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diff --git a/old/35426-h/35426-h.htm b/old/35426-h/35426-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..48b5a2a --- /dev/null +++ b/old/35426-h/35426-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,1663 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<!-- $Id: header.txt 236 2009-12-07 18:57:00Z vlsimpson $ --> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" /> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of Polaris Of The Snows, by Charles B. Stilson. + </title> + <style type="text/css"> + +body { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; +} + +p { + margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; +} + +hr { + width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; +} + +table { + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; +} + +.pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + /* visibility: hidden; */ + position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: smaller; + text-align: right; +} /* page numbers */ + +.linenum { + position: absolute; + top: auto; + left: 4%; +} /* poetry number */ + +.blockquot { + margin-left: 5%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + +.sidenote { + width: 20%; + padding-bottom: .5em; + padding-top: .5em; + padding-left: .5em; + padding-right: .5em; + margin-left: 1em; + float: right; + clear: right; + margin-top: 1em; + font-size: smaller; + color: black; + background: #eeeeee; + border: dashed 1px; +} + +.bb {border-bottom: solid 2px;} + +.bl {border-left: solid 2px;} + +.bt {border-top: solid 2px;} + +.br {border-right: solid 2px;} + +.bbox {border: solid 2px;} + +.center {text-align: center;} + +.smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + +.u {text-decoration: underline;} + +.caption {font-weight: bold;} + +/* Images */ +.figcenter { + margin: auto; + text-align: center; +} + +.figleft { + float: left; + clear: left; + margin-left: 0; + margin-bottom: 1em; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-right: 1em; + padding: 0; + text-align: center; +} + +.figright { + float: right; + clear: right; + margin-left: 1em; + margin-bottom: + 1em; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-right: 0; + padding: 0; + text-align: center; +} + +/* Footnotes */ +.footnotes {border: dashed 1px;} + +.footnote {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em;} + +.footnote .label {position: absolute; right: 84%; text-align: right;} + +.fnanchor { + vertical-align: super; + font-size: .8em; + text-decoration: + none; +} + +/* Poetry */ +.poem { + margin-left:10%; + margin-right:10%; + text-align: left; +} + +.poem br {display: none;} + +.poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;} + +.poem span.i0 { + display: block; + margin-left: 0em; + padding-left: 3em; + text-indent: -3em; +} + +.poem span.i2 { + display: block; + margin-left: 2em; + padding-left: 3em; + text-indent: -3em; +} + +.poem span.i4 { + display: block; + margin-left: 4em; + padding-left: 3em; + text-indent: -3em; +} + + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Polaris of the Snows, by Charles B. Stilson + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Polaris of the Snows + +Author: Charles B. Stilson + +Release Date: February 28, 2011 [EBook #35426] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POLARIS OF THE SNOWS *** + + + + +Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + + +<h1>POLARIS OF THE SNOWS</h1> + +<h2>by Charles B. Stilson</h2> + +<h3>All-Story Weekly</h3> + +<h3><i>December 18, 1915-January 1, 1916</i></h3> + +<hr style="width: 85%;" /> + +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> +<!-- Autogenerated TOC. Modify or delete as required. --> +<p> +<a href="#POLARIS_OF_THE_SNOWS">POLARIS OF THE SNOWS</a><br /> +<a href="#THE_FIRST_WOMAN">THE FIRST WOMAN</a><br /> +<a href="#POLARIS_MAKES_A_PROMISE">POLARIS MAKES A PROMISE</a><br /> +<a href="#HURLED_SOUTH_AGAIN">HURLED SOUTH AGAIN</a><br /> +<a href="#BATTLE_ON_THE_FLOE">BATTLE ON THE FLOE</a><br /> +</p> +<!-- End Autogenerated TOC. --> + +<hr style="width: 85%;" /> + +<h2><a name="POLARIS_OF_THE_SNOWS" id="POLARIS_OF_THE_SNOWS"></a>POLARIS OF THE SNOWS</h2> + +<p>"North! North! To the north, Polaris. Tell the world—ah, tell +them—boy—The north! The north! You must go, Polaris!"</p> + +<p>Throwing the covers from his low couch, the old man arose and stood, a +giant, tottering figure. Higher and higher he towered. He tossed his +arms high, his features became convulsed; his eyes glazed. In his throat +the rising tide of dissolution choked his voice to a hoarse rattle. He +swayed.</p> + +<p>With a last desperate rallying of his failing powers he extended his +right arm and pointed to the north. Then he fell, as a tree falls, +quivered, and was still.</p> + +<p>His companion bent over the pallet, and with light, sure fingers closed +his eyes. In all the world he knew, Polaris never had seen a human being +die. In all the world he now was utterly alone!</p> + +<p>He sat down at the foot of the cot, and for many minutes gazed steadily +at the wall with fixed, unseeing eyes. A sputtering little lamp, which +stood on a table in the center of the room, flickered and went out. The +flames of the fireplace played strange tricks in the strange room. In +their uncertain glare, the features of the dead man seemed to writhe +uncannily.</p> + +<p>Garments and hangings of the skins of beasts stirred in the wavering +shadows, as though the ghosts of their one-time tenants were struggling +to reassert their dominion. At the one door and the lone window the wind +whispered, fretted, and shrieked. Snow as fine and hard as the sands of +the sea rasped across the panes. Somewhere without a dog howled—the +long, throaty ululation of the wolf breed. Another joined in, and +another, until a full score of canine voices wailed a weird requiem.</p> + +<p>Unheeding, the living man sat as still as the dead.</p> + +<p>Once, twice, thrice, a little clock struck a halting, uncertain stroke. +When the fourth hour was passed it rattled crazily and stopped. The fire +died away to embers; the embers paled to ashes. As though they were +aware that something had gone awry, the dogs never ceased their baying. +The wind rose higher and higher, and assailed the house with repeated +shocks. Pale-gray and changeless day that lay across a sea of snows +peered furtively through the windows.</p> + +<p>At length the watcher relaxed his silent vigil. He arose, cast off his +coat of white furs, stepped to the wall of the room opposite to the +door, and shoved back a heavy wooden panel. A dark aperture was +disclosed. He disappeared and came forth presently, carrying several +large chunks of what appeared to be crumbling black rock.</p> + +<p>He threw them on the dying fire, where they snapped briskly, caught +fire, and flamed brightly. They were coal.</p> + +<p>From a platform above the fireplace he dragged down a portion of the +skinned carcass of a walrus. With the long, heavy-bladed knife from his +belt he cut it into strips. Laden with the meat, he opened the door and +went out into the dim day.</p> + +<p>The house was set against the side of a cliff of solid, black, +lusterless coal. A compact stockade of great boulders enclosed the front +of the dwelling. From the back of the building, along the base of the +cliff, ran a low shed of timber slabs, from which sounded the howling +and worrying of the dogs.</p> + +<p>As Polaris entered the stockade the clamor was redoubled. The rude plank +at the front of the shed, which was its door, was shaken repeatedly as +heavy bodies were hurled against it.</p> + +<p>Kicking an accumulation of loose snow away from the door, the man took +from its racks the bar which made it fast and let it drop forward. A +reek of steam floated from its opening. A shaggy head was thrust forth, +followed immediately by a great, gray body, which shot out as if +propelled from a catapult.</p> + +<p>Catching in its jaws the strip of flesh which the man dangled in front +of the doorway, the brute dashed across the stockade and crouched +against the wall, tearing at the meat. Dog after dog piled pell-mell +through the doorway, until at least twenty-five grizzled animals were +distributed about the enclosure, bolting their meal of walrus-flesh.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>For a few moments the man sat on the roof of the shed and watched the +animals. Although the raw flesh stiffened in the frigid air before even +the jaws of the dogs could devour it and the wind cut like the lash of a +whip, the man, coatless and with head and arms bared, seemed to mind +neither the cold nor the blast.</p> + +<p>He had not the ruggedness of figure or the great height of the man who +lay dead within the house. He was of considerably more than medium +height, but so broad of shoulder and deep of chest that he seemed short. +Every line of his compact figure bespoke unusual strength—the wiry, +swift strength of an animal.</p> + +<p>His arms, white and shapely, rippled with muscles at the least movement +of his fingers. His hand were small, but powerfully shaped. His neck was +straight and not long. The thews spread from it to his wide shoulders +like those of a splendid athlete. The ears were set close above the +angle of a firm jaw, and were nearly hidden in a mass of tawny, yellow +hair, as fine as a woman's, which swept over his shoulders.</p> + +<p>Above a square chin were full lips and a thin, aquiline nose. Deep, +brown eyes, fringed with black lashes, made a marked contrast with the +fairness of his complexion and his yellow hair and brows. He was not +more than twenty-four years old.</p> + +<p>Presently he re-entered the house. The dogs flocked after him to the +door, whining and rubbing against his legs, but he allowed none of them +to enter with him. He stood before the dead man and, for the first time +in many hours, he spoke:</p> + +<p>"For this day, my father, you have waited many years. I shall not delay. +I will not fail you."