Dezra!" (Enough! Enough!)
And as the natives almost chanted this single word, they pointed to a sled on which the girls" belongings had been neatly packed. To the sled three dogs were hitched, two young wolf-hounds with Rover as leader.
"They want us to go," whispered Lucile.
"Yes, and where shall we go?"
"East Cape is the only place."
"And that miner?"
"It may not be he."
Three times Marian tried to press her way through the line. Each time the line grew more dense at the point she approached. Not a hand was laid upon her; she could not go through, that was all. The situation thrilled as much as it troubled her. Here was a people kind at heart but superst.i.tious. They believed that their very existence depended upon getting these two strangers from their midst. What was there to do but go?
They went, and all through the night they a.s.sisted the little dog-team to drag the heavy load over the first thin snow of autumn. Over and over again Marian blessed the day she had been kind to old Rover because he was a white man"s dog, for he was the pluckiest puller of them all.
Just as dawn streaked the east they came in sight of what appeared to be a rude shack built of boards. As they came closer they could see that some of the boards had been painted and some had not. Some were painted halfway across, and some only in patches of a foot or two.
They had been hastily thrown together. The whole effect, viewed at a distance, resembled nothing so much as a crazy-quilt.
"Must have been built from the wreckage of a house," said Lucile.
"Yes, or a boat."
"A boat? Yes, look; there it is out there, quite a large one. It"s stranded on the sandbar and half broken up."
The girls paused in consternation. It seemed they were hedged in on all sides by perils. To go back was impossible. To go forward was to throw themselves upon the mercies of a gang of rough seamen. To pa.s.s around the cabin was only to face the bearded stranger, who, they had reason to believe, was none other than the man who had demanded the blue envelope.
A few minutes" debate brought them to a decision. They would go straight on to the cabin.
"Mush, Rover! Mush!" Marian threw her tired shoulders into the improvised harness, and once more they moved slowly forward.
It was with wildly beating hearts that they eventually rounded the corner of the cabin and came to a stand by the door. At once an exclamation escaped their lips:
"Empty! Deserted!"
And so it proved. Snow that had fallen two days before lay piled within the half-open doorway. No sign of occupation was to be found within save a great rusty galley range, two rickety chairs, an improvised table, two rusty kettles and a huge frying-pan.
"They have given the ship up as a total loss, and have left in dories or skin-boats," said Marian.
"Yes," agreed Lucile. "Wanted to get across the Straits before the coming of the White Line."
The "coming of the White Line." Marian started. She knew what that meant far better than Lucile did. She had lived in Alaska longer, had seen it oftener. Now she thought what it would mean to them if it came before the skin-boat came for them. And that skin-boat? What would happen when it came to Whaling? Would the Chukches tell them in which direction they had gone? And if they did, would the Eskimo boatmen set their sail and go directly to East Cape? If they did, would they miss this diminutive cabin standing back as it did from the sh.o.r.e, and seeming but a part of the sandbar?
"We"ll put up a white flag, a skirt or something, on the peak of the cabin," she said, half talking to herself.
"Do you think we ought to go right on to East Cape?" said Lucile.
"We can"t decide that now," said Marian. "We need food and sleep and the dogs need rest."
Some broken pieces of drift were piled outside the cabin. These made a ready fire. They were soon enjoying a feast of fried fish and canned baked beans. Then, with their water-soaked mucklucks (skin-boots) and stockings hanging by the fire, they threw deerskin on the rude bunk attached to the wall and were soon fast asleep.
Out on the wreck, some two hundred yards from sh.o.r.e, a figure emerged from a small cabin aft. The stern of the ship had been carried completely about by the violence of the waves. It had left this little cabin, formerly the wireless cabin, high and dry.
The person came out upon the deck and scanned the horizon. Suddenly his eyes fell upon the cabin and the strange white signal which the girls had set fluttering there before they went to sleep.
Sliding a native skin-kiak down from the deck, he launched it, then leaping into the narrow seat, began paddling rapidly toward land.
Having beached his kiak, he hurried toward the cabin. His hand was on the latch, when he chanced to glance up at the white emblem of distress which floated over his head.
His hand dropped to his side; his mouth flew open. An expression of amazement spread over his face.
"Jumpin" Jupiter!" he muttered beneath his breath.
He beat a hasty retreat. Once in his kiak he made double time back to the wreck.
Marian was the first to awaken in the cabin. By the dull light that shone through the cracks, she could tell that it was growing dark.
Springing from her bunk, she put her hand to the latch. Hardly had she done this than the door flew open with a force that threw her back against the opposite wall. Fine particles of snow cut her face. The wind set every loose thing in the cabin bobbing and fluttering. The skirt they had attached to a stout pole as a signal was booming overhead like a gun.
"Wow! A blizzard!" she groaned.
Seizing the door, she attempted to close it.
Twice the violence of the storm threw her back.
When at last her efforts had been rewarded with success, she turned to rouse her companion.
"Lucile! Lucile! Wake up? A blizzard!"
Lucile turned over and groaned. Then she opened her eyes.
"Wha--wha--" she droned sleepily.
"A blizzard! A blizzard from the north!"
Lucile sat up quickly.
"From the north!" she exclaimed, fully awake in an instant. "The ice?"
"Perhaps."
"And if it comes?"
"We"re stuck, that"s all, in Siberia for nine months. Won"t dare try to cross the Straits on the ice. No white man has ever done it, let alone a woman. Well," she smiled, "we"ve got food for five days, and five days is a long time. We"d better try to bring in some wood, and get the dogs in here; they"d freeze out there."