The Blue Envelope Part 17

"He's across and can never recross to us," she moaned in despair. "No creature could brave that undercurrent and live. And there is no other way."

Then, as the full terror of their situation flashed upon her, she sank down in a heap and buried her face in her hands.

They were two lone girls ten miles from any land, on the bosom of a vast ice-floe, which was slowly but surely creeping toward the unknown northern sea. They had no chart, no compa.s.s, no trail to follow and no guide. To move seemed futile, yet to remain where they were meant sure disaster.

As if to complete the tragedy of the whole situation, a snow-fog drifted down upon them. Blotting out the black ribbon of water and every ice-pile that was more than a stone's throw from them, it swept on to the south with a silence that was more appalling than had been the grinding scream of a tidal wave beneath the ice.

"Lucile! Lucile!" she fairly screamed as she came down to the surface of the pan. "Lucile! Wake up! We are lost! He is lost!"

What had happened to the young college boy had been this: He had hastened to the north in search of the trail. Rover, with nose close to the ice, had searched diligently for the scent. For a long time his search had been unrewarded, but at last, with a joyous bark, he sprang away across an ice-pan.

The boy followed him far enough to make sure that he had truly found the trail, then, calling him back, turned to retrace his steps.

Great was his consternation when he discovered the cleavage in the floe. Hopefully he had at first gone east along the channel in search of a possible pa.s.sage. He found none. After racing for a mile, he turned and retraced his steps to the point where he had first come upon open water. From there he hurried west along the channel. Another twenty minutes was wasted. No possible crossing-place could be found.

He then sat down to think. He thought first of his companions. That they were in a dire plight, he realized well. That they would be able to devise any plan by which they could find their way to any sh.o.r.e, he doubted; yet, as he thought of it, his own position seemed more critical. The trail he had found would now be useless. He was north of the break in the floe. Land lay to the south of it. He had no way to cross. In such circ.u.mstances, the dog with his keen sense of smell, and his compa.s.s with its unerring finger, were equally useless.

"Nothing to do but wait," he mumbled, so he sat down patiently to wait.

And, as he waited, the snow-fog settled down over all.

CHAPTER XI

"WITHOUT COMPa.s.s OR GUIDE"

It was with a staggering sense of hopelessness that the two girls on the bosom of the Arctic floe saw the snow-fog settle down.

"It's likely to last for days, and by that time--" Marian's lips refused to frame the words that expressed their condition when the snow-fog lifted.

"By that time--" echoed Lucile. "But no, we must do something.

Surely, there is some way!"

"Without compa.s.s or guide?" Marian smiled at the impossibility of there being a solution.

Unconsciously, she had repeated the first line of an old song. Lucile said over the verse:

"Without compa.s.s or guide.

On the crest of the tide.

Oh! Light of the stars, Pray pilot me home."

Involuntarily, her glance stole skyward. Instantly an exclamation escaped her lips:

"Oh, Marian! We can see them! We can! We can!"

"What can we see?" asked Marian.

"The stars!"

It was true. The snow-fog, though spread over the vast surface of the ice, was shallow. The stars gleamed through it as if there were no fog at all.

Wildly their hearts beat now with hope.

"If we can locate the big dipper," said Lucile, whose astronomical research had been of a practical sort, "we can follow the line made by the two stars at the lower edge of the dipper and find the North Star.

All we have to do then is to let the North Star guide us home."

This was quickly done. And in a short while they had mapped out a course for themselves which would certainly come nearer bringing them to the desired haven than would the north-ward drift of the ice-floe.

"But Phi?" exclaimed Lucile.

Marian stood for a moment undecided. Should they leave this spot without him? She believed he would make a faithful attempt to rejoin them. What if they were gone when he came? Suddenly she laughed.

"Rover!" she exclaimed. "He can follow our trail. If Phi comes, he will have only to follow us. He can travel faster than we shall. He may catch up with us."

So with many a backward glance at the gleaming North Star, the two girls set their course south by east, a course which in time should bring them in the vicinity of the Diomede Islands.

In their minds, however, were many questions. Would further tide-cracks impede their progress? Would the snow-fog continue? If it did, would they ever be able to locate the two tiny islands which were, after all, mere rocky pillars jutting from a sea of ice?

Phi did not sit long on the ice-pile under the snow-fog. He was born for action. Something must be done. Quickly he was on the run.

As he rushed back over the way in which he had come, something caught his eye.

An immense ice-pan had been up-ended by the press of the drift. It had toppled half over and lodged across the edge of a smaller cake. Now, like an ancient drawbridge, it hung suspended over the black moat of the salt water channel.

The boy's quick eye had detected a very slight movement downward. As he remembered it now, the cake had made a far more obtuse angle with the surface of the pool a half-hour before than it did now.

Was there hope in this? Hastily he arranged three bits of ice in one pile, then two in another. By dropping on his stomach and squinting across these, he could just see the tip of the up-ended cake. If it were in motion the tip would soon disappear. Eagerly he strained his eyes for a few seconds. Then, in disgust, he closed his eyes. The cake did not seem to move.

For some time he lay there in deep thought. He was searching in his mind for a way out.

After a while he opened his eyes. More from curiosity than hope, he squinted once more along the line. Then, with a wild shout, he sprang into the air. The natural drawbridge was falling. Its point had dropped out of line.

The shout died on his lips. His eyes had warned him that the channel of water was widening. If it widened too rapidly, if the drawbridge fell too slowly, or ceased to fall at all, hope would die.

Moment by moment he measured the two distances with his eye. Rover, sitting by his side, now and again peered up into his eyes as if to say: "What's it all about?"

Now the drawbridge took a sudden drop of a foot. Hope rose. Then, again, it appeared wedged solidly in place. It did not move. The channel widened a foot, two feet, three. Hope seemed vain.

But now came a sudden tide tremor across the floe. With a crunching sound the ma.s.sive cake toppled and fell.

The boy was on his feet in an instant. The chasm was bridged. But the cake had broken in two. Could he make it?