of elusive conformation I saw at once that radical innovations would be necessary in order to accomplish my object. In a word, I proposed to convert the Kawa into a non-rigid type of vessel.

"Triplett," I said, during our first conference, "what is the slipperiest animal you know?"

The ancient mariner scratched his head reflectively before replying. "Seals."

"Right!" I cried. "Go to the seal, thou sluggard! Triplett, it's an idea! We'll make the Kawa as easy to handle as a greased hot water bottle."

For many days we worked over the plans and eventually began actual operations on the Kawa[Pg 43] herself, hauling her out for the purpose at Tutbury's shipyard. She was completely eviscerated. Her oak ribs and keel were removed and replaced by Austrian bent-wood, of the finest temper. A thin layer of yew-planking was laid over her sides with lapped, sliding joints, filled with elastic roofing-cement. Outside of this came a second layer of slippery elm (3/8" × 2½") laid diagonally so that the joints crossed those of the yew. The entire hull was then covered with seal-skin, fur side out. When she slid from the ways on her re-launching the Kawa took the water as noiselessly as a musk-rat, and it was with the greatest difficulty that we made her fast as she slipped from the ship-wright's grasp at the slightest pressure.[3]

"Gosh-t-a'mighty," grinned Triplett. "She's a seal!"

You may be sure I utilized Whinney's scientific ingenuity and it is to him I owe two innovations which contributed greatly to our success. One of these was the magnetic bowsprit, highly sensitized by induction-coils run from the exhaust of our 20 h.p. Tutbury engine; the other was the thermal[Pg 44] water-line, the temperature of which could be raised to 180 degrees by turning a switch which connected with our storage batteries. Both of these inventions worked perfectly.

Thanks to the bowsprit the problem of steering our svelte craft, about which Triplett had expressed some doubts, became a simple matter. Left to herself she invariably came up into the north and as that was the direction we wished to go all was well. The thermal water-line made passage through all but the thickest ice comfortable and easy. For many years the Kawa had had no water-line whatever so that we were uncertain how she would behave. The new one consisted of a thin layer of copper fastened to the elm siding, underneath the seal skin. I like to think that the little Kawa behaved so nobly because she knew her water-line was not visible.

Thus we arrived at a type of construction which gave us the strength and elasticity of a water-tight basket. What we had lost in rigidity we gained in feather-like lightness. Before her engines were installed the Kawa floated on the surface like a toy balloon. When loaded, as she usually was, she drew two-feet-six. The installation of the engine and stowing of stores also had a tendency[Pg 45] to stabilize the hull and keep her masts pointing upward which was a distinct advantage.

In addition to these marine features it was necessary to consider the eventuality of encountering solid, impenetrable ice in the region of the pole, ice through which even the thermal water-line would not make it possible for us to melt our way. Authorities agree that such ice may be expected north of eighty-six, even though we planned to time our arrival in that vicinity for mid-summer when, as is well known, the weather is extremely hot. This is the fascination of Arctic travel; one never knows what to expect. Our problem, then, was to make the Kawa equally at home on the floe or in the open leads, a glorified sea-sled. My previous experience with the various types of sledges convinced me that for my purpose they were useless. My object was to take the Kawa to the Pole. Then why not make the Kawa herself a sled?

I recognized instantly the feasibility of my scheme, which consisted of folding guide-runners framed of carefully selected greenheart. When not in use these runners extended horizontally along the counter, giving my little craft a singularly bird-like appearance. Incidentally they formed convenient luggage carriers similar to those attached[Pg 49] to the running boards of automobiles and, in fair weather, could be used as piazzas or sleeping porches covered with a high pile of bear-skins to make occupancy easy.

WHAT THE WELL-DRESSED EXPLORER WILL WEAR

Fine feathers do not make fine birds, but aigrettes are still forty dollars a stalk. Something of this thought evidently dominated the mind of Warburton Plock in the selection of his wardrobe. Plock, who is shown against a typically iglootinous background, was the only member of the expedition who paid no heed to his leader's advice in this regard, namely, to dress off-the-Eskimos. Instead of so doing he ordered his outfit built for him by Buskwa, the leading tailor of Nome. The garments were taken aboard at St. John's and formed a large part of Plock's luggage. They varied in design from a simple going-away suit to the most elaborate mufti, sports costume and evening dress.

In the attached fashion-plate the fastidious explorer is clad in the well-known "Buskwa-model" morning suit, which is made from the pelts of unborn teddy bears. This, according to the wearer, is the super-correct thing for the Young-Man-About-the-Pole. The accessory cane and cigarette are personal touches calculated to attract the attention of whomsoever he may meet north of Eighty-six. Vanity, in the Great White Spaces as elsewhere, precedes a fall, but usually only by a step or so. To be fair to the house of Buskwa it should be stated that Plock's garments were invariably tastefully designed and well-made. No detail of findings or linings was slighted. They were, however, entirely unsuited to the rigors of Polar climate.

The Buskwa trade is chiefly derived from the wealthier Chicoutimi families living along the Mad River and points South. To single out a single defect, the self-drawing fish-pockets are doubtless useful features to a people who spend many hours in the salmon streams. In the icy polar region the cold air naturally forced its way through the sartorial scuppers with the result that the wearer was soon forced to don another suit to avoid freezing. At the time of his attempted escape Plock was wearing his entire wardrobe, seven suits in all, which were recovered with the body of the fugitive. The clothes were later eaten by members of the return-party, who more than once had occasion to pay tribute to the tailor who had selected such delicious materials.

What the Well-dressed Explorer Will Wear

Thus you have a fairly complete idea of my metamorphosed vessel, adapted to meet any and all conditions.

But one word more, as to stores and equipment, and I will promise not to bore my readers further with these deadly technical details, which I fully realize have prevented the success of many a tale of Arctic adventure. In making up my lists I was guided by a principle which I have followed all my life, namely, that of taking with me only those things for which a proper substitute could not be found in the high latitudes. This simple thought I always practise in a restaurant, for instance, where I never by any chance order anything which might be served in my home. Just prior to leaving New York I heard a gentleman ask for corned-beef hash in the Ritz! I could but pity him. Yet it is this apparently trivial tendency which has sent many an expedition off to the Arctic circle burdened with voluminous packs of furs and crushing weights of supplies, all of which could be most easily secured from the Eskimos themselves who, with the possible[Pg 50] exception of the Cambodians, are the most friendly people I have ever encountered.[4]

Our clothing then was of the lightest. We started our journey dressed in plain business suits such as are worn by guides in the Canadian wilderness, but stowed in our duffle-bags were ample quantities of light underwear, both union and non-union, while included in my personal kit were three pairs of medium-weight, woolen longs with reinforced or sliding seats to make progress over the ice more easy. For outer wear during the warm season we carried the conventional tennis flannels and Palm-Beach suits and I am thankful to Swank for the suggestion that we include the tropical helmets which had shielded us so faithfully in the Filberts. They proved of inestimable value.

Most travellers into the land of refrigeration insist upon taking in with them bales of hay with which to pack their boots and thus absorb the moisture which would otherwise result in aggravated cases of cold feet. For this particular product I substituted a type of breakfast food of my own invention called "wheat whiskers" which comes[Pg 51] in compacted cubes of farinaceous filament. These, when needed, can be teased out to four times their initial bulk. The advantages of this product are evident, since it is both excellent boot-packing and nourishing food, or, as Frizzie put it "good for both hoof and mouth disease." Another dual personality in our list of stores was the solid alcohol, primarily intended for fuel, but also edible. This necessity was under my immediate jurisdiction as the responsible head of the party.

Too much credit can never be given to those great American institutions, the 5-and-10-cent stores, from which we were able to obtain at slight cost the necessary snow-goggles, ice-picks, cooking utensils, etc., which form a part of every expedition. From the same source we also purchased a sizable number of toys for use in bartering with the natives. All these lighter elements of our baggage were rolled in bolts of mosquito netting in the folds of which were packed fly-swatters (two per man), bottles of citronella, green fishing-veils, and other objects useful in combating the teeming insect life which springs into being at the first touch of the Arctic sun.

These, then, were our general stores. Each individual looked after the equipment necessary for his[Pg 52] own department. Sections of the Kawa, amidship, were allotted in alphabetical order, where, with a narrow aisle between, were tightly crammed Plock's anthropological charts, Miskin's map-cardboards, surveying instruments and colored crayons, Sloff's batteries, Wigmore's alpine ice instruments (including a horn), Dane's mummy-cases and scarabs, Whinney's camera supplies and radio-outfit, and Swank's paints and palettes. Frissell's personal impedimenta was unique and had no bearing whatever upon scientific research. It consisted of eighteen different fancy-dress costumes, wrapped up in which were a ukelele and six pogo sticks. At later intervals he kept producing smaller musical instruments, magic egg-cups and other entertaining devices which more than once rescued our spirits from the depths of black despair. Triplett carried, as usual, only his pouch of extra glass eyes and a small, well-worn, black bag which, to my certain knowledge, he never opened. I think he felt that it gave him dignity and was demanded of him, just as baggage is considered necessary by some punctilious hotel clerks. Whenever we left ship for more than a day, Triplett insisted on carrying his black bag. He looked as if he were about either to embalm a body or tune a piano. I could[Pg 53] never quite decide which. One day when he was ill, during the latter part of our trip, I peeked in the bag. It contained the upper half of a pair of pajamas and the photograph of a beautiful,—but I feel that respect for the old fellow's romantic heart, hidden deep beneath his tough hide, forbids me to say more. Somehow that little black bag became to me a symbol of its owner, concealing beneath its alligator-skin rind the elements of some exquisite life-incident!

[Pg 55]

Chapter III

The choice of a route. Off at last. We take aboard a passenger. Seeds of discontent. Into the long twilight. Radio reversals. The ice at last. Trouble with our water-line. Its happy solution.

[Pg 57]

Chapter III

Those of my readers who have not deserted during the cataloguing of our supplies may be interested in knowing something of our route. The lines of approach to the Pole are, of course, infinite in number. Let me illustrate this fact in a simple way.

A direct projection of the northern hemisphere would resemble a pie with the Equator at its rim and the Pole at its center. Now imagine our pie cut into four quarters. We have, obviously, four ways to the Pole. But now suppose the arrival of unexpected company, four in number; a less generous distribution of our pie becomes necessary. The scientific housewife would at once solve the difficulty by cutting the pie on intervening lines. We now have eight pieces to our pie and, consequently, eight ways to our pole. If we have eight[Pg 61] we may have sixteen, if sixteen, thirty-two, and so on, by subdivision, to infinity. Q.E.D.[5]

THE BIG HUNTING

As soon as the early August frosts warn the Eskimo huntsman that winter is nigh, he begins to think about his food-supply. In fact this is a thing he thinks about most of the time. Food is the paramount consideration in polar-regions. It is the standard of value, the source of warmth, the unit of measure it is everything.

There are in reality but two seasons, Winter and Summer, in the regions immediately surrounding the Pole. Hunting is impossible in the one because of the intense cold. But between the two periods come a few days, a week at most, of intermediate temperature, too short to be called Spring or Autumn, but too valuable to be lost. It is during these short spells that the native must lay in his winter or summer supply of meat, skins, etc. Consequently he is always in a hurry.

The photograph shows Makuik at his favorite sport of seal-slaughtering. Dr. Traprock tells us that owing to the amazing abundance of game in these remote regions it was possible for the mighty hunter to pursue his prey for four days without stopping for rest or food save for an occasional hunk of flesh or fat torn from one of his victims en passant.

"Makuik's elation," says the intrepid author, "became almost unpleasant." As the herds of seal, walrus and otary accumulated about him their blood seemed to go to his head. Uttering a low crooning cry which rose to a wild screech at every thrust of his raktok (trident) he leaped about the floe with the soft agility of a Mordkin. An extraordinary sight was to see him hurl his weapon into a passing flock of pemmican, spearing a fine bird on each of its prongs. But his favorite game was seals because of their comparative inability to escape and their rich food-value. Incidentally the skins would make excellent gifts for his wives during the approaching Yule-tide season (Kryptok-Boknik-lok or Feast of Food). Makuik evidently believed in "doing his Christmas stabbing early."

At the close of the "big hunting," Makuik had to his credit, besides countless other game, four hundred and seventy seals. The photograph pictures him making three holes in one, a feat which no golf-player can ever hope to rival.

The Big Hunting

The question immediately arose as to which route I should select. I decided on the straightest, just as I had decided, in Cambridge, to take the Kawa to the North Pole instead of the South because it was nearer. Obviously I must reach the polar ice-pack before making my beeline as my ship was adapted for but two elements, ice and water. Travel over bare ground was not contemplated. Wheels had never entered my head. How nearly this fact cost us our lives makes a thrilling story but one which comes later.

Thus, our object was to round Cape Race and pick our way through Davis Strait which runs due north through Baffin Bay, well beyond the Arctic Circle. This is the most direct water route from New York.

Our last glimpse of the homeland was the white water over Sow-and-Pigs Ledge off Cuttyhunk, from which we set a course North by slightly East to pick up the gas-beacon at mouth of St. John's[Pg 62] Harbor. As we swashed along outside of Cuttyhunk I saw through my glasses a signal flag waved from the piazza of the old fishing club which I recalled having visited as a small boy in '88 when the last sea-bass was hauled from those waters. A moment later a small boat put off from the beach near the lighthouse and rowed in our direction. It was a hard pull for the sturdy islanders but we stood by and finally took their helmsman aboard who handed me a letter marked "Rush" which proved to be a notice from the Westchester Lighting Company informing me that there was still a payment due on my gas range. As I had opened this missive in the privacy of my cabin I was able to go on deck and tell the messenger, rather curtly, that there was "no answer" and the good fellows rowed away, giving us a hearty cheer as we turned our nose to the open sea.

St. John's was our first port-of-call for I had to redeem my promise to Triplett to pick up the woman, "Sausalito," as he called her. I think the old man was inspired by the thought of seeing her, for he gave us an exhibition of navigation that was an eye-opener. After leaving Cuttyhunk we ran into a dense fog. For forty-eight hours this continued, thick and impenetrable. Once we heard[Pg 63] the distant sound of the cod-fishers on the Banks singing their morning song—an unspeakable chantey about a dissolute person named Mary Brown—but we saw no gleam of binnacle, sun or shorelight. Yet through this murk, with the magnetic pull on our bowsprit tending always to veer us from our course, Triplett led us with such accuracy that at exactly the appointed time we caught the distant flash of the beacon and knew that our first leg had been completed.

My followers knew nothing of my plan to take Sausalito aboard and my instructions to Triplett were to keep silent. The lady's first appearance was not reassuring. She was standing on a dilapidated pier head, valiantly defending herself from volleys of stones hurled by native village lads. Crouching behind a rusty try-out kettle she responded in kind, directing her missiles with vicious speed and accuracy. A curious morning picture.

"That's her," chuckled Triplett. "She allus were a speritted female."

The others looked on wonderingly as the Captain dropped over the stern into our cockle-boat, pulled toward the dock and took the bulky figure aboard.

[Pg 64]

"Who the devil is this?" asked Plock, scowling darkly, as they neared our counter.

"My sewing woman," I said briefly. "Lend a hand, man."

He did so with an ill grace, and a moment later I saw him whispering to Wigmore and Sloff with every evidence of displeasure. I myself was not a little upset at the over-exuberance of Triplett's manner toward this strange woman. She was a dark, unkempt creature with bright gray-blue eyes which contrasted strangely with her brown cheeks. Her hair, what we could see of it, under her man's cap, was nondescript; teeth irregular. Two extraordinary qualities, however, she had—a smile which vivified her oddness with an unearthly beauty, a brilliant, mocking irradiation that made her look magically youthful, a crone metamorphosed into a little girl, and a voice—O, a mystery of still waters!—such a voice!—a deep resonant contralto, at once caressing and vibrant, with strange breaks and husky notes, melting softnesses and brazen clangor! The Captain was delighted with the reunion.

"My leetle apple!" he cried, patting her, and, indeed, the term was not inexact as her dusky cheeks flashed with pleasure 'neath his great paws.

[Pg 65]

"How you've grown, Ezra!" she laughed, pointing to his capacious girth.

"Ain't I, though," he assented; "mostly 'round the water-line!"

I felt that it was time I intervened.

"Gentlemen," I said to the group which had gathered in the waist, "this is Mrs. Sausalito, our sewing woman...."

Then Triplett fairly spiked my guns by adding,—

"And my wife!"

I could have killed the old fool! I hustled them both below and turned back to face an indignant ship's company.

Block bustled up officiously. "See here, Traprock," he blustered, "we don't like this. You know...."

"STOP!" I commanded in a voice that shook the Kawa to the place where her keel would have been had she had one. "To begin with, I want you, Plock, to know that I am not 'Traprock' to you or to any one else. I am 'Doctor Traprock, Sir'—do you understand?"

Plock growled an uneasy assent as I continued.

"I know perfectly well what is in your minds, namely, that the understanding was that there[Pg 66] should be no wives on this voyage. This Sausalito woman was engaged by me as seamstress. If she is Triplett's wife, as he says, it is news to me. In any case I want it thoroughly understood that I am Boss on this ship. To your posts! Ready-about to wear ship. Triplett, take the helm." (He had come smirking out of the cabin.)

With surly "Aye, aye, sirs," they took up their duties, as I struck sharply on the table-bell which was screwed to the combing, the faithful Tatbury began its revolutions and once more the little Kawa slid gracefully through the long Atlantic swells.

It was a magnificent day but I was frankly depressed. Already a cloud of discord had arisen in the ranks. Already an ominous rift had opened. What might happen in the future only the future could tell. I was filled with disquieting memories of what had occurred to other Arctic explorers whose cohorts had been split by dissension and bitterness. I knew full well how they had separated, sometimes to perish under the very shadow of the Pole itself, sometimes to fight their way back to civilization in broken fragments which spent the remainder of their lives in vilifying each other. Little did I realize how much more tragic[Pg 67] was to be the outcome of this apparently trivial incident.