</p> + +<p>From a skin sack he filled the small lamp with oil and lighted its wick +with a splinter of blazing coal. He set it where its feeble light shone +on the face of the dead. Lifting the corpse, he composed its limbs and +wrapped it in the great white pelt of a polar bear, tying it with many +thongs. Before he hid from view the quiet features he stood back with +folded arms and bowed head.</p> + +<p>"I think he would have wished this," he whispered, and he sang softly +that grand old hymn which has sped so many Christian soldiers from their +battlefield. "Nearer, My God, to Thee," he sang in a subdued, melodious +baritone. From a shelf of books which hung on the wall he reached a +leather-covered volume. "It was his religion," he muttered: "It may be +mine," and he read from the book: "<i>I am the resurrection and the life, +whoso believeth in Me, even though he died</i>—" and on through the +sonorous burial service.</p> + +<p>He dropped the book within the folds of the bearskin, covered the dead +face, and made fast the robe. Although the body was of great weight, he +shouldered it without apparent effort, took the lamp in one hand, and +passed through the panel in the wall.</p> + +<p>Within the bowels of the cliff a large cavern had been hollowed in the +coal. In a far corner a gray boulder had been hewn into the shape of a +tombstone. On its face were carved side by side two words: "Anne" and +"Stephen." At the foot of the stone were a mound and an open grave. He +laid the body in the grave and covered it with earth and loose coal.</p> + +<p>Again he paused, while the lamplight shone on the tomb.</p> + +<p>"May you rest in peace, O Anne, my mother, and Stephen, my father. I +never knew you, my mother, and, my father, I knew not who you were nor +who I am. I go to carry your message."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>He rolled boulders onto the two mounds. The opening to the cave he +walled up with other boulders, piling a heap of them and of large pieces +of coal until it filled the low arch of the entrance.</p> + +<p>In the cabin he made preparations for a journey.</p> + +<p>One by one he threw on the fire books and other articles within the +room, until little was left but skins and garments of fur and an +assortment of barbaric weapons of the chase.</p> + +<p>Last he dragged from under the cot a long, oaken chest.</p> + +<p>Failing to find its key, he tore the lid from it with his strong hands.</p> + +<p>Some articles of feminine wearing apparel which were within it he +handled reverently, and at the same time curiously; for they were of +cloth. Wonderingly he ran his fingers over silk and fine laces. Those he +also burned.</p> + +<p>From the bottom of the chest he took a short, brown rifle and a brace of +heavy revolvers of a pattern and caliber famous in the annals of the +plainsmen. With them were belt and holsters.</p> + +<p>He counted the cartridges in the belt. Forty there were, and in the +chambers of the revolvers and the magazine of the rifle, eighteen more. +Fifty-eight shots with which to meet the perils that lay between himself +and that world of men to the north—if, indeed, the passing years had +not spoiled the ammunition.</p> + +<p>He divested himself of his clothing, bathed with melted snow-water, and +dressed himself anew in white furs. An omelet of eggs of wild birds and +a cutlet of walrus-flesh sufficed to stay his hunger, and he was ready +to face the unknown.</p> + +<p>In the stockade was a strongly build sledge. Polaris packed it with +quantities of meat both fresh and dried, of which there was a large +store in the cabin. What he did not pack on the sledge he threw to the +eager dogs.</p> + +<p>He laid his harness out on the snow, cracked his long whip, and called +up his team. "Octavius, Nero, Julius." Three powerful brutes bounded to +him and took their places in the string. "Juno, Hector, Pallas." Three +more grizzled snow-runners sprang into line. "Marcus." The great, gray +leader trotted sedately to the place at the head of the team. A +seven-dog team it was, all of them bearing the names before which Rome +and Greece had bowed.</p> + +<p>Polaris added to the burden of the sledge the brown rifle, several +spears, carved from oaken beams and tipped with steel, and a sealskin +filled with boiled snow-water. On his last trip into the cabin he took +from a drawer in the table a small, flat packet, sewn in membranous +parchment.</p> + +<p>"This is to tell the world my father's message and to tell who I am," he +said, and hid it in an inner pocket of his vest of furs. He buckled on +the revolver-belt, took whip and staff from the fireside, and drove his +dog-team out of the stockade onto the prairie of snow, closing the gate +on the howling chorus left behind.</p> + +<p>He proceeded several hundred yards, then tethered his dogs with a word +of admonition, and retraced his steps.</p> + +<p>In the stockade he did a strange and terrible thing. Long used to seeing +him depart from his team, the dogs had scattered and were mumbling their +bones in various corners. "If I leave these behind me, they will perish +miserably, or they will break out and follow, and I may not take them +with me," he muttered.</p> + +<p>From dog to dog he passed. To each he spoke a word of farewell. Each he +caressed with a pat on the head. Each he killed with a single grip of +his muscular hands, gripping them at the nape of the neck, where the +bones parted in his powerful fingers. Silently and swiftly he proceeded +until only one dog remained alive, old Paulus, the patriarch of the +pack.</p> + +<p>He bent over the animal, which raised its dim eyes to his and licked at +his hands.</p> + +<p>"Paulus, dear old friend that I have grown up with; farewell, Paulus," +he said. He pressed his face against the noble head of the dog. When he +raised it tears were coursing down his cheeks. Then Paulus's spirit +sped.</p> + +<p>Two by two he dragged the bodies into the cabin.</p> + +<p>"Of old a great general in that far world of men burned his ships that +he might not turn back. I will not turn back," he murmured. With a +splinter of blazing coal he fired the house and the dog-shed. He tore +the gate of the stockade from its hinges and cast it into the ruins. +With his great strength he toppled over the capping-stones of the wall, +and left it a ruin also.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="THE_FIRST_WOMAN" id="THE_FIRST_WOMAN"></a>2. THE FIRST WOMAN</h2> + + +<p>Probably in all the world there was not the equal of the team of dogs +which Polaris had selected for his journey. Their ancestors in the long +ago had been the fierce, gray timberwolves of the north. Carefully +cross-bred, the strains in their blood were of the wolf, the great Dane, +and the mastiff; but the wolf strain held dominant. They had the +loyalty of the mastiff, the strength of the great Dane, and the +tireless sinews of the wolf. From the environment of their rearing they +were well furred and inured to the cold and hardships of the Antarctic. +They would travel far.</p> + +<p>Polaris did not ride on the sledge. He ran with the dogs, as swift and +tireless as they. A wonderful example of the adaptability to conditions +of the human race, his upbringing had given him the strength and +endurance of an animal. He had never seen the dog that he could not run +down.</p> + +<p>He, too, would travel fast and far.</p> + +<p>In the nature of the land through which they journeyed on their first +dash to the northward, there were few obstacles to quick progress. It +was a prairie of snow, wind-swept, and stretching like a desert as far +as eye could discern. Occasionally were upcroppings of coal cliffs +similar to the one where had been Polaris's home. On the first drive +they made a good fifty miles.</p> + +<p>Need of sleep, more than fatigue, warned both man and beasts of +camping-time. Polaris, who seemed to have a definite point in view, +urged on the dogs for an hour longer than was usual on an ordinary trip, +and they came to the border of the immense snow-plain.</p> + +<p>To the northeast lay a ridge of what appeared to be snow-covered hills. +Beyond the edge of the white prairie was a forest of ice. Millions of +jagged monoliths stood and lay, jammed closely together, in every +conceivable shape and angle.</p> + +<p>At some time a giant ice-flow had crashed down upon the land. It had +fretted and torn at the shore, had heaved itself up, with its myriad +gleaming tusks bared for destruction. Then nature had laid upon it a +calm, white hand, and had frozen it quiet and still and changeless.</p> + +<p>Away to the east a path was open, which skirted the field of broken ice +and led in toward the base of the hills.</p> + +<p>Polaris did not take that path. He turned west, following the line of +the ice-belt. Presently he found what he sought. A narrow lane led into +the heart of the iceberg.</p> + +<p>At the end of it, caught in the jaws of two giant bergs, hung fast, as +it had hung for years, the sorry wreck of a stout ship. Scarred and rent +by the grinding of its prison-ice, and weather-beaten by the rasping of +wind-driven snow in a land where the snow never melts, still on the +square stern of the vessel could be read the dimming letters which +spelled "Yedda."</p> + +<p>Polaris unharnessed the pack, and man and dogs crept on board the hulk. +It was but a timber shell. Much of the decking had been cut away, and +everything movable had been taken from it for the building of the cabin +and the shed, now in black ruins fifty miles to the south.</p> + +<p>In an angle of the ice-wall, a few yards from the ship, Polaris pitched +his camp and built a fire with timbers from the wreck. He struck his +flame with a rudely fashioned tinder-box, catching the spark in fine +scrapings of wood and nursing it with his breath. He fed the dogs and +toasted meat for his own meal at the fire. With a large robe from the +sledge he bedded the team snugly beside the fire.</p> + +<p>With his own parka of furs he clambered aboard the ship, found a bunk in +the forecastle, and curled up for the night.</p> + +<p>Several hours later hideous clamor broke his dreamless slumber. He +started from the bunk and leaped from the ship's side into the ice-lane. +Every dog of the pack was bristling and snarling with rage. Mixed with +their uproar was a deeper, hoarser note of anger that came from the +throat of no dog—a note which the man knew well.