Four shots he placed in quick succession. Two of the wolves rolled over and over upon the ice, and a third limped off after the remainder, who darted behind the ice-block again. Mark leaped up, uttering a shout of triumph, and followed them, believing that he had beaten the pack thus easily.
But the moment he came around the obstruction he found himself in the midst of the actual pack. He was not charged by a dozen of the fierce creatures, but by more than half a hundred.
The wolves had raided the cache already, having torn away the blocks of ice, and were feasting on the half-frozen bear meat. Mark did not think at that moment of driving them away, however; he wanted to get away himself.
His shots had aroused the camp, although he was some distance from it.
But when his friends ran out upon the ice they did not see him, and n.o.body for the minute suspected what had happened or where the youth had gone. The two bodies of the wolves were not at first sighted.
Mark did not have a chance to use his rifle again. The wolves seemed to rush him from all sides, and a huge gray fellow leaped against him, knocking the rifle from the lad"s grasp and rolling him over and over, half stunned, upon the ice.
By marvelous good fortune none of the savage beasts followed him for the moment. The wounded wolf took up their attention. They pitched upon him and before Mark could rise to his feet the savage brutes had torn their wounded comrade limb from limb.
The ice was stained crimson and their s...o...b..ring jaws ran blood. A more terrifying sight the youth had seldom seen. He could not reach his rifle, and the bulk of the pack was between him and the way he had come. He therefore leaped away in the other direction, running from instead of toward his friends.
He pa.s.sed through the thinning pack without being touched, although several of the beasts snapped at him and the clashing of their fangs sent cold chills up and down his spine. Then he leaped away at top speed across the ice.
It was a natural move, but a very unwise one. The wolves tore their comrade to pieces and bolted the pieces in about sixty seconds. Then they wheeled en ma.s.se and shot off across the glacier after the boy.
Mark ran about as fast as he had ever run before. Fortunately he had spurs in his boot-soles and therefore he did not slip on the ice. But suddenly he found that he was crossing a smooth sheet of new ice--the surface of a lake in the glacier. This lake had frozen after the sun went down and Mark felt the new ice bend under him as he ran.
The moonlight revealed his path before him plainly; but the now yapping pack behind took up so much of his attention that Mark did not take a careful view of the surface of the thinly frozen lake.
The leaders were all but upon him in a very few moments. As the first wolf leaped, Mark threw himself sideways and ran off at a tangent, holding his feet much better than did the brutes. They went scratching along the smooth ice for some yards before they could change their course.
The turn, however, put Mark in a serious position. He found the thin ice cracking loudly under his feet. He glanced ahead. There was a streak of open water.
He tried to turn again, but this time his spurs slipped. He went down on the ice. The first two wolves were a-top of him and one seized his arm. But luckily it was protected by his thick coat sleeve.
Then the wolves darted back from the p.r.o.ne, sliding body of the boy.
They saw their peril; Mark could not help himself.
With a shriek and splash he was struggling in the deadly cold water of the lake. He plunged beneath the black surface while the yapping pack halted upon the very verge of the broken ice.
CHAPTER XXII
THE WOLF TRAIL
The hole into which Mark fell was not many yards across; but when he came to the surface of the icy water he found that the edge of the strong ice was fringed with open jaws and lolling, blood-red tongues.
The wolves had surrounded the open bit of water and were prepared to welcome him with wide jaws wherever he sought to climb out.
The lad knew well enough that he was helpless against these foes. To seek to reach the ice would be to give himself up to the savage brutes.
Nor could he remain long afloat in this ice-cold water. He was already chilled to his very marrow.
Mark was in a perilous position indeed. He could bear up but a few moments. He knew that if he again sank beneath the surface he would never rise again.
And so he struggled mightily to keep his head above water. The wolves did not dare leap in to seize him; they did not have to. In their canine minds they probably knew that the boy would have to come to them. But fortunately for Mark the wolves had given tongue when they chased him over the ice. Otherwise the boy"s friends might not have been warned of his predicament until too late to be of a.s.sistance to him.
But the moment the wolves gave tongue Andy Sudds had started with a whoop for the cache of bear meat. Jack and Phineas Roebach followed with their weapons.
Coming in sight of the slavering pack, as they whined about the open water-hole in the lake, Andy advised his companions as to the situation and they deployed so as to shoot into the pack of wolves without sending their bullets in the direction of the half-drowned Mark.
All using magazine rifles, they were enabled to send such a fusillade into the wolves that the pack was scattered in a few moments. Then they ran on to the edge of the broken ice, finding at least a dozen dead brutes lying about the water-hole.
Jack lay down and reached his gun barrel out to his chum and by its aid Mark got to the edge of the ice and scrambled out of the water.
They ran him back to the campfire in short order and then Andy set out to make a second attack upon the wolves, the pack having returned to eat up their comrades.
However, the beasts had already been punished enough. They could not stand before the old hunter, and ran howling down the glacier.
"One thing about it," Andy Sudds said, "we can make up our minds there is an outlet from this field of ice in that direction. To escape we have only to follow the wolf trail."
They were not in shape to travel at once, however. Jack"s hand pained him frightfully after his work in helping Mark escape from the water, and Mark, himself had a serious chill before sunrise. Treated by the professor, however, the youth quickly recovered from his plunge into the lake.
But it was decided, nevertheless, to wait over another of the short, torrid days before leaving the trees, for the traveling by night would be much more practicable. So they were leisurely eating another meal of bear steak when the sun touched the horizon with rosy light.
The dawn broke in what Jack termed "record time," and Washington White gave vent to his surprise in characteristic language:
"I done seed de sun rise in eb"ry clime, f"om de Arctic t"rough de tropical to the Antarctic kentries. But de speed wid w"ich disher sun pops up is enough ter tear de bastin "t"reads loose from de Universe--it suah is! I finds mahself," continued Wash, reflectively, "circ.u.mnavigatin" ma mind to de eend dat disher "sperience we is all goin" t"rough is a hallucination ob de brain. In odder words, we is all climbin" trees an" makin" a noise like de nuts wot grows dere. Do you hear me?"
"We hear you," said Jack. "And if you think you"re crazy, all right.
I don"t feel like joining you in the foolish factory yet awhile."
"I more than half believe the darkey"s right," muttered Phineas Roebach.
"This experience is enough to turn the brain of any man. I don"t myself believe half the things we are seeing."
The heat of the sun, as soon as it had well risen, was a fact that could scarcely be doubted, however. They were glad to seek the shade of the fir trees, and the surface of the glacier began to melt with a rapidity that not only surprised, but startled them.
A flood of water, like a great river, began to sweep by the narrow bit of earth on which they were encamped. The roar of the falling water into the creva.s.se from which they had so fortunately escaped soon became deafening.
They all had to remove their outer garments. The smell of the heated fir branches was like the odor of a forest on a hot August afternoon.
Professor Henderson watched the melting of the ice with a serious face.
When Mark asked him what he thought threatened their safety, the old scientist replied:
"I _am_ serious, that is true, my boy. I see in this terrible heat the threat of a great and sudden change in this glacier. We must start as soon as the freeze comes on to-night, and travel as fast as we can toward the far end. Mr. Roebach knows the trail, I believe?"
"I"ve been over it several times; but I must say that the glacier has sunk a whole lot since I was across it before," the oil man declared.
"We can follow the wolves," said Andy Sudds, stoutly. "They knew their way out."
"That is true, we will hope," Professor Henderson said. "For I must state that I believe our peril is very great."
"How so, sir?" Jack queried.
"We do not know how soon this glacier may move on."