In the meantime I was lulled into false security. Two weeks of glorious weather made our progress exceed even my sanguine schedules. Once clear of Cape Race our course lay almost due north and the full force of the magnetic pull on our bowsprit could be utilized. To this we added, in favoring weather, a mainsail forward and a jigger aft so that we were able to conserve our fuel supply most satisfactorily.

Our trip through Davis Strait into Baffin Bay was a sight-seeing trip new to most of my men and I was glad to be able to point out to them the objects of interest along either shore, on the left the cozy English hamlets of Mugford, Chislinghurst-on-Trent and Philpot Island, on the right the quaint Greenlandic fishing villages of Fiskernoes, Svartenhunk and Sükkertoppen, names eloquent of their respective origins.

The days grew steadily longer. We were approaching the long twilight. On a memorable Tuesday in June we crossed the Arctic Circle. This is always an exciting event but particularly so for those who experience it for the first time. Needless to say, we observed the ritual honored by[Pg 68] mariners the world over. This follows closely the ceremony celebrated in the tropics when "crossing the line," with the variation that, instead of Neptune coming aboard, the aquatic visitor is the North King, a snowy potentate who is received with due honor by all the ship's company, especially the novices, who are forced to bring him presents and perform tricks at his behest. We hove-to in a narrow inlet on the Baffin shore known by the romantic name of Petty's Bight, where we spent a blithe two hours. Triplett played the kingly rôle while I acted as master of ceremonies. I must admit that this did not tend to calm the somewhat ruffled feelings of my following but it made a merry interlude in our routine.

During the long evenings Sausalito, laying aside her busy needle, would read to us books from her own library, "The Sheik" and the works of Ethel Dell, Harold Bell Wright and the Johnstons, Sir Harry and Owen. It was surprising how entertaining these things became to our little isolated band. Often after a particularly serious page the reader's sunlike smile would flood the main-deck and the whole company would burst into peals of laughter; then once more we would sit enthralled. It must have been her voice. Frissell, alone,[Pg 69] absented himself from these readings and sat apart, lost in the perusal of "If Winter Comes" which he supposed was a work intended for polar novices.

At this juncture Whinney was having a most annoying time with his radio outfit upon which I had counted to keep the company amused. The best he could get was a series of noises which, in themselves, were interesting but scarcely entertaining. At times the magna-vox or "loud squeaker" as Frissell called it, would emit dismal cat-calls such as I have often heard from the upper gallery of theatres.

"That's Arlington!" Whinney would exclaim.

Again the sound would be that of penny-a-pack firecrackers such as one gives to children.

"Newark is calling us!" Whinney would say seriously. "Wait a minute."

A series of readjustments and Jimmy Valentine motions with the combination would result in a raucous scraping as if a discouraged Victrola had cut its throat.

"Pittsburgh!" would be the operator's triumphant comment. "Wait a minute!"

We waited many a minute and hour, patiently expectant, but nothing happened. The most trying thing was Whinney's explanation. He would[Pg 73] fix us mournfully with his brown eyes, while at the same time trying to fix the machine and say solemnly:

"The length of the antennae is in direct relation to the wave length of the tuner. At the same time the vacuum tubes must be connected with or, at least, related by oscillation to the tuning circuit. When a ship is in motion the undue number of electric 'strays' disturbs the delicate filaments of the tickler and absolutely wrecks the radio activity."

"I had one of those Radio-Rex things," cried Swank. "My sweetie gave it to me for Xmas."

"I suppose you gave her a tickler," rumbled Triplett.

THE TWO BEARS

Ikik is solemn. Ikik is offended. Her tender heart is roused. Why? In the answer lies the story of one of the most charming incidents of the Kawa's entire polar-cruise. In another picture the reader will see Makuik descending with murderous intent, on the back of a large polar-bear. Shortly after the kill it was discovered that this bear had just become a mother. Her offspring—there was but one—was immediately adopted by Ikik. Mother-love, which flourishes even in the high latitudes, surrounded the little cub with every protection. First reared as a bottle-bear, the bearlet passed safely through the teething period and soon became the regular attendant of his foster-mother who fed him solicitously at every meal.

It was this devotion which brought about the disturbance recorded by the camera. Warburton Plock seems to have developed an insatiable fondness for toasted-blubber. Not content with his own share he resorted to the cowardly practice of prigging from Toktok, as this ursus minimus was called. His method was characteristic of the man, combining cunning with greed. Having privately constructed a small cube of wood corresponding in size to the usual blubber-portion he would attract Toktok's attention and ostentatiously bury the decoy in the snow at some distance from the actual feeding ground. Then, while the little chap was busily digging for the supposed dainty Plock would swipe the real blubber which Makuik distributed with an impartial hand.

Ikik was no match in logic for the wily scientist.

"You are robbing my baby!" she wailed in the present instance.

"Yes," agreed Plock, "and your baby is under the impression that he is robbing me."

Needless to say Dr. Traprock settled this matter in his own direct fashion. As he said in conversation with the writer, "It is impossible to argue with such fellows. The only practical thing is to crown them."

The Two Bears

The whole business vastly amused the old salt. He could see nothing but foolishness in Whinney's maneuvers, "trying to git God-a'mighty on the 'phone," as he put it.

But the attempts whiled away many an idle moment, and day by day we were passing landmarks which told me clearly that our goal was nearer. The water became steadily colder, a fact which we verified by the usual scientific method of dipping out pailfuls from time to time and taking their temperature with a bath thermometer.

At the northern end of Kane Basin where Green[Pg 74]land makes out toward Ellesmere and Grant Land we began to encounter ice. My readers can perhaps imagine the thrill which was mine when I first heard the soft scrape of frozen lips against the Kawa's silky skin!

Ice at last! Ice! the vaunted terror of the north! Leaning over the garboard streak I watched anxiously to see how our gallant carrier would take to the element for which she was designed. It was a magical performance and a warm glow of satisfaction suffused my heart as I noted how she slipped through the glazed surface. Far beyond in the northern sky gleamed the "ice blink," that luminous brightness which told of frozen fields and floes in the great beyond. We could feel the chill of their vast bulk as we sat on deck of an evening.

We were now at the 82nd parallel and were passing through what is known as mulch ice, which is of about the same consistency and saltiness as ordinary brine. Wigmore made a number of interesting experiments with a small freezer, using corn starch and condensed milk from his own equipment and was able to produce a fair quality of ice cream which had a slightly oily flavor doubtless due to the presence of seals. From then on the ice developed into what is called squidge-ice, thicker and more[Pg 75] lumpy than mulch, but still navigable. This, however, soon became a solid sheet, from four to ten inches in thickness, the Kawa's progress became slower and with something like acute anxiety I requested Whinney to switch on the thermal water line.

The effect surprised even Whinney whose inventive imagination had proven itself capable of foreseeing almost anything which might happen and many which might not. We were instantly surrounded by a dense fog of our own making!

The ice edges of the squidge coming in contact with the candescent copper vaporized immediately and the atmosphere on board became that of a Turkish steam-room. As is often the case it was not so much the heat as the humidity.[6] Our clothing was wringing wet and we were perspiring at every pore. It was easy to see what the fatal result would be when we shut off the electric spark and exposed our wide-open pores to the icy breath of the north. Pneumonia and consumption, if not worse, were almost certain.

Ordering all hands below for a rub-down we[Pg 76] came to a standstill and for two days did nothing more than maintain our position by quarter-speed revolutions of the Tutbury. At the end of that time Whinney emerged from the main hatch, where he had been incubating his ideas, with a look of suppressed elation which told me that he had found a solution of our difficulty. Without a word he set about stringing wires from the storage batteries to two points on the forward rail on a line with the capstan. In less time than it takes to tell it he had lashed two electric fans to the projecting sides of the guide runners and screwed the wires into the poles after which he walked aft and came to attention.

"You may fire when ready, sir," he said, hand-at-visor.

I gave the signal and once more the throb of the engines shook our jelly-like sides, once more we heard the hiss and crackle of the squidge as it gave way before our burning zone but—a new sound! We also heard the blended sonority of the two fans as they pushed a powerful current of air along our water line. Dense and low, the fog streamed past us like parted rivers of milk, to rise in soft clouds far to the southward.

A spontaneous cheer burst from my anxious band[Pg 77] and we gave Whinney three times three with a right good will. At Triplett's suggestion—for he was overjoyed at being able to see where he was going—I ordered "half holiday" and issued five plugs of solid alcohol in honor of our resumed motion. It was a happy evening we spent in the little cabin, Triplett, Sausalito and I, while the others sat on deck in the pale sunlight, crooning the old song which has been sung by polar explorers since viking days, "Nordenskold! Nordenskold! Tilig am poel."[7]

Triplett's adjustable yard-arm which controlled our conviviality was occasionally shifted to keep the low circling sun directly over it and many a toast was eaten as the cheery plug passed round. My last conscious memory after my fifth quid, was the sound of Frissell's ukelele above my head and beside me the unabashed endearments of Triplett talking to his "apple."

[Pg 79]

Chapter IV

We reach the polar cap. The strange incident of the missing Orders. Who stole the papers? The Arctic summer. A sportsman's Paradise. Notes from my journal. Whinney's sad experience.

[Pg 81]

Chapter IV

"Men, it is the Ice."

These words rang with a portentous solemnity as I delivered them to the entire ship's company.

We had reached the solid floe. About us, white and interminable, stretched the polar pack, with here and there inky streaks, the open "leads" which often yawn between the very feet of unwary travellers. But for us, the way lay straight. Glancing at the compass and adjusting my gesture parallel to its needle, I pointed.

"Yonder lies the Pole!"

The seriousness of the moment imposed a silence broken only by the screams of distant flocks of pemmican and the yooping of seals—for we were in the land of prolific game. The second leg of our journey was accomplished. The great test still remained, the long tug over the rough floor to the Main Post itself.

"Men of the Traprock Expedition," I continued,[Pg 85] "you have served me long and faithfully. The reward of our efforts lies close at hand. Yonder, I repeat, lies the Pole. Captain Triplett's last observation shows that we are at 86° 13´ 6-7/8´´, fifteen miles better than all previous records, Nansen's, Steffanson's and Peary's excepted. We are running ahead of schedule time. From now on our progress will be slower. But, though we will not be dragging light sledges over the ice, remember that we carry our base of supplies with us. 'Tis an arduous task, lads, but with fair weather and good luck we'll win through yet!"

THE NINE O'CLOCK BOTTLE

Here we have a typical scene in Camp Traprock during the late days of the Arctic-Indian-Summer. Bartholomew Dane, the Egyptologist and Sausalito are busily engaged nursing the expeditionary mascot, Toktok, a tiny bear-cub which was adopted by Ikik after the demise of its parent. The picture can give no idea of the painstaking care which was lavished upon the little pet. As in the case of many infants it was extremely difficult to find a food upon which he would gain his orthodox ounce a day. Various forms of nourishment were tried, the happy formula being finally found in a four-ounce bottle administered every four hours, the meal consisting of modified whale's-milk to which was added minute particles of "wheat-whiskers," a cereal-diluent to the perfection of which Dr. Traprock has devoted many years of study.

Ikik, to whom credit must be given for the capture of the cub, was hopelessly ignorant of how it should be cared for. Her idea was that common to most primitive mothers, namely, that the infant should be immediately put upon a meat or fat diet. The result of this treatment was loss of weight and incessant crying on the part of Toktok. Fortunately the ship's library contained a copy of Holt's "Care and Feeding of Infants," a book which Dr. Traprock says he never feels safe without.

Both Dane and Sausalito are wearing the summer costumes which are practically a necessity during the heated term. Dane's tropic helmet with its deeply overhanging cornice undoubtedly saved him from the dreaded snow-blindness which so fatally attacked his companion Whinney. The attractive dress worn by Sausalito is part of a wardrobe assembled by her as she passed through Canada on her way to join the expedition. The fur-edged chemisette and roll-down buskins are similar to the parade uniform of the O'Howese Toboggan Club.

The Nine O'Clock Bottle

The cheer which greeted this announcement surprised me by its feebleness. I had felt that I was doing rather well. Plainly a number of voices were silent. Puzzled and apprehensive I glanced toward my men. Warburton Plock, oily and deferential, stood slightly in advance of the others.

"Have you read your orders?" he asked.

"My orders?" I replied,—"my orders from whom?"

"Your sealed orders," he repeated, smiling craftily, "the ones Waxman handed you when we left."

I did not like his tone. I detested the familiar way in which he spoke of the aged president of the[Pg 86] Explorers Union. His manner was that of veiled bravado. The air was highly charged as before a coming storm.

"My brief-case ... cabin ... Swank.... Fetch."

I was excited and spoke monosyllabically, but Swank, like a faithful dog, disappeared at the word "fetch" down the companion-way. In the interval of his absence a thousand black thoughts whirled through my brain. These mysterious orders, what were they? A plot ... something was afoot, some deadly blow aimed to dash the cup of accomplishment from my grasp as I raised it to my lips. To my credit I can say that, even in this agonizing moment, I absolved Dr. Waxman of any share in this dastardly work. I seemed to see his benevolent sheep-like face smiling a good-bye, while before me, glowered Plock, palpably gloating at my discomfiture. But orders were orders and duty was duty. Traprock must be true! With a hand that trembled in spite of my best efforts, I grasped the brief-case which Swank proffered and, turning it so that all might see, I opened it.

It was empty!

I stood like a conjurer surprised by his own trick.

[Pg 87]

A threatening growl rose from the group huddled about Plock who now came forward boldly, his face distorted with passion. The mask was off.

"This is buncomb, Traprock," he shouted. "You have done away with those orders! Where are they? You know perfectly well that your instructions are to...."

What he was about to divulge will never be known. Whipping up my left arm I caught his heel with my right foot and the back of his head struck the ice with a crack that roused the distant pemmican to renewed screaming.[8]

"Stow that dunnage," I said quietly, and the limp carcass was tossed aboard where it lolled grotesquely over the hatch-combing.

"To your places, you others...."

A slow, straining heave at the traces brought the Kawa up on her guide-runners and she moved gracefully across the ice.

Pondering mournfully on the strange turn of events, wondering who could have purloined the fateful packet, but taking care to show no exterior sign of my perplexity, I trudged on, occasionally[Pg 88] breaking the silence with a single word of command.

"Mush."

Day succeeded day, days scarcely marked by any change, and yet there was no sign of the missing document. The most rigid search was fruitless and, gradually, the incident was forgotten.

So unbroken was the sunlight that it was only by exercising great care in keeping our watches wound that we were able to know definitely just what day it was. As time wore on, confusion arose. Miskin insisted that it was Wednesday, Swank held out for Thursday and so on. But it mattered little. They were all days of accomplishment and of glorious Arctic summer, growing steadily hotter as we climbed up the glacial coverlet. We were now beyond the latitude of my previous "farthest" (87° 21' 22") which I had reached with the Royal Geographic Expedition which met such a tragic fate on its return trip to England.[9]

The insect pests began to be very troublesome and I thanked the high Gods for the green veils and mosquito-bars which made life tolerable. A part of[Pg 89] every man's equipment was an atomizer containing four fluid ounces of oil-of-citronella, and a fly-swatter attached to his wrist by a thong of reindeer sinew.[10]

I was amazed at the tropic temperature of these high latitudes. At noon the thermometer frequently stood around 90° Fahr. in the shade and it must be remembered that there was no shade. Our thinnest garments were none too comfortable nor were we able to say, as is usual, that the nights were cool, for again it should be borne in mind that there were no nights. Hour after hour the brazen disc of the sun circled round the heavens, staring pitilessly at the moon which, strange phenomenon! shone palely above the opposite horizon as if the two great planets were balancing to partners in a stately astronomical dance.

At definite periods sleep was the order of the[Pg 90] day, an enforced regulation. During our waking hours we struggled on, at times wading through mulch and squidge, at times sailing through seas of melted ice. Yet, though the sun's rays were hot, there still remained the solid pack below, too vast to be more than touched on the surface by this fleeting summer.

Though we were surrounded by animal life it was much too warm for hunting. In fact the very thought of such things as blubber and fur was nauseating. Our civilized diet and clothing were better suited to our stomachs both inside and out. But how quickly the warm polar weather passed none knew better than I and from my place in the bow I urged my men on until even Swank and Whinney cast reproachful glances at me over their streaming shoulders.

"You aren't taking the Kawa to the Pole, she's taking you," they complained.

"Mush," I replied.

A fact which was the cause of surprised comment by several members of the expedition was that we had thus far encountered no Eskimos on our journey. I confess that I myself was somewhat perplexed. In a country in which game abounded it seemed strange to find no hunting parties. I could[Pg 91] account for this phenomenon by two courses of reasoning; either the natives had gone south to escape the intolerable weather which we were experiencing—for it will be remembered that these simple folk have practically no way of combating heat—or their hunters might possibly have fallen victims to the mistake so common to nimrods the world over, of leading their bands into localities in which there was no game whatever. Upon consideration the latter conclusion seemed the more probable for it follows a great general law of humanity. Each of my readers doubtless numbers among his acquaintance a sportsman who makes an annual pilgrimage into inaccessible regions in search of caribou, deer, salmon or big-horn and who invariably returns with a tale of disappointment. "It has been a very poor year for caribou." "There was too little water—or too much." These excuses are familiar to any one who holds converse with the disciples of rifle and rod.

Our case was different. We were a scientific group, not occupied with the capture of animal trophies and so we naturally saw a great deal of game.

It is difficult for me to set down the amazing amount of interesting live stock which flourished[Pg 92] about us at every stage of our journey. In the lower latitudes these were the more familiar caribou, rabbits, wolves, and deer.

A sight I shall never forget was one which confronted us shortly after clearing the westernmost point of Wrangel Island. This was in the earlier stages of our journey while we still enjoyed a few hours of restful darkness. Through the murky night I heard a low muttering sound with an occasional note of complaint or discontent. The noise was not single and distinct but vast and widespread as if a large area of land had become vocal. "What do you suppose is wrong?" I asked Triplett with whom I was keeping watch. "There's allus somethin' wrong on Wrangel," said that worthy imperturbably. But I could see that he was interested for he kept his good-eye alternately on our compass and the dim bulk of land that loomed on our quarter.