</p> + +<p>The team was bunched a few feet ahead of the fire as Polaris came over +the rail of the ship. Almost shoulder to shoulder the seven crouched, +every head pointed up the path. They were quivering from head to tail +with anger, and seemed to be about to charge.</p> + +<p>Whipping the dogs back, the son of the snows ran forward to meet the +danger alone. He could afford to lose no dogs. He had forgotten the +guns, but he bore weapons with which he was better acquainted.</p> + +<p>With a long-hafted spear in his hand and the knife loosened in his belt +he bounded up the pathway and stood, wary but unafraid, fronting an +immense white bear.</p> + +<p>He was not a moment too soon. The huge animal had set himself for the +charge, and in another instant would have hurled its enormous weight +down on the dogs. The beast hesitated, confronted by this new enemy, and +sat back on its haunches to consider.</p> + +<p>Knowing his foe aforetime, Polaris took that opportunity to deliver his +own charge. He bounded forward and drove his tough spear with all his +strength into the white chest below the throat. Balanced as it was on +its haunches, the shock of the man's onset upset the bear, and it rolled +backward, a jet of blood spurting over its shaggy coat and, dyeing the +snow.</p> + +<p>Like a flash the man followed his advantage. Before the brute could turn +or recover Polaris reached its back and drove his long-bladed knife +under the left shoulder. Twice he struck deep, and sprang aside. The +battle was finished.</p> + +<p>The beast made a last mighty effort to rear erect, tearing at the +spear-shaft, and went down under an avalanche of snarling, ferocious +dogs. For the team could refrain from conflict no longer, and charged +like a flying wedge to worry the dying foe.</p> + +<p>Replenishing his store of meat with strips from the newly slain bear, +Polaris allowed the pack to make a famous meal on the carcass. When they +were ready to take the trail again, he fired the ship with a blazing +brand, and they trotted forth along the snow-path to the east with the +skeleton of the stout old <i>Yedda</i> roaring and flaming behind them.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>For days Polaris pressed northward. To his right extended the range of +the white hills. To the left was the seemingly endless ice-field that +looked like the angry billows of a storm-tossed sea which had been +arrested at the height of tempest, its white-capped, upthrown waves +paralyzed cold and dead.</p> + +<p>Down the shore-line, where his path lay, a fierce wind blew continuously +and with increasing rigor. He was puzzled to find that instead of +becoming warmer as he progressed to the north and away from the pole, +the air was more frigid than it had been in his homeland. Hardy as he +was, there were times when the furious blasts chilled him to the bone +and when his magnificent dogs flinched and whimpered.</p> + +<p>Still he pushed on. The sledge grew lighter as the provisions were +consumed, and there were few marches that did not cover forty miles. +Polaris slept with the dogs, huddled in robes. The very food they ate +they must warm with the heat of their bodies before it could be +devoured. There was no vestige of anything to make fuel for a camp-fire.</p> + +<p>He had covered some hundreds of miles when he found the contour of the +country was changing. The chain of the hills swung sharply away to the +east, and the path broadened, fanwise, east and west. An undulating +plain of snow and ice-caps, rent by many fissures, lay ahead.</p> + +<p>This was the most difficult traveling of all.</p> + +<p>In the middle of their second march across the plain, the man noticed +that his gray snow-coursers were uneasy. They threw their snouts up to +the wind and growled angrily, scenting some unseen danger. Although he +had seen nothing larger than a fox since he entered the plain, bear +signs had been frequent, and Polaris welcomed a hunt to replenish his +larder.</p> + +<p>He halted the team and outspanned the dogs so they would be unhampered +by the sledge in case of attack. Bidding them remain behind, he went to +reconnoiter.</p> + +<p>He clambered to the summit of a snow-covered ice-crest and gazed ahead. +A great joy welled into his heart, a thanksgiving so keen that it +brought a mist to the eyes.</p> + +<p>He had found man!</p> + +<p>Not a quarter of a mile ahead of him, standing in the lee of a low +ridge, were two figures unmistakably human. At the instant he saw them +the wind brought to his nostrils, sensitive as those of an animal, a +strange scent that set his pulses bounding. He <i>smelled</i> man and man's +fire! A thin spiral of smoke was curling over the back of the ridge. He +hurried forward.</p> + +<p>Hidden by the undulations of slopes and drifts he approached within a +few feet of them without being discovered. On the point of crying aloud +to them he stopped, paralyzed, and crouched behind a drift. For these +men to whom his heart called madly—the first of his own kind but one +whom he had ever seen—were tearing at each other's throats like +maddened beasts in an effort to take life!</p> + +<p>Like a man in a dream, Polaris heard their voices raised in curses. They +struggled fiercely but weakly. They were on the brink of one of the deep +fissures, or crevasses, which seamed this strange, forgotten land. Each +was striving to push the other into the chasm.</p> + +<p>Then one who seemed the stronger wrenched himself free and struck the +other in the face. The stricken man staggered, threw his arms above his +head, toppled, and crashed down the precipice.</p> + +<p>Polaris's first introduction to the civilization which he sought was +murder! For those were civilized white men who had fought. They wore +garments of cloth. Revolvers hung from their belts. Their speech, of +which he had heard little but cursing, was civilized English.</p> + +<p>Pale to the lips, the son of the wilderness leaped over the snow-drift +and strode toward the survivor. In the teachings of his father, murder +was the greatest of all crimes; its punishment was swift death. This man +who stood on the brink of the chasm which had swallowed his companion +had been the aggressor in the fight. He had struck first. He had killed. +In the heart of Polaris arose a terrible sense of outraged justice. This +waif of the eternal snows became the law.</p> + +<p>The stranger turned and saw him. He started violently, paled, and then +an angry flush mounted to his temples and an angry glint came into his +eyes. His crime had been witnessed, and by a strange white man.</p> + +<p>His hand flew to his hip, and he swung a heavy revolver up and fired, +speeding the bullet with a curse. He missed and would have fired again, +but his hour had struck. With the precision of an automaton Polaris +snatched one of his own pistols from the holster. He raised it above the +level of his shoulder, and fired on the drop.</p> + +<p>Not for nothing had he spent long hours practicing with his father's +guns, sighting and pulling the trigger countless times, although they +were empty. The man in front of him staggered, dropped his pistol, and +reeled dizzily. A stream of blood gushed from his lips. He choked, +clawed at the air, and pitched backward.</p> + +<p>The chasm which had received his victim, received the murderer also.</p> + +<p>Polaris heard a shrill scream to his right, and turned swiftly on his +heel, automatically swinging up his revolver to meet a new peril.</p> + +<p>Another being stood on the brow of the ridge—stood with clasped hands +and horror-stricken eyes. Clad almost the same as the others, there was +yet a subtle difference which garments could not disguise.</p> + +<p>Polaris leaned forward with his whole soul in his eyes. His hand fell to +his side. He had made his second discovery. He had discovered woman!</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="POLARIS_MAKES_A_PROMISE" id="POLARIS_MAKES_A_PROMISE"></a>3. POLARIS MAKES A PROMISE</h2> + + +<p>Both stood transfixed for a long moment—the man with the wonder that +followed his anger, the woman with horror. Polaris drew a deep breath +and stepped a hesitating pace forward.</p> + +<p>The woman threw out her hands in a gesture of loathing.</p> + +<p>"Murderer!" she said in a low, deep voice, choked with grief. "Oh, my +brother; my poor brother!" She threw herself on the snow, sobbing +terribly.</p> + +<p>Rooted to the spot by her repelling gesture, Polaris watched her. So one +of the men had been her brother. Which one? His naturally clear mind +began to reassert itself.</p> + +<p>"Lady," he called softly. He did not attempt to go nearer to her.</p> + +<p>She raised her face from her arms, crept to her knees, and stared at him +stonily. "Well, murderer, finish your work," she said. "I am ready. Ah, +what had he—what had they done that you should take their lives?"</p> + +<p>"Listen to me, lady," said Polaris quietly. "You saw me—kill. Was that +man your brother?"</p> + +<p>The girl did not answer, but continued to gaze at him with +horror-stricken eyes. Her mouth quivered pitifully.</p> + +<p>"If that man was your brother, then I killed him, and with reason," +pursued Polaris calmly. "If he was not, then of your brother's death, at +least, I am guiltless. I did but punish his slayer."</p> + +<p>"His <i>slayer</i>! What are you saying?" gasped the girl.</p> + +<p>Polaris snapped open the breech of his revolver and emptied its +cartridges into his hand. He took the other revolver from its holster +and emptied it also. He laid the cartridge in his hand and extended it.</p> + +<p>"See," he said, "there are twelve cartridges, but only one empty shell. +Only two shots were fired—one by the man whom I killed, the other by +me." He saw that he had her attention, and repeated his question: "Was +that man your brother?"</p> + +<p>"No," she answered.