Dawn came on apace and a marvellous picture lay before us. Far into the interior, on the snowy slopes, were millions of reindeer feeding on the Christmas trees which do so well in this locality. The noise I had heard was the swishing of great branches and the guttural grunts of these picturesque mammals as they devoured their provender.[Pg 93] Others of my men had stolen on deck and stood silently watching. Frissell was greatly excited.

"Who said there wasn't any Santa Claus!" he cried, and at the sound of his voice the huge herd tossed its broad-leaved antlers and rushed madly toward the distant horizon while Frizzie urged them on with cries of "Now, Vixen, now, Dasher!" It was an odd but interesting scene.

The Arctic hares were not as numerous as I have seen them on my previous northern trips and those I observed through my glasses were of poor quality and sickly physique. Evidently the gradual dying out of the lapland lark-spurs, which are the natural cover of the hares, has worked havoc among these charming creatures.[11]

But now, beyond eighty-six, we had left behind us these semi-domestic creatures and were among the truly Arctic animals, those weird denizens of berg and floe which civilization sees only in zoological gardens or vaudeville performances. From my station near the forepeak I swept the horizon hourly with my glasses cataloguing the myriad species of Arctic life and entering them in my[Pg 97] journal with notes as to quantity, quality and other attributes which had a bearing on the commercial or scientific value of the type referred to. I can give no better idea of this sportsman's paradise than by quoting a few extracts from the volume.

INTENSIVE OPTIMISM

As long as brave deeds are recognized and heroic fortitude receives its just due the name of Reginald Whinney will shine forth in letters of gold. Reference is made in the text to his tragic attack of snow-blindness on the very eve of the arrival of Dr. Traprock (and party) at the Pole. This untoward visitation (by which we mean Whinney's affliction, not the Traprock Expedition), would in itself have been enough to break the heart of any ordinary man, but not the heart of a Whinney. To such as he adversity is as the sunshine to the flower or the flower to the bee, a new source of inspiration and sweetness.

In the early days of his blindness he was, of course, greatly depressed. "I am put out but not crushed" was his simple comment. Having recourse to his typewriter he recorded that touching paraphrase of Milton ending with the line, "They also serve who only sit and type." Then came the magnificent "Ode to the Aurora," after which the sun of his vision seemed to burst through the walls of his temporary night. Full of sparkling wit and joyous laughter he fully earned his soubriquet of "Sunbeam-of-the-North." Even before breakfast he was mirth personified; in the evening, he was irrepressible. The Eskimos found in him a source of inexhaustible wonder. To a race living far beyond the sound of a songbird his carollings were nothing short of a miracle.

Dr. Traprock has confessed that at times his friend's gaiety was trying. During the frightful sufferings of the return journey, for instance, it was upsetting to face starvation and death to the accompaniment of "I love a lassie," warbled by the stricken scientist from the forepeak. But as the Doctor acutely remarks, "How unjust to condemn a man who was doing the only thing left for him to do, namely, trying to cheer us up. Moreover I knew that his optimism was but blind. Incessant cheerfulness, when sincere, is impossible to stand; I can enjoy it when I know that it masks a broken heart."

Intensive Optimism

For instance, under date of June 18th, I find the following:

"June 18th. 86° 12' 5". Bright and fair. Going good. For two hours in fore-noon passed three large seal schools, mainly phoca vitulina and mitrata, probably about one thousand per school. Each group lay taking its mid-day siesta near the open lead with sentinel seals carefully posted at regular intervals. They maintained this position until we were within approx. 100 yds. when they slid noiselessly into the sea where I watched them at play for sometime, diving over and under each other and emitting their throaty mating cry of 'Ook, ook.' Peron says (See Mammi-feres, Livraison, Sept., 1819, p. 2) that the phoca vitulina are monogamous but close observation of a large bull seal in the second group convinces me that he is in error."

"June 20th. Slightly cooler, a blessed relief. More seals today (Leopardina and Stemmatopus). Passed one group at feeding time and watched[Pg 98] them chase the smaller otaries into shallow ice pools where possession of the fish was disputed by large flocks of pemmican. The smaller fragments, otary-eyes, fins, etc., were in turn made-off with by snow-buntings."

"June 21st. Climbed to main truck at noon and found three pemmican eggs in crow's-nest. Must have been laid during rest period. Left them for observation and posted order on main and jigger to leave nest strictly alone. Whales spouting to leeward, evidently genus bone-head, in large quantity. Memo. Report to United Corset Mfrs. and Umbrella Makers."[12]

"June 28th. Showers. Vast quantities of seals (Hirsutus) the true fur-bearing or sack seal. Called the entire company before the mast and warned them against shooting. Rough going today over raftered ice. Made only six miles. Mother pemmican sitting on crow's-nest. Polar bears becoming more numerous, also large numbers of white foxes. Disturbed during rest period by snorting of[Pg 99] walruses. Memo. Look up sealing-wax, source of supply, market, etc. Another week should see us at the Pole! Hold fast and strike hard."

The reader can imagine with what difficulty I restrained my companions from wholesale slaughter of the thousands of friendly creatures among whom we were making our slow but steady progress. We were individually armed and equipped for any event which might befall us, but many considerations urged me to be firm in this regard and my posted notices, "No hunting or fishing under penalty of the law," were sternly enforced. Primarily I wished to save time, knowing full well what delay would be caused by the pursuit and what inconvenience by the capture of any of the hulking carcasses which surrounded us. Secondly I was anxious to conserve ammunition for a time when it might be needed. Our own food supply was ample and it seemed wise to defer experiments with eskimo diet until absolutely necessary.

How fortunate this caution proved will be related in its proper place. That we should ever be thrown entirely upon our own resources naked and stripped in this far land, seemed totally unlikely. But who knows the design of an inscrutable providence! Not I, for one.

[Pg 100]

Two days from the Pole a tragic misfortune befell one of our little group, none other than my faithful friend, Reginald Whinney.

He had come to me in the morning and asked for a two hours leave from the traces to take up work which he said was more scientific, namely, the study of the snow algæ which blossomed about us in rare profusion. As it was my custom to let my men out of harness, two at a time, to pursue their various specialties, I readily assented.

"Whinney, botanist and Dane, Egyptologist, on leave" was the order of the day.

They departed in opposite directions. Scientists in general avoid each other's company when making discoveries and these were no exception. It was the last Whinney saw of us for many weeks.

At seven-and-a-half-bells Dane came aboard and went below to file his data. Eight-bells sounded and still no Whinney. With my glasses I scanned the expanse about us. Far away on our starboard bow I glimpsed for an instant a moving black speck, lost it in the quivering lens, found it again and held it. Was it a bear? No, it was too black. A seal?—too tall!

In an instant I had given the order, "Cease mushing!"

[Pg 101]

"Swank, Wigmore, come with me. Triplett, you are in command."

We were off in a trice. As we drew near the distant figure I saw that it was indeed Whinney. But what was he doing?

He was tottering about in vague circles like a man distraught. Just as I came up to him he fell forward on his knees with a despairing cry, covering his face with his hands. Gently holding him by the wrists, I lifted him up; his arms dropped to his side and I knew the awful truth.

I mentioned, when Whinney left the ship, that he would see no more of us for many weeks. It was true, for though we could see him, the poor fellow could not see us.

"Blind! Blind!" he shrieked, sinking down in despair and beating his head against the ice.

Again we raised him and, soothing him as best I could, I rubbed his inflamed lids with a sharp piece of snow crust, a native cure in such cases. But we were too late to effect a cure. Wearied by gazing at the minute flower-forms of the algæ, dazzled by the glaring snow crystals, my friend's eyes had fallen an easy prey to acute snow-blindness.

"Let this be a lesson to you, men," I said after we had led our patient back to the ship. "If any[Pg 102] man, in the future, leaves this deck without his goggles, let him take the consequences. This expedition cannot be allowed to develop into a game of blind man's buff."

Whinney sat whimpering on the port rail, a pathetic sight. Though I spoke sternly I could but grieve in my heart for the tragic irony of his fate.

Many brave adventurers have struggled and died in vain efforts to reach the top of the world. To Reginald Whinney remains the sad distinction of being the only man in the world who has been to the North Pole and back without seeing it!

[Pg 103]

Chapter V

The last ten miles. A mental observation. We lose our magnetic bowsprit. The Big Peg at last! "The Lady, first!" We celebrate our arrival. I glimpse a vision.

[Pg 105]

Chapter V

July fourth, 1921.

"Eighty-nine and two tenths!" said Capt. Triplett.

"Eighty-nine and two tenths," echoed Miskin, jotting down the figures.

Our navigator lowered the astrolabe through which he had been peering and folded up his artificial horizon. He then figured for a few moments on the edge of the taffrail, scrupulously erasing the calculation with a combination of saliva and sleeve before he announced in his usual formula:

"She proves. Key-rect as hell."

I piped down the engines and ordered the company abaft. We were working through an open lead at the time.

The moment had come for another important announcement. These were of almost daily occurrence at this time, each stage of our journey having been marked by the establishment of a[Pg 109] record for ship travel. It had therefore become my custom to call the men together as soon as our position had been officially announced, at which time we held a sort of business "causerie," chatted over what had been accomplished, discussed the future plans and policy of the expedition and so on, much as is done today in business organizations whose lack of business gives them ample time for such recreations.

THE AVOWAL

It was not to be expected that the temperamental Swank would long remain proof against the attractions of the beguiling Klinka maidens and here we have evidence of him running true to form, the form in this case being that of Klipitok, the youngest of the Mrs. Makuiks. The scene is the sub-polar apartment of the Kryptok hunter, hewn from the ageless ice.

Obviously a tender passage is in progress. The jaunty Swank, holding in his hand a bunch of lapland-larkspurs, which, it should be remarked, were completely out of season at the time, is not only saying it with flowers but with all the practised ardor of a grade A Romeo.

"You are the sweetest thing in the world," he whispers. "I have never met anyone like you in all my life."

The child hears and believes.

"You are so original!" she murmurs, bending her seal-like ear.

"And you so aboriginal!"

"More!" she sighs passionately.

"Have you ever been to Niagara Falls?"

At this point, due to the rising temperature, great drops of water began to fall from the ice-roof and a harsh command from Makuik drove the lovers into the open air.

In justice to Mr. Swank it should be stated that all wife-wooing was conducted with the full knowledge and consent of the husband. Makuik's ulterior motive, doubtless, was to secure additional hunters for his tribe. Alas, for Swank's romantically planned honeymoon, it was doomed to end as so many do, in disappointment.

The Avowal

Today, more than ever, I felt the responsibility of my position. Having gained in assurance and poise by reason of experience at previous meetings, my words were terse and well-chosen.

"Men," I said, "and lady" (bowing to Sausalito, who waved a tennis shoe at me), "the end is well nigh come. The goal for which we have labored is almost in sight. The Pole, reputed inaccessible, is at hand. No longer the interminable leagues intervene. No longer do the long miles stretch between us and our object. We have annihilated space—and time!" (Cries of "Hear, Hear!")

"Men of the Traprock Expedition, tried, true and trusty Traprockians, we have almost completed our journey, we are nearly there, the long-sought——"

A tremendous cheer interrupted me. My companions were unable to control themselves, and my[Pg 110] oratorical intuition told me that it was the moment to stop.

With a sweeping gesture toward the North, I shouted the magic monosyllable "Mush!" and sat down.

In polar travel the last ten miles are invariably the hardest. One is spent and exhausted. Ice conditions north of eighty-seven are increasingly difficult. Absolutely nothing has been done by either Canadian or United States Governments toward keeping the national highways in condition. Raftered floes, composed of sheets of twenty-foot ice, piled up like badly shuffled playing cards, often directly oppose one's progress.[13]

But all things yield to an iron will. We had not come thus far to be thwarted and our nearness to success roused me to feverish energy. As I look back on that last day I am amazed at some of the things we did.

It has never been my habit to dodge a difficulty and true to this principle we made straight at every barrier. There was no dodging or deviating. Some we climbed, some we tunneled (the Kawa's masts[Pg 111] folded back along her deck), some we blew up, though I hesitated to resort to this process for the practical reason of wishing to save my ice bombs, and the more sentimental dislike of breaking the mystic silence of the North with a sound so extraneous and artificial as that of blasting.

The northern silence has always seemed so pure and chaste that the thought of shattering it was extremely repugnant. It was like violating a virgin. It was, however, necessary to do this at times.[14]

Toiling, sweating, cursing, singing and shouting with excitement, we fought our way foot by foot, mile by mile, over the rough ice-cap.

It was marvellous to see how the Kawa behaved, how magnificently her pliant flanks adapted themselves to the jagged contours, how intelligently and naturally she oozed over and between difficulties, pressed in here, bulging out there, svelte, seal-like and delicious.

My office was that of general exhorter and encourager. It would never have done for me to[Pg 112] take the lines and do any actual pulling; the men would have lost respect for me at once. But I was never idle for a moment. Armed with an old riding crop, a relic of my days as M.F.H. of the Derby Hounds, I circled about my straining comrades, shouting encouragement and occasionally flicking them smartly on back and buttock. They responded valiantly, though not a few black looks were thrown at me.

At the top of every ice hurdle we stopped to rest and I issued extra rations of alcohol plug. It was little enough to repay these gallant chaps for their exertions and surely this was no time to play the niggard with the "A-P" as we called it. Once refreshed, and the ice slide ready, we coasted down the northward incline and spun merrily across the level floe.

Late in the day, I called a halt. My comrades, somewhat exhausted by their exertions and a little affected, perhaps, by my generous distributions of A-P, sank on the ice near their traces or crawled up on the Kawa's soft counter and fell asleep.

I was glad of their unconsciousness for I was very much excited. We must be nearly there!

Before us rose a gentle snow eminence, the merest swelling in the white plain, such as would be called[Pg 113] a mountain in the middle west.[15] Beyond this, unless I was mistaken, lay the Pole.

"Triplett," I said excitedly, "can you make a quick observation?"

"Sure," he observed. One glance at the low hanging sun was enough for my old navigator. Rolling back his eyes he looked for a moment into that reliable brain of his. I saw that he was taking a mental observation! Marvellous man! In breathless silence, I waited.

"Eighty-nine and—nine tenths," he whispered. Sweat stood out on his forehead and rolled in little rivers through his corrugations. This sort of thing was plainly exhausting.

Quickly handing him an emergency plug I rose.

At that moment Warburton Plock came toward me. Though I disliked him more than ever, he had been deferential and polite since I had faced him down in his silly fuss over my orders, so that I listened attentively while he spoke.

"Doctor, with your permission I'm going to unship the magnetic bowsprit and set it here as a beacon. We must be way above the Magnetic North[Pg 114] by now and it is pulling us backward instead of forward."

"Very good," I answered. "Your idea has merit."

He touched his cap pleasantly and went forward. I liked the idea of leaving a beacon or cairn. It is the proper thing among explorers. Here and there we had run across them, an occasional pile of snow, topped by a gin bottle enclosing a message from some previous expedition, empty containers of various sorts whose labels were mute memorials to the achievement of the great white race! Walker, Haig and Booth, imperishable names these, with a solemn splendor when found on the white register of the North.

I watched the work with interest. Plock and Miskin were busy at the bow-chains, Swank, Wigmore and Frissell prepared the site, hewing out rude blocks with their ice picks, while Sausalito cackled encouragement. She was knitting a slip-on of reindeer yarn.

Suddenly a shout of dismay rose from under our forefoot. I saw Plock and Miskin struggling with the bowsprit. Evidently they had completely miscalculated the strength of the magnetic pull.

"Help!" cried Plock.

[Pg 115]

I sprang forward, even as the others threw down their picks and dashed toward the bow.

We were too late.

Jammed against the side of the ship, his hands torn and bleeding Miskin was forced to relinquish his grasp. With but the weight of Plock at its butt end the long pole shot off at an angle across the ice.

"Leave it go!" I ordered.

But Plock was too dazed, too enraged to hear me. Fortunately at a distance of two hundred yards his head struck a ridge of ice and he keeled over.

Free of all hindrance, the steel stick bounded off with amazing rapidity, leaving a faint trail, straight and true to the Magnetic North. I watched it through my glasses until it disappeared over the horizon to the southwest,—and there it is today, for all to see who visit those strange regions, a record of the Traprock Expedition placed there by a power more mysterious and greater than that of human hands.

Plock was gathered up and the company once more assembled.

This time I wasted no words. "Men, we are there. Beyond yonder eminence is the Pole. Ten minutes, twenty at most, and then—rest!"

ABOUT TO BE CAPTURED

This picture represents what is probably the high-spot in Dr. Traprock's absorbing narrative, namely, the moment just before the author and his friend Swank burst from their hiding-places and captured Ikik, the Klinka maid, who is seen crouching over the bait which in this case was the scarlet hunting-coat worn by Dr. Traprock during many an exciting chase, though none, we venture to say, compared to this. Critics of this picture have said that the coat seemed unnecessarily voluminous. In explanation it may interest our readers to know that at meetings of the Derby Hounds, which organization takes its origin from the ancient Epsom Hunts of England, the M.F.H. wears the medieval hunting costume, the folds of which cover the rider, horse and at times several of the hounds as well. The thought of our intrepid friend Traprock thus clad in full cry suggests an inspiring sight. He says himself with his usual modesty, "The coat has always attracted women, but I have usually been in it."

Better than words our illustration, snapped by Swank through the eye of "Dr. Pease," gives an idea of the simple beauty of the Klinka summer-furs. Though she has thrown aside her oomiak she is plainly apprehensive. Something is in the air, she knows not what.

It was Dr. Traprock's intention to capture the maid as politely as was consistent with success. After the diving-tackle which he has described he had expected to deliver a conciliatory speech beginning, "Madame, I assure you my intentions are perfectly honorable." Makuik's arrival interrupted this program but we feel that in justice to Dr. Traprock his plan should be known lest some of our readers assume that he was unnecessarily rough. In the old Norman, "Chroniques de la Noblisse," we find significant note referring to Jean Marie Piegeroche, an early ancestor of the author. Says the historian, "Fort comme la mort, beau comme le soleil, et toujour rosse mais pas trop rosse." "Strong as death! Beautiful as the sun, rough ... but not too rough." It is indeed the Doctor.

About to be Captured

[Pg 119]

With hearty good will they sprang to their positions and we shot forward up the gentle grade.

Exactly twelve minutes later we reached the crest and below us, sparkling in the sunlight, stood the Pole itself.

How can I possibly describe the scene and the sensations of that inspiring moment? Physically the outlook was perhaps unimportant save for a feature that set my blood tingling while it stilled my heart in reverence. This feature was Peary's cairn!

It was untouched, unchanged.

From the moment the object of the Traprock Expedition was announced I had been haunted by a vague fear that some other group would head straight for my goal, dragging with them some hapenny-tuppenny ships model wherewith to wither my laurels.

It was not so.

Before us, a few hundred yards distant in the center of a shallow bowl stood the rude monument of the great Commander, just as he had left it. From the summit and flanks of the miniature mountain fluttered the tattered ensigns he had[Pg 120] placed there, our country's flag, the red cross, the D.K.E. banner and the others.

The Stars and Stripes were nailed to a stout spar, evidently an extra yard-arm or spare jigger from the Roosevelt. This mast still stood, a graphic symbol of the Pole itself, as if the giant axis of the earth projected beyond its surface. It was slightly out of plumb and the wood toward the base was somewhat abraded.

But of the vandalism of late visitants there was not a trace. No picnic baskets or discarded lily-cups marred the snowy surroundings. No other ship, great or small, had made fast to Mother Earth's last mooring.

We rushed toward the spot in helter skelter fashion, but ten yards from the cairn a thought, almost morbid in its chivalrousness, seized me.

I must stop this mad rush.

How?

Whipping out my Colt I fired three shots in quick succession. It was the return-to-the-ship signal. The crowd hesitated, irresolute.

On the instant I dashed ahead and faced about.

"Gentlemen," I cried, "though thousands of miles from home, remember, you are gentlemen. The lady, first!"

[Pg 121]

Offering Sausalito my arm we climbed the slope together.

The others arrived en masse. Swank, Plock, Sloff, they were all like children playing a game of prisoner's base, with the Pole as home. Poor Whinney was "it."

In the excitement of the moment I had forgotten him. He was a pitiful spectacle as he came tap-tapping his way across the ice, feeling each step with his cane. We watched him in silence until I saw that he was going to miss the Pole entirely and if not stopped would soon be bound south again for an indefinite period. Tenderly Sausalito and I led him to the cairn while her rich voice murmured comfort in his ear. He was beside himself with emotion and hot tears kept welling from under his goggles.

"The touch of a woman's hand!" he sobbed, as he smoothed mine with his.

Frissell's arrival was characteristic. He made the last sixty yards between the Kawa and the Pole on a pogo stick—a new—in fact the only—record for an event of this kind.

Second only to ourselves was the Kawa and willing hands soon hauled her across the intervening distance and made her fast.

[Pg 122]

The great objective of my polar push had been gained and with a reverent heart I called the men together for short but appropriate ceremonies.

After a prayer of thanksgiving by Miskin, we sang as much of the Star Spangled Banner as we could remember and ate a silent toast to the memory of great explorers who had come and gone. I then made a few appropriate remarks, outlining the progress of polar travel from Norse days down to the present and we then proceeded to the picturesque "planting of the flags." It was a charming picture in the amber sunlight, not unlike the final chorus of some great operatic spectacle in which the nations of the earth are gathered together.

Forming in a circle we marched slowly about the cairn singing the ancient song: "Nordenskold—Nordenskold—helvig am trein," each man planting his flag at the close of a verse, in the order named:

Traprock, U.S.A., Swank, Sons of American Revolution; Whinney, Guidon of the Derby Fencibles (sometimes called the "Desperate Derbies"); Sausalito, Lucy Stone League; Frissell, Dutch Treat Club of New York; Plock, Explorers Union; Miskin, National Geographic Society; Triplett, New Bedford Chamber of Commerce; Sloff, Ass. Astronomers of America; Wigmore,[Pg 123] Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities; Dane, Egypt.

With the cairn thus gaily decorated and the Kawa's full alphabet of signal flags flying fore and aft spelling the word "Victory," the formal ceremonies were over and I gave the order for complete rest, relaxation and enjoyment.

How thoroughly these instructions were carried out may well be imagined. Three days' rations of every sort were dragged from the hold and spread about us. Without further urging all hands fell to. Every man had five A-P's and a bountiful supply of potted ham, herring and salt codfish.[16] This somewhat arid diet was washed down with copious draughts of melted snow thickened with A-P, and the celebration soon attained a terrific muzzle velocity. Songs echoed across the surrounding plain, merry tales were passed about, tales which brought a dull glow to Sausalito's cheeks and caused old Triplett to slap his thigh with delight.

Frissell was a host in himself. He performed tricks of magic, imitations and feats of acrobatics[Pg 124] and ventriloquism, appearing successively in various costumes from his inexhaustible supply. The quiet Miskin disclosed an unsuspected social gift and lured us into guessing games.

"What is the distance from Bremen to Hong Kong?"

We were staggered. Miskin, from the store of his librarian experience, knew the answer. It was dull, but helped to keep the others sober for a few extra hours.

The three days' rations lasted, I think, about one full 24-hour day.

A single unpleasant incident marred the close of the entertainment.

Plock, who was enormously exhilarated, crawled toward me and pointed toward the D.K.E. flag above us.

"D.K.E. song," he said thickly.

I eyed him coldly.

"I can only sing it with a Brother."

To my disgust he stretched out a very dirty hand, and gave me the grip!

"Mew Chapter," he murmured.

It was revolting. That it should be Plock of all others!

We did the "Band of Brothers" together—my[Pg 125] oath compelled it—but I have never voiced its loving sentiments so half-heartedly.

Quiet fell at last. So did most of my companions. One by one they toppled over. Whinney was the last to go. It is said that the loss of one function strengthens another and I suppose that the absence of eyesight gave him staying power. But he finally succumbed, smiling happily and crooning to himself—"I don't no' whish is, m' I blin'-drunk or drunk-blin'"; and he was gone.

My last memory is of Frissell saying "my next imitation" and then playing "taps" on a mouth organ. I knew the impossibility of competing with a parlor entertainer. Nothing will quiet such chaps but a dead audience. So I rolled over, and slept the sleep of a tired but happy explorer.

What awakened me I cannot say, but I am sure that it was something unusual, for my awakening was not gradual or difficult. It was the same quick instant leap to consciousness as that which rouses the suburban wife when she leans across the interim between the twin beds and whispers tensely to her husband, "Horace, someone is trying to get into the dining-room window!"

SOMETHING NEW IN DRAMATICS

A happy thought in the formation of the personnel of the Expedition was the inclusion of Frissell, the professional entertainer, who is here shown playing a leading part in the amateur theatricals which it was his delight to organize. The scene chosen for illustration is the famous shipping episode from "The Taming of the Shrew." Reginald Swank, who is no mean dramatic critic, tells us that Frissell's "Petruchio" was a spirited performance, while Snak's "Katharine" rivalled Ada Rehan at her best. The nautical background added a novel touch to the somewhat hackneyed vehicle and it is safe to say that Shakespeare is permanently established among the Klinka and Kryptok tribes.

Not content with the success of this production, Frissell plans to bring to Broadway a newly organized company, "The Polar Players." They will appear in repertoire while the B and C companies tour the provinces. The Winter Garden has already been engaged for the venture, Al Jolson obligingly shifting to the Metropolitan Opera House. Tickets for the première of this interesting novelty, which is set for November 1st, may be had by application to any of the well known speculators. Mr. Frissell has already shown photographs of some of his best scenes to prominent professional critics. A few sample opinions may be of interest.

George Jean Nathan: "Foreign and therefore good."

Heywood Broun: "Lacking in background; we like it."

Al Woods: "Niftik."

Dorothy Parker: "I hate actors, but these people are different."

Frederick O'Brien: "Taupo aloha che."

The Literary Digest: "Better than the average and more average than the best."

David Belasco: "All to the spot-light."

Bernard Shaw: "They go further back than Methusaleh."

Something New in Dramatics

[Pg 129]

I suddenly found myself sitting bolt upright, straining my ears through the lightness.

What was it?

What uncanny influence had snatched me bodily out of the depths of stupor?

All about me lay my companions. I counted them dazedly. Triplett, Sausalito, Swank,—yes, they were all there, not one missing.

"It was nothing" I thought, and stretched myself, preparatory to replacing my aching head in its original position.

And then my hair literally rose on that same head and a creeping chill crept up my spine.

Close at hand, just back of me, rose a soft, exquisite, purling sound, the sound of a woman's laughter! Whirling about I caught a fleeting glimpse of her.

It was just a flash. She was peering over the edge of the cairn. The instant my eyes met hers I knew that I had seen the most beautiful woman in the world!

Leaping silently to my feet, for I did not wish to waken my comrades, I raced toward the cairn. As I rounded the curve I heard again that silvery laughter, spiced, I thought, with a note of mockery.

"One second, my beauty!" I muttered, "and I[Pg 130] shall have you!" Remember, I had been for months in the solitudes. My blood pounded in my temples.

Sweeping gracefully around the cairn I arrived on the opposite side.

Desolate and empty, the ice bowl curved to its rim.

Not a living soul in sight.

[Pg 131]

Chapter VI

Fatal procrastination. Our one-dimensional position. An extraordinary ornithological display. I confide in Swank. His plan. I capture my vision. The Klinkas. An embarrassing incident.

[Pg 133]

Chapter VI

The succeeding days were occupied with the business of getting settled. Our eight-day clock recorded July 7th before we finally got down to work. By throwing up a waist-high wall around the base of the cairn we formed a circular dugout into which we moved our belongings, a man to each segment. Already the weather had begun to moderate and I found my medium-longs comfortable.

Sections of our camp were covered with tarpaulins and of course we had the Kawa to retire to in case of need. A passing shower warned me that the short Arctic summer was waning but I figured that we had ample time to remain at least three weeks longer. We had but begun our scientific work, our food supply was generously sufficient, and moreover, my men had come a long way and were entitled to a rest.

Ah! How vainly does the mind of man delude itself with false reasoning. Back in my brain nib[Pg 134]bled the maggot of curiosity. Deep in my man-being the age-old impulse lusted for a sight of the mysterious ice-maiden. Like the old viking in the Saga—"Moe entilgig sas, moe Tillig as var—"[17] I would have procrastinated forever. As it was my delay ... but I am now getting south of myself.

Speaking of "getting south" we were in a curious position, one previously remarked on, but which has received scant attention. I refer to the fact that there was left to us but one direction. We had nowhere to go but south. The idea seemed so fantastic that I verified it by actual test. The empiric is after all the only actual, as Spencer says. Standing close together four of us were able to touch the Pole with our backs. At a signal we all stepped forward five paces.

We had all gone south!

And yet, Triplett and I had gone in exactly opposite directions: so had Whinney and Wigmore who were assistants.

There are some things that are beyond the mind of man. Whinney said that it was very simple. He explained that since it was already possible, in a[Pg 135] three dimensional world, to reduce motion to one direction (which is the equivalent of one dimension) he was sure that further research would show us the way to arrive at a point in which there would be no direction at all.

"How would you get back?" I asked.

Although nonplussed he started in on a wordy explanation in the midst of which I sneaked softly away, leaving him still talking under the impression that I was at his side.

My unfortunate friend had taken up writing to mitigate his black loneliness and the click of his typewriter could be heard at any time. He was writing a description of our voyage and it surprised me to see how much clearer and more interesting his account became after his eyes were stricken and he was obliged to rely for information on what was told him rather than on what he had seen. It has long been a theory of mine that too much actual experience makes a man inarticulate, while the reverse is stimulating and beneficial.[18] A realization of the devastating dullness of most polar accounts has further confirmed this view.

In the meantime our serious work was progress[Pg 139]ing. My plan was to keep one of the men with me, giving the others freedom to pursue their respective lines of research. This made it possible for me to be at home most of the time and so not miss any recurrence of the feminine phenomenon I had noted.

AFTER THE BATH

No libel has received wider acceptance than the often made statement that the Eskimos are an uncleanly people. It is true that during the winter season the skin is protected by frequent applications of various animal-oils such as seal, walrus, otary, sperm and pemmican. Only thus could the skin be protected against the rigors of the Polar winter. The usual specification employed by the Klinka tribe is as follows: (1) One (1) coat of otary oil thoroughly brushed in. When this has dried apply (2) one (1) coat of Makuik-mixture (1/3 otary to 2/3 whale, sperm or equal), applied hot with a soft tundra sponge or seal-flipper; (3) two (2) coats grade A pemmican, applied separately; (4) finish coat of walrus-oil rubbed to a high polish. Fastidious individuals frequently add a coat of guppy-wax which results in a soft lustrous surface. By this method the entire body is hermetically sealed (just as our New England forebears used to seal their preserves and jams with paraffin) and the skin is kept immaculately clean.

As soon, however, as the Spring sun has ameliorated the low temperature the native feels that it is time to slough his oily protection. Nature demands that his pores come up for air. This is accomplished by exposure to the sun's rays. The wax and substrata rapidly liquefy and are easily scraped-off with curved bone knives admirably adapted to the work in hand. The natives assist each other. One of the pleasantest experiences of Dr. Traprock and his men was that of watching a lovely Klinka scraping an acquaintance, aided by the friendly suggestions of her companions.

When the final oil-coat is removed and all pores are wide open the body is rolled in clean snow and rubbed vigorously with a dried salmon-fin.

The adjacent photograph shows little Kopek returning in his mother's oomiak after his Spring scouring. The snowy whiteness of his tender skin is ample proof of the hygienic wisdom of the Klinka method.

Note the iglootinous character of the background. The perforated mounds are really hives, the winter quarters of the Poks or Arctic snow-bees which lay blue honey in large quantities from June to September.

After the Bath

After a comfortable breakfast my followers departed in various directions, each carrying his luncheon which Sausalito put up for him. She, by the way, had become the uncrowned queen of all hearts and I felt more than justified in having acceded to Triplett's sinful wishes.

Plock found it difficult to make any headway with his anthropology because he could discover no inhabitants. Up to July 20th, he kept entering regularly in his journal: "Density of population 1/316 to square mile."

"It hardly seems enough," said Frissell brightly.

Plock gave him a sour look.

"I was not speaking of mental density," he said.

In zoology he was more successful, though he complained bitterly that my "no hunting" edict cramped his style.

"You can't study life without taking it," he said.

I thought he was referring to the magazine.

"My family have been taking it since Vol. 1, No.[Pg 140] 1," I retorted, "and you know perfectly well it has always been anti-vivisection."

"Who said anything about vivisection?" he demanded, "though for that matter, that's just one of Life's kinks, something that was wished on 'em in a will. Let me kill a few animals first, and I'll cut 'em up, and maybe eat 'em afterward!"

He licked his lips greedily. In him, too, dormant appetites were stirring, the blood thirst of the tiger! Strange irony, that he should be the first to go.

Nevertheless he brought in some interesting live specimens caught with ingenious snares and traps, among other things numerous birds, ptarmigan, pelican and pemmican and a pair of polar kittens, the young of the Felis-polaris, those quaint cats which always point toward the north.[19] These charming creatures soon became our pets and took avidly to the condensed milk which Sausalito prepared for them.

The pair of nesting pemmican who had pre-empted our crow's nest were a source of constant[Pg 141] interest. Three magnificent eggs about the size of footballs were jealously watched day and night. Plock informed us that the young birds might hatch any day now and warned us to be ready for interesting developments. Though I believed him I was unprepared for anything as novel as what took place.

Fortunately the event transpired on a Sunday—July 23rd to be exact—which was a day of rest. We had just finished divine service when Plock pointed excitedly toward the main truck.

"She's going to hatch!" he yelled.

The mother bird had risen from the nest. Between her powerful legs she clutched one of the perfect ovates. Circling the Kawa three times she uttered a piercing shriek and dropped the egg.

"Key-ryste!" ejaculated Triplett.

Plock motioned for silence.

The egg struck the floe with a deep boom off our weather lee and a dense cloud of bright orange smoke filled the air in the midst of which we saw the fledgling pemmican in full flight, rising to join its mother. The male or bull pemmican now added himself to the party and together they made off to the edge of the ice bowl where the young one alighted.

[Pg 142]

"Stand back," warned Plock. "Cover up your noses."

The saffron laying fumes were drifting toward us, and their odor was overpowering and indescribable. Even as I crouched behind our bulwarks I thought of my old friend Lucien Sentent, the nasal gourmet of Battambang and wished he were with us. He could have had my share!

Three times this curious phenomenon was repeated and though vastly diverted we were glad when it was over.

Along other lines, Miskin covered a large number of cardboards with maps. He was preparing a folio, "The Pole and its Environs," he called it. A difficulty was that of locating any other point in relation to the Pole. Triplett's science could go no further than it had.

"Son," he said to Miskin, who had been anxiously asking which direction New York was. "Son, I kin tell yer where we be, but not where we ain't."

So Miskin tried the effect of the Pole in various positions on the sheets and said he would fill in the details later.

Swank got some excellent photographs using Whinney's camera, some of which are reproduced with this book. The views from the Pole itself were[Pg 143] particularly interesting, but his best results were to come later.

Wigmore kept adding to his collection of snow crystals and algæ which he packed carefully in cracked ice, while Whinney, even in his darkened condition found it possible to tinker with his radio outfit. Sloff helped him rig his antennae to the Pole itself and we began to get messages with increasing clarity.

Thus it will be seen that all our little band were busy and that not an hour was wasted.

But deep in my heart lurked a determination to see again my lady of mystery. As the days lengthened to weeks without my having made any progress I at last confided in Swank.

He was incredulous but logical and infinitely woman-wise.