</p> + +<p>"Then, you see, I could not have <i>shot</i> your brother," said Polaris. His +face grew stern with the memory of the scene he had witnessed. "They +quarreled, your brother and the other man. I came behind the drift +yonder and saw them. I might have stopped them—but, lady, they were the +first men I had ever seen, save only one. I was bound by surprise. The +other man was stronger. He struck your brother into the crevasse. He +would have shot me, but my mind returned to me, and with anger at that +which I saw, and I killed him.</p> + +<p>"In proof, lady, see—the snow between me and the spot yonder where they +stood is untracked. I have been no nearer."</p> + +<p>Wonderingly the girl followed with her eyes and the direction of his +pointing finger. She comprehended.</p> + +<p>"I—I believe you have told me the truth," she faltered. "They <i>had</i> +quarreled. But—but—you said they were the first men you had ever seen. +How—what—"</p> + +<p>Polaris crossed the intervening slope and stood at her side.</p> + +<p>"That is a long tale, lady," he said simply. "You are in distress. I +would help you. Let us go to your camp. Come."</p> + +<p>The girl raised her eyes to his, and they gazed long at one another. +Polaris saw a slender figure of nearly his own height. She was clad in +heavy woolen garments. A hooded cap framed the long oval of her face.</p> + +<p>The eyes that looked into his were steady and gray. Long eyes they were, +delicately turned at the corners. Her nose was straight and high, its +end tilted ever so slightly. Full, crimson lips and a firm little chin +peeped over the collar of her jacket. A wisp of chestnut hair swept her +high brow and added its tale to a face that would have been accounted +beautiful in any land.</p> + +<p>In the eyes of Polaris she was divinity.</p> + +<p>The girl saw a young giant in the flower of his manhood. Clad in +splendid white furs of fox and bear, with a necklace of teeth of the +polar bear for adornment, he resembled those magnificent barbarians of +the Northland's ancient sagas.</p> + +<p>His yellow hair had grown long, and fell about his shoulders under his +fox-skin cap. The clean-cut lines of his face scarce were shaded by its +growth of red-gold beard and mustache. Except for the guns at his belt +he might have been a young chief of vikings. His countenance was at once +eager, thoughtful, and determined.</p> + +<p>Barbaric and strange as he seemed, the girl found in his face that which +she might trust. She removed a mitten and extended a small, white hand +to him. Falling on one knee in the snow, Polaris kissed it, with the +grace of a knight of old doing homage to his lady fair.</p> + +<p>The girl flashed him another wondering glance from her long, gray eyes +that set all his senses tingling. Side by side they passed over the +ridge.</p> + +<p>Disaster had overtaken the camp which lay on the other side. Camp it was +by courtesy only—a miserable shelter of blankets and robes, propped +with pieces of broken sledge, a few utensils, the partially devoured +carcass of a small seal, and a tiny fire, kindled from fragments of the +sledge. In the snow some distance from the fire lay the stiffened bodies +of several sledge dogs, sinister evidence of the hopelessness of the +campers' position.</p> + +<p>Polaris turned questioningly to the girl.</p> + +<p>"We were lost in the storm," she said. "We left the ship, meaning to be +gone only a few hours, and then were lost in the blinding snow. That was +three days ago. How many miles we wandered I do not know. The dogs +became crazed and turned upon us. The men shot them. Oh, there seems so +little hope in this terrible land!" She shuddered. "But you—where did +you come from?"</p> + +<p>"Do not lose heart, lady," replied Polaris. "Always, in every land, +there is hope. There must be. I have lived here all my life. I have come +up from the far south. I know but one path—the path to the north, to +the world of men. Now I will fetch my sledge up, and then we shall talk +and decide. We will find your ship. I, Polaris, promise you that."</p> + +<p>He turned from her to the fire, and cast on its dying embers more +fragments of the splintered sledge. His eyes shone. He muttered to +himself: "A ship, a ship! Ah, but my father's God is good to his son!"</p> + +<p>He set off across the snow slopes to bring up the pack.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="HURLED_SOUTH_AGAIN" id="HURLED_SOUTH_AGAIN"></a>4. HURLED SOUTH AGAIN</h2> + + +<p>When his strong form had bounded from her view, the girl turned to the +little hut and shut herself within. She cast herself on a heap of +blankets, and gave way to her bereavement and terror.</p> + +<p>Her brother's corpse was scarcely cold at the bottom of the abyss. She +was lost in the trackless wastes—alone, save for this bizarre stranger +who had come out of the snows, this man of strange saying, who seemed a +demigod of the wilderness.</p> + +<p>Could she trust him? She must. She recalled him kneeling in the snow, +and the courtierlike grace with which he kissed her hand. A hot flush +mounted to her eyes. She dried her tears.</p> + +<p>She heard him return to the camp, and heard the barking of the dogs. +Once he passed near the hut, but he did not intrude, and she remained +within.</p> + +<p>Womanlike, she set about the rearrangement of her hair and clothing. +When she had finished she crept to the doorway and peeped out. Again her +blushes burned her cheeks. She saw the son of the snows crouched above +the camp-fire, surrounded by a group of monstrous dogs. He had rubbed +his face with oil. A bright blade glittered in his hand. Polaris was +<i>shaving</i>!</p> + +<p>Presently she went out. The young man sprang to his feet, cracking his +long whip to restrain the dogs, which would have sprung upon the +stranger. They huddled away, their teeth bared, staring at her with +glowing eyes. Polaris seized one of them by the scruff of the neck, +lifted it bodily from the snow, and swung it in front of the girl.</p> + +<p>"Talk to him, lady," he said; "you must be friends. This is Julius."</p> + +<p>The girl bent over and fearlessly stroked the brute's head.</p> + +<p>"Julius, good dog," she said. At her touch the dog quivered and its +hackles rose. Under the caress of her hand it quieted gradually. The +bristling hair relaxed, and Julius's tail swung slowly to and fro in an +overture of amity. When Polaris loosed him, he sniffed in friendly +fashion at the girl's hands, and pushed his great head forward for more +caresses.</p> + +<p>Then Marcus, the grim leader of the pack, stalked majestically forward +for his introduction.</p> + +<p>"Ah, you have won Marcus!" cried Polaris. "And Marcus won is a friend +indeed. None of them would harm you now." Soon she had learned the name +and had the confidence of every dog of the pack, to the great delight of +their master.</p> + +<p>Among the effects in the camp was a small oil-stove, which Polaris +greeted with brightened eyes. "One like that we had, but it was worn out +long ago," he said. He lighted the stove and began the preparation of a +meal.</p> + +<p>She found that he had cleared the camp and put all in order. He had +dragged the carcasses of the dead dogs to the other side of the slope +and piled them there. His stock of meat was low, and his own dogs would +have no qualms if it came to making their own meals of these strangers +of their own kind.</p> + +<p>The girl produced from the remnants of the camp stores a few handfuls of +coffee and an urn. Polaris watched in wonderment as she brewed it over +the tiny stove and his nose twitched in reception of its delicious +aroma. They drank the steaming beverage, piping hot, from tin cups. In +the stinging air of the snowlands even the keenest grief must give way +to the pangs of hunger. The girl ate heartily of a meal that in a more +moderate climate she would have considered fit only for beasts.</p> + +<p>When their supper was completed they sat huddled in their furs at the +edge of the fire. Around them were crouched the dogs, watching with +eager eyes for any scraps which might fall to their share.</p> + +<p>"Now tell me who you are, and how you came here," questioned the girl.</p> + +<p>"Lady, my name is Polaris, and I think that I am an American gentleman," +he said, and a trace of pride crept into the words of the answer. "I +came here from a cabin and a ship that lie burned many leagues to the +southward. All my life I have lived there, with but one companion, my +father, who now is dead, and who sends me to the north with a message to +that world of men that lies beyond the snows, and from which he long was +absent."</p> + +<p>"A ship—a cabin—" The girl bent toward him in amazement. "And burned? +And you have lived—have grown up in this land of snow and ice and +bitter cold, where but few things can exist—I don't understand!"</p> + +<p>"My father has told me much, but not all. It is all in his message which +I have not seen," Polaris answered. "But that which I tell you is truth. +He was a seeker after new things. He came here to seek that which no +other man had found. He came in a ship with my mother and others. All +were dead before I came to knowledge. He had built a cabin from the +ruins of the ship, and he lived there until he died."</p> + +<p>"And you say that you are an American gentleman?"</p> + +<p>"That he told me, lady, although I do not know my name or his, except +that he was Stephen, and he called me Polaris."</p> + +<p>"And did he never try to get to the north?" asked the girl.</p> + +<p>"No. Many years ago, when I was a boy, he fell and was hurt. After that +he could do but little. He could not travel."</p> + +<p>"And you?"</p> + +<p>"I learned to seek food in the wilderness, lady; to battle with its +beasts, to wrest that which would sustain our lives from the snows and +the wastes."</p> + +<p>Much more of his life and of his father he told her under her wondering +questioning—a tale most incredible to her ears, but, as he said, the +truth. Finally he finished.</p> + +<p>"Now, lady, what of you?" he asked. "How came you here, and from where?"</p> + +<p>"My name is Rose—"</p> + +<p>"Ah, that is the name of a flower," said Polaris. "You were well named."</p> + +<p>He did not look at her as he spoke. His eyes were turned to the snow +slopes and were very wistful. "I have never seen a flower," he continued +slowly, "but my father said that of all created things they were the +fairest."