"You were cuckoo," he said. "But if you weren't, the only way to get her is to rouse her curiosity. Then grab her."

"How?" I asked.

He pondered a moment before replying.

"See those snow men?"

I nodded. Frissell had occupied his valuable time carving effigies for what he called his "Hall of Ill-fame, or Northern Musee of the World's[Pg 144] Worst Worms."—Volstead, Anderson, Dr. Pease, John Roach Straton, Anthony Comstock and others. While I deprecated his taste I had no suspicion how thankful I should be for its results.

"Here's the idea," Swank continued. "Get everybody else out of the way for a whole day, see? Then plant a decoy over on the other side of the cairn where you saw the woman; something bright and snappy in color."

"My old hunting coat!" I suggested.

"Just the thing. Then you and I creep into a couple of Frizzie's masterpieces, poke out their prune-stone eyes and watch."

"Swank!" I cried, grasping his hand, "you are a genius."

He shrugged his shoulders modestly.

"In more ways than one," he conceded.

The plan was simple of execution. My only problem was Whinney, Sausalito and Triplett who commonly stuck around home. This I solved by sending Sausalito off for a day's picnic with Whinney so that the Captain followed, as a matter of course. Since Reginald had been unable to see Sausalito and only heard her vibrant voice, he had become dangerously fond of her, a fact which Triplett's one eye was quick to notice. They, therefore,[Pg 145] departed, Sausalito leading Whinney with Triplett trailing. The others had gone long ago. Swank and I at once began our preparations.

Twenty feet from the foot of the cairn I spread my M.F.H. coat on the snow. Its vivid scarlet with the Derby brown collar and turn-back cuffs made a vivid spot amid the surrounding whiteness. Swank meanwhile was burrowing into the back of Dr. Pease. A moment later I was enclosed in Volstead, a disguise which I had never thought to assume. The air was suffocating inside and to fortify myself I nibbled a fragment of A-P with ironic appreciation of the contrast between the outer man and the inner. Swank, not to be outdone, solaced himself with a smoke which must surely have irked the cold semblance of the arch anti-cigarettist. But I hissed a warning and the blue smoke spiral ceased.

From then on we waited. The time was interminable. It was probably not more than thirty minutes, but it seemed hours. My A-P was exhausted and I began to think of quitting.

Then, with a suddenness that nearly caused me to fall through Volstead's abdomen, things began to happen. I glanced at Dr. Pease; he was trembling slightly, or maybe it was my own excitement.

DINNER IS SERVED

The closeness of primitive man to the abysmal brute is strikingly illustrated in the accompanying photograph. Makuik at mealtime must surely remind the reader of the Bronx Park Zoo at that time which the poet beautifully describes:

"Between the dark and the daylight,
When the lions release their lung-power,
Comes a pause in the day's occupation
Which is known as the feeding-hour."

Eskimo diet varies with the season. During the long winter it consists mainly of the fatty overcoats worn by seal, walrus and otary. Another favorite plate is made, en casserole, with alternate layers of whale-blubber and seal-flippers. The result tastes very much like stewed tennis-shoes. These wobbly dishes, garnished with seal-eyes, are served on squares of hide and are scraped-up with flippers or guppy-fins. Both hide and flipper are eaten at the close of the meal which eliminates the tedious dish-washing, wiping and putting-away of so-called civilized housekeeping. These blubberous foods supply the calories (about 2000 to the square inch) necessary to combat the absurd temperature of the winter season.

When the sun re-appears in the spring and the song of the first lapwing is heard, the Eskimo begins to think intently of raw meat. "Ukuk matok tomatok," he mutters to himself. "I must have some vitamines."

The scent of a bear two miles to windward crazes the native huntsman and speedily sets him to sharpening his spears and knives to razor-keenness. Yet so strict is his observance of Kryptok law that when a kill has been made he will touch no morsel until the meat has been divided according to the custom, for the chief the sirloins and porterhouses, for the lesser men the second and third joints and for the women the ribs, rump, neck and feet or whatever else is left.

According to Makuik bear's-meat is greatly prized because of its toughness. It is considered effeminate to eat tender meat. The sound of an Eskimo meal is not unlike a Red-Cross bandage-tearing session.

A study of the photograph under the microscope clearly shows the vitamines winding their curiously spiral course up and down the meal.

The absence of table manners is not remarkable when one considers the absence of tables.

Dinner is Served

[Pg 149]

Swiftly and noiselessly a large block of snow at the base of the cairn itself moved to one side disclosing a laughing face, the same lovely countenance upon which I had gazed several weeks before. The wearer listened for a full minute with bird-like intentness, then leaped lightly out and straightened up, a long-limbed, graceful creature wearing the conventional summer furs of the Northern Eskimo. Her hood was thrown back showing a glimpse of entrancing shoulder but what dazzled me most were the starry blue eyes, fair skin and wealth of molten, golden hair!

Her first act was to circumnavigate the cairn which she did with the same silent rapidity that marked her every motion. She then made directly for the lure, bending over it, touching it cautiously and finally raising it and burying her face in its scarlet folds, while her laughs rang out muffled but intoxicating.

This was my chance!

Bursting through my prison walls I rushed toward her while Swank, by arrangement, crashed out of Pease, darted to the entrance, slid the block into place and sat on it. I was upon her before she had a chance to move.

"Akalok!" I cried (the Northern dialect for[Pg 150] "friend"), as we rolled over and over in the snow. My old football training stood me in good stead for I had made a perfect diving tackle. Inwardly blessing the name of Ted Coy, I pinned the lithe, palpitating body to the snow, repeating more tenderly the soft appellation, "Akalok, Akalok."

But my triumph was shortlived.

For the first time her lips moved and from between them burst a wild, frantic cry, strangely familiar to my ears.

"Makuik! Makuik!"

At the repetition I heard a shriek of pain from Swank and glanced over my shoulder in time to see him rise in the air. The ice block was shattered beneath him and I saw an ugly stub of seal-spear, thrust accurately where he had formerly sat. Directly back of him leaped an ape-like figure as swart and scowling as a Japanese war mask. He carried a terrific weapon, a keen-edged blubber cutter, with which he made directly at me.

At ten paces I recognized him but too late to stop the impending blow. Firing over my shoulder, a tricky shot at best, I shattered the bone blade into a thousand fragments, at the same instant jumping to my feet and shouting—"Makuik! Tapok!"

[Pg 151]

I had given my name, "Tapok," the Icelandic pronunciation, and at the sound he stopped like a man shot.

"Makuik!" I cried again.

His ferocious scowl faded through stupefaction to astonishment and gleeful recognition.

"Tapok!" he rumbled, spreading his arms wide. "Kata pokok Ikik nakatok!"

I regret that I cannot translate his remark which was highly improper and referred definitely to the woman, Ikik, who stood trembling beside us. She had raised her oomiak and now, to hide her blushes, folded her glorious hair across her face so that she resembled some divine being, half goddess, half skye-terrier. Back of the screen I saw her blue eyes shining and caught a suppressed gurgle of mirth. All, then, was not lost.

In the meantime the cairn was humming like a mighty hive while through a re-opened aperture crawled other individuals, first a younger Eskimo, a mere stripling, followed by four other Eskimos, all radiant blondes. One of them carried a child, slung over her shoulder in her oomiak.

At a command from Makuik, Swank was helped to his feet, the spear being extracted from his person by Snak, a slender maiden with a mischievous[Pg 152] smile who deftly poulticed the wound with a handful of snow.

If the reader is astounded at the sudden turn of events he can imagine my feeling when my eyes rested on Makuik, mighty hunter of the Kryptok tribe, whom I had last seen twenty years ago when we had fought our way four hundred miles across broken ice from Ki, an uncharted speck north of Iceland, to Archangel. It is a long story. Suffice it to say that I had saved his life twelve times during the trip while he had done nearly as well by me. We had sworn eternal blood-brotherhood and the word of an Eskimo is as good as his bond; better, in fact.

The Kryptok tongue came back to me fluently and I quickly assembled the family group—for such it was—in our dugout where a distribution of A-P and such small presents as I could lay my hands on transformed what had been two hostile camps into one joyous assemblage.

While the women gurgled their satisfaction over their new fly swatters and empty herring boxes, vying with each other in their attempts to ease Swank's pain, Makuik explained the situation.

The women were all his wives, fruits of victorious battle. They were of the Klinka tribe, per[Pg 153]fect blondes, as I have noted. The young man was his oldest son by an Iceland mother.

"Too old. I eat. No good wife ... good eat," he explained frankly.

The infant was his youngest. There would be others. His party had been caught at the Pole by an unexpectedly early summer. For protection from the heat they had taken to the cairn, there to await the winter freeze which would make travel comfortable and possible.

"But why did you hide?" I asked.

"Me not know," he said, smiling craftily. "You have trees."

"Trees?" I mused, then burst out laughing. Of course! He referred to my imperial and goatee, which I have worn since my service in the Bodansky Zouaves, and which he had never seen!

It was as clear as day.

Chuckling with delight, the old warrior showed me over their living quarters while I marvelled at his vigor, preserved in this world of ice. The interior of the cairn was astounding. Instead of entering a domed chamber, similar to the many igloos I have inhabited, we went down, down for a surprising distance. The entire habitation was hewn from the eternal ice to depths far beyond the[Pg 154] reach of sun or storm. It was a three-room-and-bath arrangement, the latter consisting of a trough, at a slightly lower level than the main floor, filled with lucent seal oil. The rooms were respectively, living-room (which also served as kitchen and dining-room), bedroom, simply furnished with community sleeping-bag, etc., and storeroom, piled high with blubber, fur-steaks, walrus eyes and other Eskimo dainties. The temperature was slightly below freezing, a delightful change from the prostrating heat we had been enduring, though I will confess that I began to think longingly of mittens and bear-skins and was glad when we once more ascended into warmer atmosphere.

I reached the surface just in time to meet the returning members of my party who, needless to say, were faint with astonishment at the change in conditions.

General introductions were in order and a blithe evening meal was soon under way. But how different a feast from the man-made orgy that had disgraced our arrival. How completely the presence of these gentle savage women had altered the complexion of our enjoyment.

Sprawling about Ikik and Snak, and the other three, Yalok, Klikitok and Lapatok (whose babe[Pg 155] had been placed in its cold storage niche), my companions engaged in all sorts of innocent foolery. Though they spoke not a word of each other's language a subtle understanding had sprung up between them. Was it the common strain of Caucasian blood or simple sex calling to even simpler sex? I cannot answer.

Frissell had produced a lavish supply of toys from his pack which made an enormous hit. Ikik had a colored doll which she nursed affectingly. Lapatok joyfully wound a police rattle, while Snak, Klikitok and Yalok sucked rubber teething-rings with evident relish.

Makuik reserved for himself a monkey-on-a-stick which he regarded as a sceptre, the mechanism of which pleased and mystified him.

At nine o'clock Whinney announced triumphantly that his radio was working. He switched it on and we listened in awe while a far-away voice, introduced as Miss Anita Scatchett of the New Jersey State Normal School, told a Bedtime story, "How the Animal Crackers Came Alive."

I say "we listened in awe." I must amend that statement. For a few moments I was mildly impressed. It did seem odd to think of a gentle[Pg 159] spinster in Newark, thousands of miles away, speaking to these children of nature. But as far as our guests were concerned, the feature was a dud. The subject matter soon began to bore us all and we shut it off, to Whinney's disgust.

A FAR-OFF FASHION-PLATE

In the charming scene herewith depicted, Yalok, the beautiful Klinka belle, is posing as if she were a mannequin on parade in some lovely al fresco fête, as indeed she is. The background in itself is interesting, showing, at stage right, the Tarpaulin Tea-House erected and conducted during the Summer months by Herman Swank, Dr. Traprock's artistic fellow-voyager. To this picturesque châlet the Eskimo maidens turned with womanly instinct and its accommodations, limited to two, were in great demand. Mr. Whinney, when not entertaining a personal guest, sat outside. But these intimate details need not detain us.

The principal figure is Yalok who, for the purposes of photography, has donned the very latest 1922 Spring-model sports-suit. She wears, it will be noted, "a woman's crowning glory"—her own hair. The other glories are supplied by the hair of various animals indigenous to the Arctic.

Reading from North to South this snappy get-up consists of the otary over-smock or slip-in with sliding sleeves of unborn-seal, the roomy "roamers" of polar bearskin and the pliant chassures. The sleeves, another loose seal effect, modestly cover the entire arm or arms and flare back vehemently from the gauntlets, which may be eider-down or up. The roamers, again, cut loose from conventional lines and melt suavely into the retroussée wading slippers. The last mentioned articles are fashioned from the pelt of the Amok, which usefully grows hair on both sides of its hide. The fore-and-aft apron or windshield is nattily edged with ermine and at the back runs smartly into a train. A last-minute accessory is the fly-swatter, Dr. Traprock's gift to the lady, which is held at the correct angle of 45°.

More important, however, than mere costume is the art of wearing it, an art in which this lovely model is evidently entirely at home. Her position is that demanded of a debutante in the most exclusive Eskimo society, when she is presented to a distinguished foreigner, the head modestly bowed, the eyes downcast, the arms in an alluring come-and-get-me position and the feet gracefully parted in the middle.

A final touch of chic unreproduceable by photography but which has all the allure of a truly Parisian pomboire, is the perfume (Eau de Musk-ox) which adds its ineffable odor to this arctic rose, a hovery halo, and exquisite ectoplasm.

A Far-off Fashion Plate

A few moments later I rose with a start. Something in the air chilled me with horror. Glancing toward the horizon I gasped, then quickly caught myself.

The sun was half hidden below the horizon! The light was distinctly dim!

I thought no one had noticed my involuntary start, but Makuik, though seemingly absorbed in his monkey, leaned toward me and whispered, "Night come."

Night! My God! It had stolen upon us unaware. We would be caught, trapped in the deadly grip of the North King who had claimed so many brave men before us.

The darkened atmosphere suggested but one thought.

"Bed," I said. "Sleep."

My oblivious companions took it as a signal for dispersal. They rose reluctantly. Good-byes were said. Noses were rubbed affectionately.

Then an embarrassing episode took place.

[Pg 160]

Makuik, who had marshalled his flock before him, suddenly seized the lovely Ikik by the shoulder and thrust her into my arms.

"You take," he said, smiling broadly. "Me give."

Her warm body pressed against me, not unwilling. It is the Kryptok custom, as usual as giving a man a drink.

Confused and inefficient, I stood there. But my perplexity was shattered by another surprise. A compact, wiry form hurled itself between us. It was Sausalito, her face livid with fury!

"You let that woman be!" she shrieked, panting, glaring.

Makuik shrugged his shoulders and pushed the Eskimo woman roughly toward her fellow wives. Then, turning, he glanced contemptuously at Sausalito.

"No good ... you eat." He leered, swinging off toward his sub-cellar.

"Dog-face!" screamed Sausalito. "Pig's-foot...."

Triplett's great hammer fist struck her squarely on the jaw and she sank limp in his arms.

Late that night I lay tossing on my blankets, prey to a thousand conflicting emotions, fear, joy,[Pg 161] and sickening anxiety, beneath which, like the burden of a refrain, ran the overwhelming thought: "She loves me. Sausalito loves me. What shall I do?"

It was the first time such a proposition had ever daunted me.

[Pg 163]

Chapter VII

Still procrastinating. Our pastimes at the Pole. An exchange of love-tokens. Ikik's avowal. Caught in the embrace of the Aurora.

[Pg 165]

Chapter VII

The longer I live the more of a fatalist I become. Looking back on the weeks which followed our meeting with Makuik and his family I see myself powerless in the grip of a force superior to my own. How else can I account for the procrastination which, day after day, week after week, held me in my perilous location. For that it was perilous my brain told me clearly.

Seven previous trips into the Arctic had taught me that its climate could be treacherous as well as friendly. If I have seemed to expatiate on the tropical warmth of an exceptional summer, the hottest on record in the meteorological archives of Iceland (which are the oldest in the world), rest assured that it is with no wish to encourage ill-equipped pleasure-parties to venture forth into these icy solitudes. I have been warned by an eminent polar authority that it would be dangerous and wrong to instill this idea. I thoroughly agree[Pg 169] with him. Woe betide the week-end tripper or basket-picnicker who fares beyond eighty-six with no protection other than a warm sweater and a quart thermos of coffee! He is doomed before he starts or immediately thereafter. When the short summer wanes the thermometer plunges without warning to incredible depths and almost certain disaster results.

A NIMROD OF THE NORTH

A large volume might be written about this illustration alone.

Big game hunting, in the last analysis, is usually a feeble sort of sport. The stalking of itself is a beneficial form of exercise but when at last the two strong brutes, human and animal, stand face to face it is an odds-on bet on the human. An express-bullet takes little account of hide or hair. Compared with this form of target-practice, fly-swatting and mosquito-slapping are gallantry itself.

We may learn something from Makuik, the Kryptok huntsman who is seen en face in the act of capturing part of his winter's meat-supply in the person of a magnificent specimen of the ursus polaris. The method universally employed by the Eskimo is that of the surprise-onslaught. Polar bears, for some reason, do not expect to be attacked by men from the air.

Perched on a rocky eyrie the native huntsman warily scans the floe for his victim. The path beneath the precipice is baited with small cubes of seal and pemmican meat along which the prey is led by appetite just as children at birthday parties are led through the mazes of a peanut-hunt. When the bear is directly below him, the hunter springs silently into the air and descends like a falling archangel on the creature's back. A hunter's prowess is measured by the height from which he dares to jump. Makuik holds the Kryptok record in this event is 40 Kyaks (approximately 520 ft.). At the termination of a successful jump the bear breaks the fall and the fall not infrequently breaks the bear. But the risk is great and in case of a miss the Nimrod becomes forthwith data for the actuaries and food for the bear. As in all aerial feats the important part is the landing.

In the incident portrayed the result was the not unusual one of a glancing blow. Striking the bear's shoulder Makuik was thrown for a loss of seven yards, not, however, before he had pinned one of the bear's paws to the ice with his keen-edged ratak. From then on the fight was a fierce hand-to-paw affair, one round to a finish with the incessant in-fighting, knife against claw, brain against brain.

Makuik won the decision after forty-three minutes of gruelling and growling work, not without considerable damage to his person. Throughout the battle he consistently placed his knife-thrusts where they could later be made into buttonholes by his beautiful wives, beginning at the lowest button and working upward to the lapel. The bear was thus actually tailored during the process of destruction. Forest and Stream please copy.

A Nimrod of the North

And yet, knowing these things, I stayed. Discarding all plans, scrapping all schedules, denying all reasons, I delayed, lingered and waited. For what? Death, perhaps, but before death, Love! Ah, love! love! mad will-o'-the-wisp, flaming with tragic intensity in the very core of a berg, destroying passion, paralyzing my will-power even as the spirit of winter laid his icy hand on my shoulder.

My companions, fatally influenced by my example, were no longer restless but completely satisfied with their surroundings and with the society of the Klinka women who, as the light waned and the temperature dropped, ventured more and more into the open.

Nowhere in the world will one find such gaiety, friendliness, and generosity as among these child-like denizens of the North. I do not except even[Pg 170] the glorious Filbert Islanders who were my own discovery. During many a long twilight I sat with Whinney, Triplett and Swank about the Primus stove which we now found comfortable, chatting of our Polynesian friends and evoking many a tender memory. Of all who made that famous cruise only our former crew was missing, Thomas, the sailor-man whom we left behind. But I could not find it in my heart to envy him.[20]

Compared with northern tribes all Polynesians are slow and lethargic. Nothing could exceed the swift grace of these glorious Klinkas, and many a day of rare sport we had while there was still light. Our contribution to the program usually consisted of an American game adapted to local conditions: tennis, using the native snowshoes for rackets and balls of inflated fish-membrane, or golf over a sporty nine-hole course with constantly shifting snow-bunkers and water-hazards. This variable quality in the links made play extremely interesting and likewise supplied a much needed alibi for our scores. Frissell's inventiveness created extra[Pg 171]ordinary good clubs out of parts of our cooking utensils lashed to whale-bone shafts, with which it was no unusual thing to drive upwards of seven hundred yards. The idea is covered by patents.

To my amusement Makuik and his entire family were deathly afraid of the pogo-sticks. In their simple minds this contrivance was endowed with life of its own. When I finally forced one on Ikik she planted it fervently on a little cairn where it was worshipped as a God. How strangely the idea of the totem-pole persists! And speaking of poles, no outdoor sport proved more popular than tether-ball, with the ball tethered to the Pole itself.

The Eskimos were far from lacking in amusements of their own, though these naturally had a direct bearing on some ulterior object such as blubber for food-supply or furs for warmth. It has remained for the superior white races to invent games which are of no use whatever.

Time and again Makuik thrilled us by his long distance harpooning of seals which now sought the floes in large numbers.

The perfect poise, the powerful thrust, the long trajectory and the final, squashing hit just behind the ear were enough to excite the envy of an[Pg 172] Olympic javelin thrower.[21] The feat was the more remarkable when it is considered that a seal's ear is on the inside and, therefore, invisible.

Some of the novices in my party were slightly overcome by the mad rush of Makuik's family toward the stricken carcass from which they tore and devoured long strips of blubber, but needless to say this was an old story to me. Fresh seal's eyes are a coveted tid-bit, and I was much touched when Ikik brought me one, warm and quivering, in the palm of her hand. It was plainly a love offering as I saw when I looked from her eyes to that of the seal. One should chew them, not gulp them down, in order to get the full flavor which is not unlike a Cape Cod oyster, though more salty and slightly oily.

The women were particularly fond of leading us on searching parties in quest of seal roe, which we found in large quantities in the shallow nests lined with the yellow wax which exudes from the pores of the mother. Both roe and wax are highly prized by the natives who spread them, mixed, on squares of seal hide, forming sandwiches. In win[Pg 173]ter the seal fur is also included on account of the extra warmth which is provided.[22]

It was a happy thought of mine to present Ikik with an enormous church candle which, having been blessed, had been presented to me by the Bishop Metaxis Polyphlosboios in Constantinople. Ikik and I were alone when I offered it, in return for the eye she had given me. I wish my readers could have seen her divine smile as she touched, smelled and finally tasted the white cylinder, which was so much more refined than the fresh fat and tallow which had been daily pabulum.

"Tapok, Ataki! Traprock, I adore you!" she cried, throwing herself at my feet and chewing the uppers of my moccasins, the native expression of complete devotion.

"Enough!" I murmured, raising her by her hair; "here come the others."

Though my "affaire de cœur" was progressing satisfactorily, I was forced to walk warily. Some of my fellows were infernal busy-bodies and Sausalito, poor wretch, watched over me with furious jealousy.

Innumerable were the diversions of those happy,[Pg 174] happy days, the mad pursuit of an occasional musk-ox, of which the women were insanely fond because of the perfume derived from its peripatetic gland, and the absorbingly interesting observations of the Arctic guppys, those unique fish which bear their live and full-formed young on the ice without the tedious formality of laying an egg. The mother guppy immediately eats her offspring and the race between her and the Eskimo audience to see which could get the most, was not the least amusing phase of this quaint accouchement.

And then the long, twilight evenings, snuggled down in the deep furs of our friends, sharing the warmth of our tiny Primus under the Kawa's lee, crooning our songs, passing our plugs and our gay banter. I feel sure than I shall never be nearer heaven.

On an immemorial date, for our watches had long ago run down, we sat thus in our little Arctic circle listening languidly to a number on Whinney's radio,—"What the Sunday Schools of Kansas are Doing," I believe it was,—no; "The weather a hundred years ago today," that was it,—when I suddenly realized that it was dark; not twilight, but actually dark!

Can you realize what that meant to me? Startled,[Pg 175] I withdrew my thumb from Ikik's soft lips and raised myself on my elbow. About me in the gloom were vague bundles, Swank and Yalok, Frissell and Snak, Whinney and Lapatok, Wigmore and Klipitok, Triplett and Sausalito, silent, rapturous, oblivious. But a strange thing was happening.

All about the circumference of the great ice bowl, of which we were the center, rose trembling, blue flames. I could hear their fluttering hiss and crackle. Now they leaped higher, shooting out giant arms toward the zenith, waving lambent fingers, shivering, interlocking, melting. My companions, aroused, sat up and I could see their startled faces lighted by an unearthly light.

The noise and glare increased. Swishing waves of fuchsia-pink swept up the sky; muffled explosions were followed by writhing snakes of lemon-yellow and far-flung globes of purple and crimson gleamed in the sky while, directly overhead, millions of miles away, the North Star looked down indifferently.

At times the wall of encircling flames, now approximately ten miles high, leaped in unison, to a diabolical rhythm; again they moved about us in procession, gigantic, towering, flapping, hissing,[Pg 179] whistling, rippling, a night-mare of glorious colors which have no names. The very ice below me, cracking and groaning, was shot with fiery veins.

AN ARCH ARCHEOLOGIST

One of the most pathetic figures in the author's startling "exposure" is that of Bartholomew Dane, the Egyptologist who is here shown with Snak, his Klinka assistant, pursuing his speciality of comparative archeology.

A word as to Dane's previous record may bring some information to the few Americans who have not made archeology, with emphasis on Egyptology, a hobby. Born of Nordic stock (his maternal Grandmother was one of the Iceland Krakkens), educated in the more-than-usually-common schools of South Bend, young Dane showed early aptitude in geography, history and kindred studies. His passion for research work was early in evidence his every leisure moment being spent in the examination of abandoned cellar-holes, cisterns, wells, rubbish-heaps and public dumps. His parents, fearful lest their son turn out to be a rag-picker secured for him an under-janitorship at the Natural History Museum of New York City, doubtless hoping to thereby shift the blame for his development from South Bend to the Metropolis. From then on his rise was rapid. Working his way up from the cellar we next hear of him as Secretary to Prof. Thurston Mudgett of the Extinct Civilizations Dept. His course from there to the Nile delta was clearly indicated.

Six months later the young archeologist disappeared, only to reappear six months later laden with honours conferred by the Egyptian government, a full-professor in the College of Alexandria, a recognized authority abroad belatedly received with equal honors at home. His great work on Scarabs among the Arabs is in itself an enduring monument.

What led Dane northward is a mystery. That he hoped to find the missing link in the almost completed itinerary of the lost tribes of Israel we know. That he failed in this dream is a sad fact. But there is solace in the thought that amid the snowy wildernesses of the Pole he found in the companionship of the sympathetic Snak a love which could never have reached him over the hot sands of Sahara.

Due to overwork, exposure and an unavoidable blow on the head, his mind has failed considerably of late but in his lucid moments he hints darkly at having made certain interesting discoveries which have nothing whatever to do with archeology. His earlier achievements, his protracted sojourn in the Tomb of Put, his discovery of the Temple of Murad, all these he lightly dismisses. "The first year was the pleasantest," he laughs; the rest is silence, and the silence is, we trust for this courageous spirit—rest.

An Arch Archeologist

The Eskimos had buried their heads in their oomiaks, my companions lay face downward.

Desperately frightened, I still resolved to face the end, to see what my dazed senses told me was the final conflagration of the world.

Staggering to my feet, I glared about me, taking in the picture with all its ghastly details, the Pole and its flags, the cairn, the Kawa, every block and halyard of which was etched on this field of flame. How insignificant it all seemed.

The world had finished its trick; it was as a tiny bead, cast away by the Creator, a cinder in the eye of God!

Suddenly the flames turned incandescently white, rushed toward me and, on an overwhelming wave of siren wailing, I was swept away, billions of miles beyond the Pole-star, to Eternity....

Ikik was rubbing my forehead with a cool tundra sponge and her face above me was that of an angel.

"Did you see?" she asked. "It was beautiful."

[Pg 180]

The Eskimos were discussing the display critically.

"Too green," said Makuik. "No good. Cold come."

Peering through the darkness I saw the dim outline of the Kawa. The Pole stood intact. Nothing was harmed, nothing singed.

The astounding truth burst upon me, astounding and important to me though nothing to these ages-old Aryans.

We had been in the exact center of the aurora borealis.

Another milestone for American science!

[Pg 181]

Chapter VIII

The Arctic Night. The temptation of Traprock. The pros and cons of falling. We solve an age-old riddle. Our Polar Christmas. The love-philtre. Abandonment.

[Pg 183]

Chapter VIII

"Eighty-six below," announced Captain Triplett the next morning, "an' a fine, starry night."

Old Ezra was right. Night had fallen while we slept. The long Arctic blackness had followed our twilight sleep, and we were now in the grip of its intense cold.

How strangely fate works her miracles! But for my first glimpse of Ikik and our subsequent meeting, we should inevitably have perished, clad as we were in our light linen-mesh and flannels. But the Eskimos had foreseen our peril and supplied us with roomy garments from their own abundant store. No gift in their possession was withheld by these warm-hearted people. Gauntlets, socks, boots and great hooded oomiaks were pressed upon us in which, as soon as we had become accustomed to their overpowering odor, we were extremely comfortable and were able to go about during the less severe weather without dan[Pg 184]ger of being frozen unawares, a very real risk for the novice.[23]

Makuik was insistent that both parties join in sharing the protection of his sub-surface home.

"My meat, yours ... my woman, yours ... you know."

His words were accompanied by the Kryptok sign of blood-brotherhood reserved for members of the clan. Were I to divulge it here I should some day feel the thrust of Makuik's salmon-spear between my shoulder blades. It was a dramatic feature of Kryptok ritual that a sin against blood brotherhood may only be washed out by the blood of the offending brother.

But though I realized the closeness of the tie which bound me to this furry friend, though every fibre of my being cried out to accept the gift which he offered so gladly, a gift which meant warmth, happiness, love!—knowing all this, I was firm in my refusal.

In the face of a temptation, the greatest[Pg 185] perhaps of my life, I resisted, I fought, I struggled.

My reasons were many and complicated. If they were right or not I do not know, but they seemed so at the time.

To begin with I knew in my heart that the beginning of close clan relations with these magnificent Klinkas meant the end of the Traprock Expedition! That we should ever again return to civilization was absolutely unthinkable. Here, in this winter solitude, I saw the first glimmerings of the truth over which the scientific world has so long puzzled. Here was the answer to the old, old, question, "Why do explorers leave home?" Why have so many never returned?

They have been absorbed by, and eventually into, one of these magnificent tribes. They have disappeared, or if they have found their way back to civilization, having proved failures in their new environment, they are tongue-tied, evasive, ashamed.

If I accepted Makuik's hospitality, in full, I saw another inevitable result. He would eventually have to die at my hands. There is room in a small nomadic tribe for but one leader, one "Kalok" or "Strong man." This is the ancient law of evolu[Pg 189]tion. Bound as I was to Makuik I hesitated to take the first step which spelt his doom.

THE BATTLE ON THE BRINK

Students of the text of this volume will recall that a distinct rivalry existed between two of the principal characters, Sausalito and Ikik. The author makes what to us seems a delicate distinction regarding the object of this rivalry. "It was," he says, "not so much me as my love." There is something almost astral in this subdivision. Be that as it may, a strong feeling of competition existed between the two ladies which vented itself in frequent passages between them similar to that illustrated.

In this case the struggle started, as usual, in the most friendly manner, its object being the possession of a stub of candle, the last of the great dip presented to Ikik by Dr. Traprock. Developing, as such things do, from playful wrestling to rough-house, it was not long before the Klinka maiden found that she was struggling for her life. Sausalito's experience in catch-as-catch-can work, gained up and down the Barbary coast, was an equal match for the supple strength of her adversary and there is little doubt that the result would have been fatal to one or both participants had it not been for the timely intervention of Makuik who, seeing how things were going and fearing possible damage to one of his favorite wives, kicked over the icy stage upon which the drama was being enacted, at the same instant throwing the carcass of a bull-seal where it would intercept the fall of the contestants. Had it not been for the skill of Makuik in throwing the bull we can well imagine what would have happened. The animal weighed 220 poks or "meals," that is, approximately 2200 lbs., a "meal" being reckoned as 10 lbs. of any form of food-supply.

After the fall described above a temporary truce was patched up but the feeling of rivalry remained acute. As the philosophical author observes, "Being in love with two women is one thing: being loved by them is another."

The Battle on the Brink

A final consideration, though not one which bore much weight, was that there were not enough Klinkas to go round. I have, perhaps, indicated in my previous chapter, that the process of natural selection, though far from home, had not ceased to operate. The Klinka women, while filled with joyous camaraderie, clearly had their favorites and the pairing which I noted most often was that of Swank and Yalok, Frissell and Snak, and Whinney and Lapatok.

Frissell amused Snak immensely with his outlandish noises and imitations, and Lapatok, who stayed near the cairn more than the others in order to care for little Kopek, her boy, found in the now helpless Whinney another child upon whom to lavish her affection.

Makuik smiled tolerantly at these innocent relations. The women were his, when all was said, and I have no doubt that had the faintest wave of jealousy stirred his primitive heart he would have calmed it by the old tribal method of holding the offender under water for the few seconds necessary to allow the ice-opening to freeze over.

Unfortunately the other members of the expedi[Pg 190]tion did not accept the situation so calmly. Plock, Miskin and Sloff were by no means satisfied with an arrangement which so plainly left them out of it. Dane was not by nature a ladies' man, though he took the color of the others' mental attitude. On numerous occasions I was forced to intervene when a sudden minor crisis developed. Miskin took umbrage because Snak gave Frissell the largest piece of blubber, or some other tom-foolery, and before one could stop it the air was hot with suppressed antipathy.

This state of affairs frankly worried me and I was not anxious to make it worse by accentuating it in the intimacies which were bound to develop in Makuik's igloo.

I therefore issued the strictest orders that all my men should bunk on the Kawa, a regulation which I forced myself to adhere to in spite of the most terrific temptations. We had completely overhauled our running gear during the warm weather and now found that by running the Tutbury at quarter speed, thus charging the batteries, we were able to generate just the right amount of heat required to keep us comfortable.

We soon adapted ourselves to our new mode of life. All outside thermometers were hung up[Pg 191]side down in order to read properly and whenever the temperature was above forty below we sallied forth into the night, on pleasure or profit bent.

An early inspection was made by Miskin, Sloff and myself of the rim of the ice bowl, immediately following the stupendous display of the aurora borealis, which had ushered in the winter. Makuik accompanied us and it was from the naive comments of this child of the north that we arrived at a solution of a large part of the problems in connection with this phenomenon.

As we travelled about the circumference of the bowl I was at once struck by a deep trench or moat which followed its outline. The sides of this moat, which averaged approximately 200 yards in width, were glazed with freshly formed ice which appeared at first to be black in color. A closer inspection showed that this color was derived from a sub-surface stratum of finely powdered carboniferous deposit similar to coal or cinders. At no place were we able to reach this deposit owing to the shortness of our ice picks, but both Miskin and Sloff agreed that the buried material was clearly a metallic slag which had been subjected to extreme heat.

It was at this point that Makuik injected his[Pg 192] interesting personality into our deliberations. Observing our puzzled looks he stooped and gathered up a handful of loose snow crystals which he thrust into his mouth, at once expelling them with a mighty gust of breath. Then he clapped his stomach and said—

"Ice ... sick ... so ... pouf!" another great blast.

My mind flashed back instantly to the claims of an old scientist of whom I had heard my friend Waxman speak, one John Cleves Symmes. As far back as 1819 Symmes had advanced the theory that the earth was hollow. His exact statement reads "the earth is hollow and habitable within, being composed of a number of solid, concentric spheres." Unfortunately Symmes was unable to travel further north than the site of what is now Racine, Wis.,[24] so that his theory remained only a theory and he was eventually laughed out of court.