</p> + +<p>"I have another name," said the girl. "It is Rose—Rose Emer."</p> + +<p>"And why did you come here, Rose Emer?" asked Polaris.</p> + +<p>"Like your father, I—we were seekers after new things, my brother and +I. Both our father and mother died, and left my brother John and myself +ridiculously rich. We had to use our money, so we traveled. We have been +over most of the world. Then a man—an American gentleman—a very brave +man, organized an expedition to come to the south to discover the south +pole. My brother and I knew him. We were very much interested in his +adventure. We helped him with it. Then John insisted that he would come +with the expedition, and—oh, they didn't wish me to come, but I never +had been left behind—I came, too."</p> + +<p>"And that brave man who came to seek the pole, where is he now?"</p> + +<p>"Perhaps he is dead—out there," said the girl, with a catch in her +voice. She pointed to the south. "He left the ship and went on, days +ago. He was to establish two camps with supplies. He carried an airship +with him. He was to make his last dash for the pole through the air from +the farther camp. His men were to wait for him until—until they were +sure that he would not come back."</p> + +<p>"An airship!" Polaris bent forward with sparkling eyes. "So there <i>are</i> +airships, then! Ah, this man must be brave! How is he called?"</p> + +<p>"James Scoland is the name—Captain Scoland."</p> + +<p>"He went on whence I came? Did he go by that way?" Polaris pointed where +the white tops of the mountain range which he skirted pierced the sky.</p> + +<p>"No. He took a course to the east of the mountains, where other +explorers of years before had been before him."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I have seen maps. Can you tell me where, or nearly where, we are +now?" he asked the girl.</p> + +<p>"This is Victoria Land," she answered. "We left the ship in a long bay, +extending in from Ross Sea, near where the 160th meridian joins the 80th +parallel. We are somewhere within three days' journey from the ship."</p> + +<p>"And so near to open water?"</p> + +<p>She nodded.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Rose Emer slept in the little shelter, with the grim Marcus curled on a +robe beside her pallet. Crouched among the dogs in the camp, Polaris +slept little. For hours he sat huddled, with his chin on his hands, +pondering what the girl had told him. Another man was on his way to the +pole—a very brave man—and he might reach it. And then—Polaris must be +very wary when he met that man who had won so great a prize.</p> + +<p>"Ah, my father," he sighed, "learning is mine through patience. History +of the world and of its wars and triumphs and failures, I know. Of its +tongues you have taught me, even those of the Roman and the Greek, long +since passed away; but how little do I know of the ways of men—and of +women! I shall be very careful, my father."</p> + +<p>Quite beyond any power of his to control, an antagonism was growing +within him for that man whom he had not seen; antagonism that was not +all due to the magnitude of the prize which the man might be winning, or +might be dying for. Indeed, had he been able to analyze it, that was the +least part of it.</p> + +<p>When they broke camp for their start they found that the perverse wind, +which had rested while they slept, had risen when they would journey, +and hissed bitterly across the bleak steppes of snow. Polaris made a +place on the sledge for the girl, and urged the pack into the teeth of +the gale. All day long they battled ahead in it, bearing left to the +west, where was more level pathway, than among the snow dunes.</p> + +<p>In an ever increasing blast they came in sight of open water. They +halted on a far-stretching field, much broken by huge masses, so +snow-covered that it was not possible to know whether they were of rock +or ice. Not a quarter of a mile beyond them, the edge of the field was +fretted by wind-lashed waves, which extended away to the horizon rim, +dotted with tossing icebergs of great height.</p> + +<p>Polaris pitched camp in the shelter of a towering cliff, and they made +themselves what comfort they could in the stinging cold.</p> + +<p>They had slept several hours when the slumbers of Polaris were pierced +by a woman's screams, the frenzied howling of the dogs, and the +thundering reverberations of grinding and crashing ice cliffs. A dash of +spray splashed across his face.</p> + +<p>He sprang to his feet in the midst of the leaping pack; as he did so he +felt the field beneath him sway and pitch like a hammock. For the first +time since he started for the north the Antarctic sun was shining +brightly—shining cold and clear on a great disaster!</p> + +<p>For they had pitched their camp on an ice floe. Whipped on by the gale, +the sea had risen under it, heaved it up and broken it. On a section of +the floe several acres in extent their little camp lay, at the very +brink of a gash in the ice-field which had cut them off from the land +over which they had come.</p> + +<p>The water was raging like a millrace through the widening rift between +them and the shore. Caught in a swift current and urged by the furious +wind, the broken-up floe was drifting, faster and faster—<i>back to the +south</i>!</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="BATTLE_ON_THE_FLOE" id="BATTLE_ON_THE_FLOE"></a>5. BATTLE ON THE FLOE</h2> + + +<p>Helpless, Polaris stood at the brink of the rift, swirling water and +tossing ice throwing the spray about him in clouds. Here was opposition +against which his naked strength was useless. As if they realized that +they were being parted from the firm land, the dogs grouped at the edge +of the floe and sent their dismal howls across the raging swirl, only to +be drowned by the din of the crashing icebergs.</p> + +<p>Turning, Polaris saw Rose Emer. She stood at the doorway of the tent of +skins, staring across the wind-swept channel with a blank despair +looking from her eyes.</p> + +<p>"Ah, all is lost, now!" she gasped.</p> + +<p>Then the great spirit of the man rose into spoken words. "No, lady," he +called, his voice rising clearly above the shrieking and thundering +pandemonium. "We yet have our lives."</p> + +<p>As he spoke there was a rending sound at his feet. The dogs sprang back +in terror and huddled against the face of the ice cliff. Torn away by +the impact of some weightier body beneath, nearly half of the ledge +where they stood was split from the main body of the floe, and plunged, +heaving and crackling into the current.</p> + +<p>Polaris saved himself by a mighty spring. Right in the path of the gash +lay the sledge, and it hung balanced at the edge of the ice floe. Down +it swung, and would have slipped over, but Polaris saw it going.</p> + +<p>He clutched at the ends of the leathern dog-harness as they glided from +him across the ice, and, with a tug, into which he put all the power of +his splendid muscles, he retrieved the sledge. Hardly had he dragged it +to safety when, with another roar of sundered ice, their foothold gaped +again and left them but a scanty shelf at the foot of the beetling berg.</p> + +<p>"Here we may not stay, lady," said Polaris. He swept the tent and its +robes into his arms and piled them on the sledge. Without waiting to +harness the dogs, he grasped the leather bands and alone pulled the load +along the ledge and around a shoulder of the cliff.</p> + +<p>At the other side of the cliff a ridge extended between the berg which +they skirted and another towering mountain of ice of similar formation. +Beyond the twin bergs lay the level plane of the floe, its edges +continually frayed by the attack of the waves and the onset of floating +ice.</p> + +<p>Along the incline of the ridge were several hollows partially filled +with drift snow. Knowing that on the ice cape, in such a tempest, they +must soon perish miserably, Polaris made camp in one of these +depressions where the deep snow tempered the chill of its foundation.</p> + +<p>In the clutch of the churning waters the floe turned slowly like an +immense wheel as it drifted in the current. Its course was away from the +shore to the southwest, and it gathered speed and momentum with every +passing second. The cove from whence it had been torn was already a mere +notch in the faraway shore line.</p> + +<p>Around them was a scene of wild and compelling beauty. Leagues and +leagues of on-rushing water hurled its white-crested squadrons against +the precipitous sides of the flotilla of icebergs, tore at the edges of +the drifting floes, and threw itself in huge waves across the more level +planes, inundating them repeatedly. Clouds of lacelike spray hung in the +air after each attack, and cascading torrents returned to the waves.</p> + +<p>Above it all the Antarctic sun shone gloriously, splintering its golden +spears on the myriad pinnacles, minarets, battlements, and crags of +towering masses of crystal that reflected back into the quivering air +all the colors of the spectrum. Thinner crests blazed flame-red in the +rays. Other points glittered coldly blue. From a thousand lesser +scintillating spires the shifting play of the colors, from vermilion to +purple, from green to gold, in the lavish magnificence of nature's +magic, was torture to the eye that beheld.</p> + +<p>On the spine of the ridge stood Polaris, leaning on his long spear and +gazing with heightened color and gleaming eyes on those fairy symbols of +old mother nature. To the girl who watched him he seemed to complete the +picture. In his superb trappings of furs, and surrounded by his shaggy +servants, he was at one with his weird and terrible surroundings. She +admired—and shuddered.</p> + +<p>Presently, when he came down from the ridge, she asked him, with a brave +smile, "What, sir, will be the next move?"</p> + +<p>"That is in the hands of the great God, if such a one there be," he +said. "Whatever it may be, it shall find us ready. Somewhere we must +come to shore. When we do—on to the north and the ship, be it half a +world away."