Now, over a century later, I was to verify a part of his suspicion. That the earth was hollow we could not doubt. Subsequent excavations in the great polar ditch confirmed what we had begun[Pg 193] to realize. The entire section of earth crust at this end of the axis was loose! Deep in the bowels of Mother Earth still burned the terrific primal fires, occasionally venting themselves in some such upheaval as we had witnessed. Whinney later corroborated the findings of Sloff and Miskin regarding excavated specimens of the slag, namely, that they were composed of rhyolite rocks, pulverized lime and other building materials plainly produced by volcanism. The ceaseless whirl of the earth on its axis naturally throws these expanding substances toward the Pole until the bung, or world stopper, is loosened. As soon as the terrific pressure is relieved the ice cap sinks back and the melted snow at once seals the circular fissure.

It is the discovery of such long-sought truths as this which more than repays me for the hardships involved. As I pen these lines I can but bow my head in humble thankfulness to Him who knew too well to fashion this Earth without a safety valve.

The exact date of this and other discoveries is indeterminate. Since the stopping of our chronometers we had gone mainly by guesswork. I was fully aware, from the advent of the polar night, that time had slipped on to approximately Sep[Pg 194]tember 20th. Knowing our exact position (Lat. 90°, Long. 0) it was a simple matter for Triplett to re-establish a definite day schedule by the theodolite-hygrometer method combined with astronomy. The weather was now clear and excellent views of the stars were obtainable from any given point. Altair, Vega and Betelgeuse were particularly visible, but Triplett's favorite constellation was the Dipper, the handle of which he usually triangulated with Cygnus and ourselves. Three successive observations gave Saturday, September 28th as the correct answer and I forthwith posted notices of this fact, which was celebrated by a joint feast.

Night, it is said, is the time for reflection and I now had ample opportunity for this exercise. Unfortunately for the philosophic calm which might have resulted from thought, Ikik, my lovely northern sweetheart, had other ideas as to the proper disposal of the nocturnal hours. The glances which she levelled at me across the Primus were, to say the least, importunate. Little by little I felt my icy resolution thawing beneath her tropic influence.

It was an odd situation. About me the wastes of berg and floe, the mercury skulking in the basement of the thermometer, while in my heart burned[Pg 195] an increasing glow that would not be extinguished. Yet I fought on, a St. Anthony of the North.

Christmas came, as it will even in this distant clime. The event was marked by a general celebration. As I went about the preparations for the feast I little realized how tragically the date was to stand out in my memory.

Morning dawned dark and clear. We used the Pole for our tree, having fashioned branches of oars, pogo-sticks and other suitable materials. During what would have been the fore-noon we groped our way to the edge of the ice bowl, in groups of two or three. I was in one of the groups of two. The other half was Ikik.

Sitting in silence on the edge of the earth crater, I mused sadly. How wonderful, I thought, if the great safety valve would but open and bear my love and me away in its flaming arms. But the conflagration was to be of a more human and dangerous character.

"See," whispered the maiden. "I have brought my present for you." How like her it was, to steal away from the others for this sacred presentation. I peered at the object in her hand. It was a small sack of translucent fish membrane filled with a viscous liquid.

ODE TO THE AURORA

No more poignant moment in the history of American literature has ever been recorded by the camera than that shown with this text which portrays Whinney, the poet-scientist, in the very act of creating his immortal poem "Ode to Aurora," which John Farrar, the veteran critic, pronounces "the best classic ode ever written north of the arctic circle."

As a poet Whinney resembles Milton, in that he is blind. Though this was only a temporary affliction,—snow-blindness,—its immediate effects were heartrendingly pathetic. Not only did the unfortunate traveller miss seeing the Pole and the polar fireworks but he was also forced to master the most difficult of all literary exercises, that of operating a typewriter with mittens on. The ancient pastime of catching a flea while wearing boxing-gloves is child's-play compared with this achievement. Hour after hour, day after day, the persistent poet practised his sightless-touch system.

"What does it look like?" he would ask, submitting a page to Sausalito who had good-naturedly assumed the duties of nursing-secretary.

"Nothing," would be the invariable reply.

But with dogged perseverance Whinney struggled on, gaining a comma here, and a colon there, until he had mastered his instrument. The result all the world knows,—those deathless lines beginning:

"O Aurora!
Not only East, but North as well,
And West! and South!
Th' extraordinary tidings tell!
Flash thy bright beams
And wave thy lambent paws,
Clap thou thy rays
In luminous applause."

For sheer glory of color the description of the aurora which forms the main part of the ode has never been equalled. And then the solemn close, touching in its modesty.

"Tell thou the world,
That it remember shall
The names of Traprock!
Whinney! Swank! et al."

Since returning to this country Mr. Whinney has taken out a regular poet's licence and is now turning out verse of the very highest standard.

Ode to the Aurora

[Pg 199]

"What is it?" I asked tenderly.

I could feel her flush against my cheek.

"Walrus tears."

"Walrus tears?" Ah, yes, I remembered. Years ago an old woman in Bjarkoi had told me that the tears of a male walrus if caught fresh, were an infallible love potion.[25]

"Like Tristan and Isolde," I murmured. She shook her head, uncomprehendingly.

"Drink!" she whispered.

Smiling at the superstition, yet unwilling, unable, in fact, to resist the pleading look in her eyes, I loosed the thong and placed the sack to my lips.

The next instant she was in my arms!

My brain reeled. The stars danced dizzily overhead and were then blotted out. A moment later I became aware of a ludicrous and embarrassing circumstance. Locked in each other's embrace we were sliding down the icy incline of the bowl!

We struck fairly in the midst of a group composed of Triplett, Makuik and several others who[Pg 200] greeted our arrival with roars of laughter; surely a strange ending to a "crise d'amour."

At four-thirty we lighted our tree and had carols, presents and general dancing. At six the feast was served, the heaping ice slabs being placed along the counter of the Kawa which was decked with her full suit of colors and all her extra riding-lights. Pemmican, blubber-steak, seal- and walrus-eyes, hide-salad and guppy-croquettes were supplemented from our waning stores of biscuit, herring, ham, candles and A-P. Even little Kopek was not denied a place and sat near his mother sipping a soapstone cup of modified whale's milk.

Swank had compounded a new drink for the occasion which he called "Traprock tea," consisting of A-P shavings dissolved in salad oil with a number of live guppys flapping about on the surface, "to give it animation" as the inventor explained.

The animation was certainly not lacking and the fun waxed fast and furious.

At an earlier date, late in November, an all night poker game had been instituted by Wigmore, with whom this sport was a ruling passion. Warned by me, the participants had signed an agreement to quit promptly on the 15th of March, in order to[Pg 201] avoid the bickering which might be expected when some loser inevitably insisted that they play "just a week" or a "month more." The gaming element now drifted away, one by one, toward the table in the Kawa's cabin. Most of the others had also withdrawn into the obscurity. Little Kopek had long ago been put to bed. Makuik, I regret to say, was helpless.

It was then that I noticed for the first time the absence from my side of Ikik. She had stolen off, unobserved. Rising, I lurched steadily around the cairn. My head was aching, my heart full of unspeakable longing and sorrow. Was it the Traprock tea or the love philter? Probably both.

Resolutely turning my back on the camp I walked to the far edge of the ice bowl where I sat down. One by one the lights of the celebration flickered and went out. I heard the card players shouting their maudlin good-nights to each other. Once a voice shouted "Traprock!" and, following a remark I could not catch, came a burst of coarse laughter. Then all was silence.

An hour later I arose with a slight shiver; it was 38 below. Though my hands and feet were numb, in my veins throbbed liquid fire. Remorse gnawed at my heart. What had I said to Ikik that[Pg 202] had turned her from me on this, of all nights, our first Christmas together?

Reaching the side of the Kawa, where all lay plunged in slumbers a sudden thrilling resolution flooded over me. I must see her!

I must whisper a tender good-night to the one who had grown to mean more to me than all the rest of the world.

Turning abruptly, my brain reeling, I made directly for the entrance to the igloo.

The door-block slid back noiselessly. A moment later I stood in the low room, hesitant. The single tundra wick gave a dim light through which I saw Makuik's beady eyes fixed on me. With a sweeping gesture he indicated a vacant space in the line of deep breathing figures. Then he too sank back and instantly began snoring.

With infinite care I crept over the human mounds until I sank into the space Makuik had pointed out.

Touching the figure next me I whispered in the lowest of tones.

"Dear one, I have come to say good-night."

She turned toward me, her face shadowed in her oomiak, soft arms twined stealthily about me as a vibrant voice murmured "Walter!"

[Pg 203]

I bounded to my feet with a cry of dismay that caused the sleepers to stir uneasily.

The woman followed me as I hurdled my way to the stairway. In the entrance I glanced back for a second on a face livid with passion.

It was the face of Sausalito!

[Pg 205]

Chapter IX

Sausalito's strategy. Orders must be obeyed. We turn southward. The parting. Mutiny and desertion. In the grip of the Ice King. A fight to the finish. Victory.

[Pg 207]

Chapter IX

She came directly to me in the morning. Sleep had calmed her somewhat. She was cool, but determined. In her hand she held a packet of papers, sealed with the seal of the E.U.

"Your orders," she said briefly and turned to leave the cabin.

"One moment," I said. "You others, kindly leave us. Sausalito, remain."

She sat down limply.

Plock grinned malevolently as he thumped up the companion-way. He knew what was coming, the blackguard.

As I took the packet I saw at a glance that the seal had been broken and clumsily repaired.

Walking to the hatchway I closed it.

"Where did you get these?"

"I f—f—found them," she stammered.

"Sausalito," I said gently, "you lie."

My tenderness disarmed her. Throwing herself[Pg 211] on her knees she burst into a flood of hysterical weeping.

A MOMENT MUSICAL

It is not surprising that Triplett and Traprock were amused by the reaction of Yalok, the Klinka maiden, to the miracle of the radio. The author tells us that the "morceau" picked-up at the moment this photograph was taken was a harmonica-solo by F.P. Adams of New York. Mr. Adams holds all records for plain and fancy harmonica-work, triple-tonguing, echo-effects, vox-humana and choir-invisible. The maestro was accompanied at Newark, by D.T. Smeed on the pianoforte. Had the great artists known the joy they were bringing to the far-off ice-maiden, while they could not have put their backs into their work more thoroughly, they would doubtless have felt more amply repaid than they did when they left the offices of the Westinghouse Company.

The number tried and rendered on this particular occasion was Tristan's song from Der Erl-Kœnig, the immortal lyric beginning:

"Childe Hassam to a dark tower came," and ending with that pathetic musical fiasco

"Placing the slughorn to his lips,—
He blew!"

The hitherto-unheard and unheard-of sound of a B flat slughorn, reaching into these frozen fastnesses, stirred the very depths of the Eskimo auditor, while the white strangers, unconscious of the emotional tumult they had aroused, assisted by Messrs. Adams and Smeed, laughed uproariously at the scene. Dr. Traprock's demeanor, especially, is positively mephistophelian. Can it be that he thinks of playing the satanic rôle to Triplett's Faust?

Dr. Traprock assures us that we are too imaginative. "It was a glorious performance"; he says: "Long may its frozen echoes hover 'round the Pole, to thaw out in successive Springs as the years roll on. I shall not be there to hear them but I shall be happy to think that they persist."

A Moment Musical

"No, no!" she wailed. "I found them. I was putting your brief-case in order, and then my curiosity got the better of me and I opened them. But read, read!"

Obeying her injunction I unfolded the papers, and sat back, thunderstruck. The orders were brevity itself. They said simply. "Sail south, at once." My face must have expressed my bewilderment for she continued. "You see! You see! the moment I read them I knew these orders were a plot, a plot to make you turn back, a plot to discredit ... the man ... I love."

Her voice sank to a low moan and her shoulders were again racked by sobs. I saw it all now. Consumed by jealousy, knowing the contents of the papers, she had withheld them until her woman's nature could stand no more. In the dim light of the cabin, her face transfigured with tenderness, she was actually beautiful.

I raised her gently from the floor. "That will do," I said.

"I am sorry ... sorry," she moaned.

I pointed to the companion-way and she went out silently.

[Pg 212]

In the quarter hour which followed I wrestled with a temptation more terrible than any trial of the flesh, the trial of my honor. Once, my hand, holding the orders, stretched toward the cabin lamp; a few ashes, and all would be solved. Then I hastily drew back as if the flame had scorched my soul. When I finally arose, spent and trembling, I could proclaim myself the victor.

"Traprock must be true," I muttered. Then striding to the hatchway I threw it open and stepped on deck.

"All hands aboard to receive orders," I bellowed.

Amid confused murmurs the company assembled.

"Sick?" asked Captain Triplett peering at my white face.

"No; well," I answered. "Men, stow your dunnage at once. We leave in four hours for New York."

Makuik was surprised, but, I think, not displeased to see us depart. Though imperturbable, he had felt the responsibility of so large a tribe. His own way lay toward Iceland, via Ginnunagap and Nivlheim. Perhaps he felt that as the spring hunting-season opened his movements would be hampered. He must soon be on the march in order[Pg 213] to reach his destination over the solid ice before he was cut off in the land of enemy tribes from whom he had ravished their loveliest possessions.

At any rate he worked with a will to speed our departure. Though he must surely have counted on the probability of none of us ever reaching safety he remained generous, bright and smiling to the last, insisting on dividing what remained of his food supply and heaping a monumental pile of oomiaks, spears and other equipment on the Kawa's deck.

When we had turned our little craft about and cast off our moorings I stepped into the space between the two parties. It was a trying moment. I had prepared a short speech for the occasion but found I could not trust myself to deliver it.

Advancing toward Makuik I silently gave the Kryptok brotherhood sign, which he returned. I had not seen Ikik since the previous evening but I now perceived her in the background and noticed that wise old Makuik had made fast one of her ankles to a large block of ice.

Approaching her quietly I hung an oil skin tobacco pouch about her neck. It contained a book-plate bearing the Traprock arms[26] and the[Pg 214] device "Traprock must be true." On the back of this I had written, in Klinka script, "I could not love thee, dear, so much, loved I not honor more."

Blinded with tears, I turned and for the first time in many blissful weeks, gave the old, old, command, "Mush!"

On February twelfth, we had reached eighty-five. Progress in the cold and dark was infinitely slower than it had been during the warm northward journey. The absence of mosquitoes was a compensation but on the whole travel was much more arduous. The mean temperature from Jan. 1st to Feb. 10th was 68° below, the meanest I have ever encountered.

But I was in no hurry. We were very comfortable on our admirable craft and a careful reckoning of supplies gave me no cause for alarm. According to my list, we should be able to hold out for another year if worst came to worst.

It came to worse than that.

My rude awakening came on February 17th.

It had been a wretched day with alternating snow and blizzard gales. The thermometers had gone their limit (100 below) and would have gone further if they had been longer. Cooped up in the[Pg 215] cabin, worn with toil, frazzled with the bickering of the card players to whom I had given one week of grace for final rounds of roodles, my nerves were taut and jumpy. I ordered Swank to step aft and fetch me a plug of A-P. He was gone an unconscionable time and when he returned his face was blanched with terror.

"The bin's empty, Sir," he reported.

Empty!

I stared at him in amazement. Far into the night I went over my bills of lading promising myself a thorough stock-taking in the morning.

But the disaffected element on board were ahead of me. When I came on deck the following day, they were grouped in the waist of the ship. The only greeting I got was black looks. Bulky haversacks and walking gear lay piled behind them. Plock stepped forward and began speaking nervously and rapidly.

"Traprock," he said, "this is where we quit. We've had enough of your damned seal-skin ship and your pulling and hauling. It's dogs' work, not men's. If you want to come with us, come. If not, stay here and freeze to hell. We've taken our share of the chow, and we're off. We can make better time without you than with you."

[Pg 216]

I was unarmed and practically alone. The only other man I could count on, on deck, was Whinney and he was still half blind. But I did not hesitate a second.

Reaching upward I grasped a heavy icicle which hung from the main stay sail block and raised it high above my head. "Mutiny!" I cried. Plock dodged and treacherously thrust in front of him Dane, who received the full force of the blow. At the same instant the crack of a revolver rang out and I fell senseless to the deck.

When I regained consciousness four hours later, my first act was to stagger to my feet. The bullet had inflicted only a bone-bruise, just grazing my head, and thanks to Sausalito's prompt skill, I was still alive. She, poor creature, in her humble way, had shown naught but subservience since we had started southward.

"Where are they? Did you get them?" I shouted.

"No, sir," replied Triplett, shame-facedly. "They got away. Took most 'er the grub, too. You see we wuz unprepared. I was in my nighty."

"So was I," echoed Swank.

"Fools!" I blazed. "Idiots! Cowards! Follow me."

[Pg 217]

It took their combined efforts to hold me in the cabin. I was still too weak to put up much of a fight. But the following morning we started.

Leaving Whinney alone, with instructions to fire an answering signal if he heard our shots, I divided our party into two groups. Dane, I might mention, still lay senseless in the lazarette. Frissell went with Triplett, Swank and Sausalito, who refused to be left behind, accompanied me.

My instructions were to circle the Kawa with a half mile radius increasing this distance each time the two parties met. Five times this toilsome operation was repeated. Hundreds of times I paused to scan the horizon with my glasses. The murky daylight, of which we were beginning to have a scant two hours, was fading and I was in despair. A short distance from the ship what there had been of a trail became confused. The fugitives appeared to have separated. Perhaps dissension as to direction had already broken out. We stumbled on in despair.

Suddenly a cry from Sausalito brought me up, standing. Her sharp eyes had detected nearly a mile away, a black figure moving across the ice, the bulky form of Plock. He was running toward a narrow lead of open water of which we had[Pg 218] encountered several on the previous day. I saw at once that his plan was to leap the intervening water and trust to the widening breach to cut off pursuit. There was not an instant to lose.

Adjusting both hind and fore sights, I took careful aim and fired.

He pitched forward in the act of jumping and lay on the very edge of the floe. So great was the impetus of his huge carcass, that, to my horror, I saw his heavy pack slide over his head and disappear into the inky waters. It sank instantly. He was stone dead when we came up to him, his body already rigid with cold.

"We shall have to take him back," I said. In my mind was a fear, born of past experience, that we might need him.