</p> + +<p>"But for food and warmth? We must have those, if we are to go in the +flesh."</p> + +<p>"Already they are provided for," he replied quickly. He was peering +sharply over her shoulder toward the mass of the other berg. With his +words the clustered pack set up an angry snarling and baying. She +followed his glance and paled.</p> + +<p>Lumbering forth from a narrow pass at the extremity of the ridge was a +gigantic polar bear. His little eyes glittered wickedly, hungrily, and +his long, red tongue crept out and licked his slavering chops. As he +came on, with ungainly, padding gait, his head swung ponderously to and +fro.</p> + +<p>Scarcely had he cleared the pass of his immense bulk when another +twitching white muzzle was protruded, and a second beast, in size nearly +equal to the first, set foot on the ridge and ambled on to the attack.</p> + +<p>Reckless at least of this peril, the dogs would have leaped forward to +close with the invaders but their master intervened. The stinging, +cracking lash in his hand drove them from the foe. Their overlord, man, +elected to make the battle alone.</p> + +<p>In two springs he reached the sledge, tore the rifle from its coverings, +and was at the side of the girl. He thrust the weapon into her hands.</p> + +<p>"Back, lady; back to the sledge!" he cried. "Unless I call, shoot not. +If you do shoot, aim for the throat when they rear, and leave the rest +to me and the dogs. Many times have I met these enemies, and I know well +how to deal with them."</p> + +<p>With another crack of the whip over the heads of the snarling pack, he +left her and bounded forward, spear in hand and long knife bared.</p> + +<p>Awkward of pace and unhurried, the snow kings came on to their feast. In +a thought the man chose his ground. Between him and the bears the ridge +narrowed so that for a few feet there was footway for but one of the +monsters at once.</p> + +<p>Polaris ran to where that narrow path began and threw himself on his +face on the ice.</p> + +<p>At that ruse the foremost bear hesitated. He reared and brushed his +muzzle with his formidable crescent-clawed paw. Polaris might have shot +then and ended at once the hardest part of his battle. But the man held +to a stubborn pride in his own weapons. Both of the beasts he would +slay, if he might, as he always had slain. His guns were reserved for +dire extremity.</p> + +<p>The bear settled to all fours again, and reached out a cautious paw and +felt along the path, its claws gouging seams in the ice. Assured that +the footing would hold, it crept out on the narrow way, nearer and +nearer to the motionless man. Scarce a yard from him it squatted. The +steam of its breath beat toward him.</p> + +<p>It raised one armed paw to strike. The girl cried out in terror and +raised the rifle. The man moved, and she hesitated.</p> + +<p>Down came the terrible paw, its curved claws projected and compressed +for the blow. It struck only the adamantine ice of the pathway, +splintering it. With the down stroke timed to the second, the man had +leaped up and forward.</p> + +<p>As though set on a steel spring, he vaulted into the air, above the +clashing talons and gnashing jaws, and landed light and sure on the back +of his ponderous adversary. To pass an arm under the bear's throat, to +clip its back with the grip of his legs was the work of a heart-beat's +time for Polaris.</p> + +<p>With a stifled howl of rage the bear rose to its haunches, and the man +rose with it. He gave it no time to turn or settle. Exerting his muscles +of steel, he tugged the huge head back. He swung clear from the body of +his foe. His feet touched the path and held it. He shot one knee into +the back of the bear.</p> + +<p>The spear he had dropped when he sprang, but his long knife gleamed in +his hand, and he stabbed, once, twice, sending the blade home under the +brute's shoulder. He released his grip; spurned the yielding body with +his foot, and the huge hulk rolled from the path down the slope, +crimsoning the snow with its blood.</p> + +<p>Polaris bounded across the narrow ledge and regained his spear. He +smiled as there arose from the foot of the slope a hideous clamor that +told him that the pack had charged in, as usual, not to be restrained at +sight of the kill. He waved his hand to the girl, who stood, statuelike, +beside the sledge.</p> + +<p>Doubly enraged at its inability to participate in the battle which had +been the death of its mate, the smaller bear waited no longer when the +path was clear, but rushed madly with lowered head. Strong as he was, +the man knew that he could not hope to stay or turn that avalanche of +flesh and sinew. As it reached him he sprang aside where the path +broadened, lashing out with his keen-edged spear.</p> + +<p>His aim was true. Just over one of the small eyes the point of the spear +bit deep, and blood followed it. With tigerish agility the man leaped +over the beast, striking down as he did so.</p> + +<p>The bear reared on its hindquarters and whimpered, brushing at its eyes +with its forepaws. Its head gashed so that the flowing blood blinded it, +it was beaten. Before it stood its master. Bending back until his body +arched like a drawn bow, Polaris poised his spear and thrust home at the +broad chest.</p> + +<p>A death howl that was echoed back from the crashing cliffs was answer to +his stroke. The bear settled forward and sprawled in the snow.</p> + +<p>Polaris set his foot on the body of the fallen monster and gazed down at +the girl with smiling face.</p> + +<p>"Here, lady, are food and warmth for many days," he called.</p> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Polaris of the Snows, by Charles B. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Polaris of the Snows + +Author: Charles B. Stilson + +Release Date: February 28, 2011 [EBook #35426] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POLARIS OF THE SNOWS *** + + + + +Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + + POLARIS OF THE SNOWS + + by Charles B. Stilson + + All-Story Weekly + + _December 18, 1915-January 1, 1916_ + + + + +"North! North! To the north, Polaris. Tell the world--ah, tell +them--boy--The north! The north! You must go, Polaris!" + +Throwing the covers from his low couch, the old man arose and stood, a +giant, tottering figure. Higher and higher he towered. He tossed his +arms high, his features became convulsed; his eyes glazed. In his throat +the rising tide of dissolution choked his voice to a hoarse rattle. He +swayed. + +With a last desperate rallying of his failing powers he extended his +right arm and pointed to the north. Then he fell, as a tree falls, +quivered, and was still. + +His companion bent over the pallet, and with light, sure fingers closed +his eyes. In all the world he knew, Polaris never had seen a human being +die. In all the world he now was utterly alone! + +He sat down at the foot of the cot, and for many minutes gazed steadily +at the wall with fixed, unseeing eyes. A sputtering little lamp, which +stood on a table in the center of the room, flickered and went out. The +flames of the fireplace played strange tricks in the strange room. In +their uncertain glare, the features of the dead man seemed to writhe +uncannily. + +Garments and hangings of the skins of beasts stirred in the wavering +shadows, as though the ghosts of their one-time tenants were struggling +to reassert their dominion. At the one door and the lone window the wind +whispered, fretted, and shrieked. Snow as fine and hard as the sands of +the sea rasped across the panes. Somewhere without a dog howled--the +long, throaty ululation of the wolf breed. Another joined in, and +another, until a full score of canine voices wailed a weird requiem. + +Unheeding, the living man sat as still as the dead. + +Once, twice, thrice, a little clock struck a halting, uncertain stroke. +When the fourth hour was passed it rattled crazily and stopped. The fire +died away to embers; the embers paled to ashes. As though they were +aware that something had gone awry, the dogs never ceased their baying. +The wind rose higher and higher, and assailed the house with repeated +shocks. Pale-gray and changeless day that lay across a sea of snows +peered furtively through the windows. + +At length the watcher relaxed his silent vigil. He arose, cast off his +coat of white furs, stepped to the wall of the room opposite to the +door, and shoved back a heavy wooden panel. A dark aperture was +disclosed. He disappeared and came forth presently, carrying several +large chunks of what appeared to be crumbling black rock. + +He threw them on the dying fire, where they snapped briskly, caught +fire, and flamed brightly. They were coal. + +From a platform above the fireplace he dragged down a portion of the +skinned carcass of a walrus. With the long, heavy-bladed knife from his +belt he cut it into strips. Laden with the meat, he opened the door and +went out into the dim day. + +The house was set against the side of a cliff of solid, black, +lusterless coal. A compact stockade of great boulders enclosed the front +of the dwelling. From the back of the building, along the base of the +cliff, ran a low shed of timber slabs, from which sounded the howling +and worrying of the dogs. + +As Polaris entered the stockade the clamor was redoubled. The rude plank +at the front of the shed, which was its door, was shaken repeatedly as +heavy bodies were hurled against it. + +Kicking an accumulation of loose snow away from the door, the man took +from its racks the bar which made it fast and let it drop forward. A +reek of steam floated from its opening. A shaggy head was thrust forth, +followed immediately by a great, gray body, which shot out as if +propelled from a catapult. + +Catching in its jaws the strip of flesh which the man dangled in front +of the doorway, the brute dashed across the stockade and crouched +against the wall, tearing at the meat. Dog after dog piled pell-mell +through the doorway, until at least twenty-five grizzled animals were +distributed about the enclosure, bolting their meal of walrus-flesh. + + * * * * * + +For a few moments the man sat on the roof of the shed and watched the +animals. Although the raw flesh stiffened in the frigid air before even +the jaws of the dogs could devour it and the wind cut like the lash of a +whip, the man, coatless and with head and arms bared, seemed to mind +neither the cold nor the blast. + +He had not the ruggedness of figure or the great height of the man who +lay dead within the house. He was of considerably more than medium +height, but so broad of shoulder and deep of chest that he seemed short. +Every line of his compact figure bespoke unusual strength--the wiry, +swift strength of an animal. + +His arms, white and shapely, rippled with muscles at the least movement +of his fingers. His hand were small, but powerfully shaped. His neck was +straight and not long. The thews spread from it to his wide shoulders +like those of a splendid athlete. The ears were set close above the +angle of a firm jaw, and were nearly hidden in a mass of tawny, yellow +hair, as fine as a woman's, which swept over his shoulders. + +Above a square chin were full lips and a thin, aquiline nose. Deep, +brown eyes, fringed with black lashes, made a marked contrast with the +fairness of his complexion and his yellow hair and brows. He was not +more than twenty-four years old. + +Presently he re-entered the house. The dogs flocked after him to the +door, whining and rubbing against his legs, but he allowed none of them +to enter with him. He stood before the dead man and, for the first time +in many hours, he spoke: + +"For this day, my father, you have waited many years. I shall not delay. +I will not fail you." + +From a skin sack he filled the small lamp with oil and lighted its wick +with a splinter of blazing coal. He set it where its feeble light shone +on the face of the dead. Lifting the corpse, he composed its limbs and +wrapped it in the great white pelt of a polar bear, tying it with many +thongs. Before he hid from view the quiet features he stood back with +folded arms and bowed head. + +"I think he would have wished this," he whispered, and he sang softly +that grand old hymn which has sped so many Christian soldiers from their +battlefield. "Nearer, My God, to Thee," he sang in a subdued, melodious +baritone. From a shelf of books which hung on the wall he reached a +leather-covered volume. "It was his religion," he muttered: "It may be +mine," and he read from the book: "_I am the resurrection and the life, +whoso believeth in Me, even though he died_--" and on through the +sonorous burial service. + +He dropped the book within the folds of the bearskin, covered the dead +face, and made fast the robe. Although the body was of great weight, he +shouldered it without apparent effort, took the lamp in one hand, and +passed through the panel in the wall. + +Within the bowels of the cliff a large cavern had been hollowed in the +coal. In a far corner a gray boulder had been hewn into the shape of a +tombstone. On its face were carved side by side two words: "Anne" and +"Stephen." At the foot of the stone were a mound and an open grave. He +laid the body in the grave and covered it with earth and loose coal. + +Again he paused, while the lamplight shone on the tomb. + +"May you rest in peace, O Anne, my mother, and Stephen, my father. I +never knew you, my mother, and, my father, I knew not who you were nor +who I am. I go to carry your message." + + * * * * * + +He rolled boulders onto the two mounds. The opening to the cave he +walled up with other boulders, piling a heap of them and of large pieces +of coal until it filled the low arch of the entrance. + +In the cabin he made preparations for a journey. + +One by one he threw on the fire books and other articles within the +room, until little was left but skins and garments of fur and an +assortment of barbaric weapons of the chase. + +Last he dragged from under the cot a long, oaken chest. + +Failing to find its key, he tore the lid from it with his strong hands. + +Some articles of feminine wearing apparel which were within it he +handled reverently, and at the same time curiously; for they were of +cloth. Wonderingly he ran his fingers over silk and fine laces. Those he +also burned. + +From the bottom of the chest he took a short, brown rifle and a brace of +heavy revolvers of a pattern and caliber famous in the annals of the +plainsmen. With them were belt and holsters. + +He counted the cartridges in the belt. Forty there were, and in the +chambers of the revolvers and the magazine of the rifle, eighteen more. +Fifty-eight shots with which to meet the perils that lay between himself +and that world of men to the north--if, indeed, the passing years had +not spoiled the ammunition. + +He divested himself of his clothing, bathed with melted snow-water, and +dressed himself anew in white furs. An omelet of eggs of wild birds and +a cutlet of walrus-flesh sufficed to stay his hunger, and he was ready +to face the unknown. + +In the stockade was a strongly build sledge. Polaris packed it with +quantities of meat both fresh and dried, of which there was a large +store in the cabin. What he did not pack on the sledge he threw to the +eager dogs. + +He laid his harness out on the snow, cracked his long whip, and called +up his team. "Octavius, Nero, Julius." Three powerful brutes bounded to +him and took their places in the string. "Juno, Hector, Pallas." Three +more grizzled snow-runners sprang into line. "Marcus." The great, gray +leader trotted sedately to the place at the head of the team. A +seven-dog team it was, all of them bearing the names before which Rome +and Greece had bowed. + +Polaris added to the burden of the sledge the brown rifle, several +spears, carved from oaken beams and tipped with steel, and a sealskin +filled with boiled snow-water. On his last trip into the cabin he took +from a drawer in the table a small, flat packet, sewn in membranous +parchment. + +"This is to tell the world my father's message and to tell who I am," he +said, and hid it in an inner pocket of his vest of furs. He buckled on +the revolver-belt, took whip and staff from the fireside, and drove his +dog-team out of the stockade onto the prairie of snow, closing the gate +on the howling chorus left behind. + +He proceeded several hundred yards, then tethered his dogs with a word +of admonition, and retraced his steps. + +In the stockade he did a strange and terrible thing. Long used to seeing +him depart from his team, the dogs had scattered and were mumbling their +bones in various corners. "If I leave these behind me, they will perish +miserably, or they will break out and follow, and I may not take them +with me," he muttered. + +From dog to dog he passed. To each he spoke a word of farewell. Each he +caressed with a pat on the head. Each he killed with a single grip of +his muscular hands, gripping them at the nape of the neck, where the +bones parted in his powerful fingers. Silently and swiftly he proceeded +until only one dog remained alive, old Paulus, the patriarch of the +pack. + +He bent over the animal, which raised its dim eyes to his and licked at +his hands. + +"Paulus, dear old friend that I have grown up with; farewell, Paulus," +he said. He pressed his face against the noble head of the dog. When he +raised it tears were coursing down his cheeks. Then Paulus's spirit +sped. + +Two by two he dragged the bodies into the cabin. + +"Of old a great general in that far world of men burned his ships that +he might not turn back. I will not turn back," he murmured. With a +splinter of blazing coal he fired the house and the dog-shed. He tore +the gate of the stockade from its hinges and cast it into the ruins. +With his great strength he toppled over the capping-stones of the wall, +and left it a ruin also. + + + + +2. THE FIRST WOMAN + + +Probably in all the world there was not the equal of the team of dogs +which Polaris had selected for his journey. Their ancestors in the long +ago had been the fierce, gray timberwolves of the north. Carefully +cross-bred, the strains in their blood were of the wolf, the great Dane, +and the mastiff; but the wolf strain held dominant. They had the +loyalty of the mastiff, the strength of the great Dane, and the +tireless sinews of the wolf. From the environment of their rearing they +were well furred and inured to the cold and hardships of the Antarctic. +They would travel far. + +Polaris did not ride on the sledge. He ran with the dogs, as swift and +tireless as they. A wonderful example of the adaptability to conditions +of the human race, his upbringing had given him the strength and +endurance of an animal. He had never seen the dog that he could not run +down. + +He, too, would travel fast and far. + +In the nature of the land through which they journeyed on their first +dash to the northward, there were few obstacles to quick progress. It +was a prairie of snow, wind-swept, and stretching like a desert as far +as eye could discern. Occasionally were upcroppings of coal cliffs +similar to the one where had been Polaris's home. On the first drive +they made a good fifty miles. + +Need of sleep, more than fatigue, warned both man and beasts of +camping-time. Polaris, who seemed to have a definite point in view, +urged on the dogs for an hour longer than was usual on an ordinary trip, +and they came to the border of the immense snow-plain. + +To the northeast lay a ridge of what appeared to be snow-covered hills. +Beyond the edge of the white prairie was a forest of ice. Millions of +jagged monoliths stood and lay, jammed closely together, in every +conceivable shape and angle. + +At some time a giant ice-flow had crashed down upon the land. It had +fretted and torn at the shore, had heaved itself up, with its myriad +gleaming tusks bared for destruction. Then nature had laid upon it a +calm, white hand, and had frozen it quiet and still and changeless. + +Away to the east a path was open, which skirted the field of broken ice +and led in toward the base of the hills. + +Polaris did not take that path. He turned west, following the line of +the ice-belt. Presently he found what he sought. A narrow lane led into +the heart of the iceberg. + +At the end of it, caught in the jaws of two giant bergs, hung fast, as +it had hung for years, the sorry wreck