Dragging our loathsome burden we made a slow trip toward the supposed location of the Kawa. Black night had fallen and we could see nothing. A fine snow set in. I at once fired the danger signal and was immensely relieved to hear answering shots from a direction at right angles to that in which we had been travelling. Such are the narrow squeaks of polar travel.

We found that Triplett and Frissell had gotten in before us bringing the half frozen Wigmore,[Pg 219] whom they had stumbled across by pure luck. He was without supplies or oomiak and must have perished in another five minutes. When he had recovered sufficiently to speak he confirmed my suspicions. Two hours out from the Kawa a bitter quarrel had broken out and the deserters had separated but not before Sloff and Plock had despoiled him of his food and protecting garments. "Another mouth to feed," I thought bitterly.

Sloff and Miskin were never heard of again. Somewhere in the heart of the floe their bodies lie, intact. But there can be no hell hot enough for their souls.

Of our supplies were left two cases of herring and a bale of shredded wheat, for seven men and one woman.

Now if ever had come the time for me to prove to my comrades the value of what the North had previously taught me, namely, how to live off the ice. As has been proven by travellers before me, this can be done. But the reader is asked to remember that we had embarked on our cruise with no suspicion that it would ever be necessary. Our equipment was designed for a mode of life from[Pg 223] which only the treachery of a human element had forced us to depart.

DIRTY WORK AT THE IGLOO?

No, there is really nothing wrong with this picture. Dr. Traprock explains that a scene of this sort, while unusual is not extraordinary.

North of Eighty-six a man's rights are what he takes, a woman's what she can get. The facts of this particular case are as follows: Lapatok had captured a young pemmican in a snare of her own devising. Unaware that she was being observed by the all-seeing eye of her husband, Makuik, she began stripping off the bird's feathers and scales (with which its underside is covered) with her teeth, apparently preparatory to eating it. This is absolutely contrary to Kryptok law. All food is the common property of the family and must be instantly brought before the Aklok or Strong Man to be cached by him in the community food bin. Failure to do this means death.

Makuik was quick to act. The expression on his face leaves no doubt that he would speedily have exacted the extreme penalty (partial as he was to Lapatok) had she not been able, with her next-to-last breath, to gasp out the time-honored words "Na-pok!"—"our child."

In the few moments allowed her she explained that her intention had been merely to masticate the bird, giving the first share to Kopek, her infant, who was at that very moment desperately stricken with the teething-sickness, and bringing the remainder to her lord and master. With true womanly ingenuity she likewise pleaded that as the latest of Makuik's wives and a member of the Klinka tribe she knew nothing of Kryptok law. She thus appealed both to her husband's heart and head with the result that he let her off with nothing more serious than a severe beating which was terminated by the stern injunction, "Kapok Fakalok ook."—"A woman's place is in the Igloo." The pemmican in the meanwhile escaped and may be seen as illustrated, winging his way out of focus.

As if touched by his wife's plea and anxious to re-establish both her good-will and his own authority, Makuik later killed the fowl on the wing with sling-dart thrown from a distance of forty salmon-spears. (Approximately 280 ft.)

Dirty Work at the Igloo?

And now we were to experience that fatal lack of living game which as I have noted, seems to haunt the foot steps of the hunter to whom game is a dreadful necessity. The season was still early and bird life was practically extinct north of the circle. Occasionally we sighted an isolated pemmican or a tiny lapwing, too distant or too small to be shot at. Our store of ammunition was much too scarce to be wasted in pot shots. Of seals and walruses we saw absolutely none.

Day after day, in the grisly dawn of the new season, we crept on. Day after day we tightened our belts and stared each other in the face. And in the face of each stared a spectre more grisly still.

A few entries from my diary will best record the harrowing tale of what followed.

"Feb. 23rd. Ate the last of herring this noon. Reduced wheat ration to ½ cake for person. Sorted extra clothing (Plock's) for possible food.

Feb. 27th. Shredded-wheat supply fast diminishing. S. busy all day cleaning Plock's oomiak and leggins. Will it come to him?

March 3rd. Last of leggins for lunch. Whinney slightly ill, but eyesight improving. A good day's[Pg 224] hauling. Crossed two open leads but saw no seal.

March 4th. A great day! Sighted seal herd two miles away, the first we have seen on the floe. Stalked them carefully, taking Frissell with me. By "playing seal," yooping and crawling, succeeded in getting into the very center of herd where we killed two with atomizers. A great saving of ammunition. Seal gorge tonight.

March 5th. All hands ill.

March 6th. Same.

March 12th. Finished last of seal. Plock's oomiak tomorrow.

March 14th. No food whatsoever. Very weak.

March 15th. Same. Weaker.

March 16th. (The writing is almost illegible) Plock.

March 19th. Finished Plock. Tough, as always."

March 20th dawned as a day of despair. My companions, weakened by starvation, refused to pull another ounce. We had come to a standstill. Scarcely able to stand, desperate, but still unwilling to admit myself beaten, I set forth alone.

Swank would have accompanied me but fell as he attempted to climb down to the ice and was unable to rise.

[Pg 225]

"Don't go," he pleaded.

"Herman," I said, "if the Traprock expedition perishes, Traprock will be the first man to go."

I wrung his hand and departed. Four miles from the ship I fainted. Regaining consciousness I crawled on, on my hands and knees. Another spasm of dizziness seized me and I sank down to rest. As I did so, a far-off sound reached me, the faint roaring of a bull seal. Peering across the floe I saw him dimly. He must have been slightly over a mile away. At 6000 yards I fixed him tremblingly on the crossed wires of my telescopic sight. Even then his image was vague, but it was now or never.

Bang! A louder roar reached me and I saw the great brute raise himself convulsively. But would he still escape me? No! He lay still.

When I reached him two hours later I saw, somewhat to my chagrin, why he had not moved. He was a giant chap of the "phoca barbata" family, the bearded seal. His beard was frozen in the ice.

My shot had been wasted.[27]

Fate seems sometimes to play her last trick on a[Pg 226] man and, finding she cannot down him, suddenly gives up and turns to helping him. So it was in my case.

Fortified by a draught of warm seal oil, which was like nectar to my lips, I made my way back to the Kawa with as much of the great carcass as I could carry. The rest was speedily brought aboard. The effect of the physical reinforcement was magical.

Not only did my comrades' spirits revive but such minor ailments as had put in an appearance were immediately dissipated. Triplett got well of a touch of his old scurvy which had been bothering him. Whinney's eyes cleared up completely and Wigmore who had been quite daffy since his rescue, became suddenly sane again and, I am glad to say, devoutly thankful to me for having preserved him from the fate of his companions.

The weather, too, favored us. Constantly increasing light and rising temperature brought at last the wonderful realization that we had entered the zone of spring! Never did Spring dawn so gloriously in my life.

Our progress was now rapid with the Tutbury running magnificently on a mixture of whale and seal oil, with both main and jigger drawing to a[Pg 227] quartering breeze, we were making approximately twelve knots. A school of porpoises gamboled about us as merrily as if, as Frissell said, "school were out!" Whales and walruses spouted under our lee. The date was April third.

Sausalito, indomitable soul, who had never faltered, had climbed to her favorite place in the crow's nest. From this high perch I suddenly heard her voice, shrill with excitement.

"Land ho! Land ho!"

A sturdy cheer went up to meet her and we all scanned the low-lying cloud on the southern sky line while Sausalito modestly descended.

It was indeed land. Eight hours later we dropped anchor in a sheltered bay. The sun had sunk below the horizon and violet dusk seemed to rise from the still water.

Three miles away the lights of an eskimo village twinkled through the haze and on the falling breeze we caught the sound of the sweetest singing that had ever fallen on human ears.

It was the song of the workers in the ice fields, harvesting the new crop for our own America!

[Pg 229]

Chapter X

In home waters. The celebration in our honor. And what of my companions? Reveries and Recollections. The End.

[Pg 231]

Chapter X

The balance of my story is briefly told. On April twenty-third, we picked up Fire Island light and two hours later had received a clean bill of health from the quarantine station.

The trip back through Baffin Bay had been uneventful. We had come as we had gone, in a direct line. At Triplett's request we put in at St. John's. He went ashore, taking Sausalito with him. Late in the afternoon he returned, alone. His stony eye forbade cross examination, but I questioned him that night in the cabin.

"She's went back to Californy" he said. "You see, I got kinder tired of her. Besides I'm headin' back ter Noo York."

Again his slow wink expressed volumes.

I have not seen that strange woman since. She sends me a picture post card occasionally, usually a winter scene, with mica snow. It is her inarticu[Pg 235]late way of asking forgiveness for the blow she dealt me.

THE CONSULTATION

Nothing was more characteristic of the candor and co-operative spirit of the Commander of the Traprock Expedition than his constant willingness to discuss matters with his fellow-travellers. One of the most moot of all moot questions which frequently presented itself was that of route. Having arrived at a certain or uncertain point in the vast snowfields, someone was sure to ask, "Where do we go from here?" or "Where do you think you are now?"

From the outset Dr. Traprock realized the desirability of an answer to such interrogations. His experience during numerous previous Arctic voyages convinced him that most of the bitterness of feeling which almost inevitably disrupts polar-parties springs from the unwillingness, to put it mildly, of the leader to satisfy the natural curiosity of his men in this regard. In order to avoid this difficulty he had carefully prepared maps showing the progress made during each day with the projected itinerary, points of interest, and probable weather conditions. Colored crayons added a decorative value to the charts.

We here see him explaining to Wigmore, the somewhat belligerent snow-and-ice-expert, the proposed return route. Instead of confusing the rather unscientific man with a mass of latitudinal and longitudinal figures, the Doctor states the whole matter clearly by saying, "We simply follow the green line."

The fatal results of disregarding this injunction are embodied in the text. Needless to say they fully prove the value of the Commander's cartographical skill. An interesting sidelight is the fact that their daily charts were equally accurate when based on solar observation or during the long Arctic night when the only basis of authority was Captain Triplett's amazing bump of locality, which was about the size of a hen's-egg.

A Consultation

Just inside the three mile limit we were boarded by revenue officers from the patrol boat, W.H. Anderson. They made a careful search for liquor.

"Back to abnormalcy!" carped Swank who was panting to get ashore.

My wires from Grant Land (via Indian runners to Moose Factory) had warned the scientific world of our arrival. Further details, giving brief accounts of the deaths of Plock, Miskin and Sloff had been telegraphed from St. John's.

The same gala array and marine salutation which had sped our departure welcomed our return. But it was with a heavy heart that I stepped on the Yacht Club landing stage. My mysterious orders were still to be explained, orders which, had they reached me when intended, would have brought me ignominiously home, empty of honors and achievement.

A number of strange faces surrounded me in the club room among which I recognized Harris, the E.U. secretary, "Harmless" Harris we used to call him.

"Where is Waxman?" I asked coldly.

[Pg 236]

A shadow of pain flitted across his face.

"Of course," he murmured. "You haven't heard ... it was very sudden ... poor Waxman ... heart failure, you know ... the day after we heard of your safe arrival."

So my old friend Waxman was gone. With the receipt of this news I instantly dismissed all unkind thoughts I may have had of this benevolent old man. As I look at his photograph now, on my mantelpiece, bland and serene, it seems to breathe a benediction upon me. The pleading look in his eyes seems still to ask for peanuts. May I cherish always, as he did, a love for other explorers and an interest in their exploits.

If anything was calculated to further soften my heart it was the more joyous occasion which followed, the grand banquet given in my honor at the Hotel Commodore. That entire, mighty hive hummed with explorers and noted travellers. Overflow meetings were held in the Biltmore, Yale Club, Grand Central Station and on nearby subway platforms.

The scene in the ballroom beggared description. On the dais with me sat representatives of all the National scientific bodies and distinguished guests from abroad. Publishers, artists and editors were[Pg 237] present by the hundreds. Famous actors forced their way to my chair, above which blossomed the words "Traprock must be true" done in thousands of Bougainvilleas and snowdrops.

The colleges of the country had sent their delegations, my own Alma Mater surpassing all with a group of two hundred bright-faced lads whose merry songs and cheers made the welkin ring. They had come by special train from New Haven, accompanied by members of the faculty, for whom the affair was a great junket, you may be sure. Harvard stood officially aloof owing to their recent ban on Eskimos, but the great sister university, as well as Princeton, was represented by individuals who made up in enthusiasm what they lacked in numbers.

When my brothers in the Phi Chapter of D.K.E. arose and sang our fraternal anthem I felt obliged to remain seated. Let me here explain that curious action. It was because my mind went back to that period of terrific strain when I had actually eaten a Brother!

But the thing which touched me most deeply[28] was[Pg 238] the presence, at adjoining tables of the combined Boards of Trade of Derby and Shelton, sister cities of the Housatonic, and the Derby Fencibles, forty strong, accompanied by their fife and drum corps wearing the old continental uniforms. My eyes dimmed as I thought of the stirring times when I had stepped to that same inspiring music, as we practised our secret marches back of the old Sterling Melodeon factory.

The chairman of the evening was my life-long friend Irving T. Grosbeak, R.O.T.C. who was introduced by Luther Slattin the new president of the E.U. Other addresses were made by Professor Phineas A. Crutch,[29] F.P.A., S.O.S., Col. Woodwark of the Canadian Mounted and Lord Beaverboard of the South African Game Commission. The principal forensic display was by Ex-senator Wicklefield of Wyoming whom Dr. Grosbeak characterised brilliantly as "The Aurora Borealis of Oratory, the most dependable geyser in the world since Old Faithful blew up and became a brook."

But the climax of the evening came when an old[Pg 239] man in a red shirt and fire helmet tottered to my side and with tears streaming down his face, quavered, "The world may claim Walter Traprock but we own him."

It was old "Shelly" Smith of Naugatuck Hose Co. No. 1. His father used to spade our garden.

Of course I was called upon for a speech but for the first time in my life I begged to be excused. My heart was too full. Captain Triplett stood up in my place and embarrassed me by pointing his horny finger in my direction and saying repeatedly, "He done it."

Grammatical errors in public always annoy me.

The rest is history. I shall never return to the North. I feel that I have seen all that it can offer. My work in that direction is done.

Of those who returned with me all but one has carved his niche in the rocks of time. The exception is Dane, who has never fully recovered from the blow dealt him, by my arm indeed, but due to the cowardly shove of Plock. His work in comparative ethnology, however, was accomplished before he was stricken. His object in making the trip was to discover the similarities, if any, between the surviving Eskimo tribes and the early civiliza[Pg 240]tion of the Nile dynasties. The only entry I find in his note books is the rather pathetic one "no report."

He is now occupying a comfortable room in the Shadyside Retreat, Walnut St., Philadelphia, where he busies himself cutting out paper dolls of Egyptian character, and where I occasionally visit him.

Frissell remains the same blithe spirit as ever. The horrors of our return voyage left no more lasting impression on this debonair youth than a passing fit of seasickness.

Swank and Whinney naturally show spiritual scars, especially the latter, though he is greatly cheered by the royalties received from the sale of his sprightly journal, written in total darkness.[30] My two close companions and I, with the occasional addition of Triplett when we can lure him from his own diggings often dine together at a cosy little tea house in Forty-fifth Street. There we plan new ventures and discuss the old. What stirring memories flock about us, what tender visions neath Tropic sun and Arctic stars!

Kippiputuona, Babai, Ikik, Lapatok, their[Pg 241] names are a sentimental rosary, a succession of lovely chords, lost chords, but, let us hope, not the last!

At a recent meeting the recollection of Whinney's affliction evoked from him this brave comment.

"Just think!" he mused, "to love a woman, to lose her, and to never see her."

"Whinney," I said, raising my glass in his direction, "there is more in life than merely seeing."

[Pg 243]

APPENDIX

In reference to a note on page 180, it seems desirable to reprint below (1) a paragraph which recently appeared in a New York newspaper over the signature of Don Marquis, and (2) a copy of the letter written by Dr. Traprock to Mr. Marquis clearing up the point in question. Ed.

A great deal of doubt is cast by his strange reticences upon the recent claim of Dr. Walter E. Traprock that he reached the North Pole. Did he, or did he not, find three fingers at the Pole which were frozen off of the hand of Capt. Peter Fitzurse when the Captain grasped the Pole, more than forty years ago, being the first man to lay his hand upon it? If he did not find these fingers, he did not reach the Pole. If he found them, and has said nothing about it, his object in concealing the fact can be nothing else than an unworthy jealousy. Who is this Traprock, anyhow? Capt. Fitzurse intimates[Pg 244] that at the proper time he has startling revelations to make. It is significant that Traprock was first heard of a year or two after Dr. Cook ceased to figure in the public prints.

On Board "Kawa"
   Peck's Slip, N.Y.
      July 21, 1922.

Don Marquis, Esq.
Park Row,
New York City.

Dear Sir:—

A number of my friends have called my attention to recent remarks published over your signature which by insinuation cast a veil of ambiguity over my identity. I am not used to having veils cast over me and I resent the practice.

"Who is this person, Traprock?" you ask. "Has he ever been to the North Pole?"

Let the ice-bergs answer! Let the Polar-pack groan its reply. I scorn to.

You also ask if by any chance I discovered three fingers frozen to the Pole. I did find three fingers not frozen to the Pole, but preserved in an otherwise empty gin bottle. They were cached in a rude[Pg 245] cairn, mute memorials of some brave man who had ventured north of eighty-six. Of course I at once thought of my friend Fitzurse. Could they be his? The nails were not black enough, but I could not be sure.

I took them with me to the Pole, purposing to leave them with my records, but my plans were modified by the extraordinary attraction which the fingers had for Ikik, Snak and Yalok, three Eskimo women whom I found living at the Pole, or to be exact, under it.

How, finally, to preserve peace I divided the fingers giving one to each to wear as a talisman is an enlivening memory. A few days later, noticing that Ikik was not wearing her finger I questioned her as to its whereabouts. "Me eat" she said. The others had done likewise. I trust that any doubts you may have had in regard to my identity etc. will be dissipated by these circumstantial details.

Yours,
      Walter E. Traprock