of a stout ship. Scarred and rent +by the grinding of its prison-ice, and weather-beaten by the rasping of +wind-driven snow in a land where the snow never melts, still on the +square stern of the vessel could be read the dimming letters which +spelled "Yedda." + +Polaris unharnessed the pack, and man and dogs crept on board the hulk. +It was but a timber shell. Much of the decking had been cut away, and +everything movable had been taken from it for the building of the cabin +and the shed, now in black ruins fifty miles to the south. + +In an angle of the ice-wall, a few yards from the ship, Polaris pitched +his camp and built a fire with timbers from the wreck. He struck his +flame with a rudely fashioned tinder-box, catching the spark in fine +scrapings of wood and nursing it with his breath. He fed the dogs and +toasted meat for his own meal at the fire. With a large robe from the +sledge he bedded the team snugly beside the fire. + +With his own parka of furs he clambered aboard the ship, found a bunk in +the forecastle, and curled up for the night. + +Several hours later hideous clamor broke his dreamless slumber. He +started from the bunk and leaped from the ship's side into the ice-lane. +Every dog of the pack was bristling and snarling with rage. Mixed with +their uproar was a deeper, hoarser note of anger that came from the +throat of no dog--a note which the man knew well. + +The team was bunched a few feet ahead of the fire as Polaris came over +the rail of the ship. Almost shoulder to shoulder the seven crouched, +every head pointed up the path. They were quivering from head to tail +with anger, and seemed to be about to charge. + +Whipping the dogs back, the son of the snows ran forward to meet the +danger alone. He could afford to lose no dogs. He had forgotten the +guns, but he bore weapons with which he was better acquainted. + +With a long-hafted spear in his hand and the knife loosened in his belt +he bounded up the pathway and stood, wary but unafraid, fronting an +immense white bear. + +He was not a moment too soon. The huge animal had set himself for the +charge, and in another instant would have hurled its enormous weight +down on the dogs. The beast hesitated, confronted by this new enemy, and +sat back on its haunches to consider. + +Knowing his foe aforetime, Polaris took that opportunity to deliver his +own charge. He bounded forward and drove his tough spear with all his +strength into the white chest below the throat. Balanced as it was on +its haunches, the shock of the man's onset upset the bear, and it rolled +backward, a jet of blood spurting over its shaggy coat and, dyeing the +snow. + +Like a flash the man followed his advantage. Before the brute could turn +or recover Polaris reached its back and drove his long-bladed knife +under the left shoulder. Twice he struck deep, and sprang aside. The +battle was finished. + +The beast made a last mighty effort to rear erect, tearing at the +spear-shaft, and went down under an avalanche of snarling, ferocious +dogs. For the team could refrain from conflict no longer, and charged +like a flying wedge to worry the dying foe. + +Replenishing his store of meat with strips from the newly slain bear, +Polaris allowed the pack to make a famous meal on the carcass. When they +were ready to take the trail again, he fired the ship with a blazing +brand, and they trotted forth along the snow-path to the east with the +skeleton of the stout old _Yedda_ roaring and flaming behind them. + + * * * * * + +For days Polaris pressed northward. To his right extended the range of +the white hills. To the left was the seemingly endless ice-field that +looked like the angry billows of a storm-tossed sea which had been +arrested at the height of tempest, its white-capped, upthrown waves +paralyzed cold and dead. + +Down the shore-line, where his path lay, a fierce wind blew continuously +and with increasing rigor. He was puzzled to find that instead of +becoming warmer as he progressed to the north and away from the pole, +the air was more frigid than it had been in his homeland. Hardy as he +was, there were times when the furious blasts chilled him to the bone +and when his magnificent dogs flinched and whimpered. + +Still he pushed on. The sledge grew lighter as the provisions were +consumed, and there were few marches that did not cover forty miles. +Polaris slept with the dogs, huddled in robes. The very food they ate +they must warm with the heat of their bodies before it could be +devoured. There was no vestige of anything to make fuel for a camp-fire. + +He had covered some hundreds of miles when he found the contour of the +country was changing. The chain of the hills swung sharply away to the +east, and the path broadened, fanwise, east and west. An undulating +plain of snow and ice-caps, rent by many fissures, lay ahead. + +This was the most difficult traveling of all. + +In the middle of their second march across the plain, the man noticed +that his gray snow-coursers were uneasy. They threw their snouts up to +the wind and growled angrily, scenting some unseen danger. Although he +had seen nothing larger than a fox since he entered the plain, bear +signs had been frequent, and Polaris welcomed a hunt to replenish his +larder. + +He halted the team and outspanned the dogs so they would be unhampered +by the sledge in case of attack. Bidding them remain behind, he went to +reconnoiter. + +He clambered to the summit of a snow-covered ice-crest and gazed ahead. +A great joy welled into his heart, a thanksgiving so keen that it +brought a mist to the eyes. + +He had found man! + +Not a quarter of a mile ahead of him, standing in the lee of a low +ridge, were two figures unmistakably human. At the instant he saw them +the wind brought to his nostrils, sensitive as those of an animal, a +strange scent that set his pulses bounding. He _smelled_ man and man's +fire! A thin spiral of smoke was curling over the back of the ridge. He +hurried forward. + +Hidden by the undulations of slopes and drifts he approached within a +few feet of them without being discovered. On the point of crying aloud +to them he stopped, paralyzed, and crouched behind a drift. For these +men to whom his heart called madly--the first of his own kind but one +whom he had ever seen--were tearing at each other's throats like +maddened beasts in an effort to take life! + +Like a man in a dream, Polaris heard their voices raised in curses. They +struggled fiercely but weakly. They were on the brink of one of the deep +fissures, or crevasses, which seamed this strange, forgotten land. Each +was striving to push the other into the chasm. + +Then one who seemed the stronger wrenched himself free and struck the +other in the face. The stricken man staggered, threw his arms above his +head, toppled, and crashed down the precipice. + +Polaris's first introduction to the civilization which he sought was +murder! For those were civilized white men who had fought. They wore +garments of cloth. Revolvers hung from their belts. Their speech, of +which he had heard little but cursing, was civilized English. + +Pale to the lips, the son of the wilderness leaped over the snow-drift +and strode toward the survivor. In the teachings of his father, murder +was the greatest of all crimes; its punishment was swift death. This man +who stood on the brink of the chasm which had swallowed his companion +had been the aggressor in the fight. He had struck first. He had killed. +In the heart of Polaris arose a terrible sense of outraged justice. This +waif of the eternal snows became the law. + +The stranger turned and saw him. He started violently, paled, and then +an angry flush mounted to his temples and an angry glint came into his +eyes. His crime had been witnessed, and by a strange white man. + +His hand flew to his hip, and he swung a heavy revolver up and fired, +speeding the bullet with a curse. He missed and would have fired again, +but his hour had struck. With the precision of an automaton Polaris +snatched one of his own pistols from the holster. He raised it above the +level of his shoulder, and fired on the drop. + +Not for nothing had he spent long hours practicing with his father's +guns, sighting and pulling the trigger countless times, although they +were empty. The man in front of him staggered, dropped his pistol, and +reeled dizzily. A stream of blood gushed from his lips. He choked, +clawed at the air, and pitched backward. + +The chasm which had received his victim, received the murderer also. + +Polaris heard a shrill scream to his right, and turned swiftly on his +heel, automatically swinging up his revolver to meet a new peril. + +Another being stood on the brow of the ridge--stood with clasped hands +and horror-stricken eyes. Clad almost the same as the others, there was +yet a subtle difference which garments could not disguise. + +Polaris leaned forward with his whole soul in his eyes. His hand fell to +his side. He had made his second discovery. He had discovered woman! + + + + +3. POLARIS MAKES A PROMISE + + +Both stood transfixed for a long moment--the man with the wonder that +followed his anger, the woman with horror. Polaris drew a deep breath +and stepped a hesitating pace forward. + +The woman threw out her hands in a gesture of loathing. + +"Murderer!" she said in a low, deep voice, choked with grief. "Oh, my +brother; my poor brother!" She threw herself on the snow, sobbing +terribly. + +Rooted to the spot by her repelling gesture, Polaris watched her. So one +of the men had been her brother. Which one? His naturally clear mind +began to reassert itself. + +"Lady," he called softly. He did not attempt to go nearer to her. + +She raised her face from her arms, crept to her knees, and stared at him +stonily. "Well, murderer, finish your work," she said. "I am ready. Ah, +what had he--what had they done that you should take their lives?" + +"Listen to me, lady," said Polaris quietly. "You saw me--kill. Was that +man your brother?" + +The girl did not answer, but continued to gaze at him with +horror-stricken eyes. Her mouth quivered pitifully. + +"If that man was your brother, then I killed him, and with reason," +pursued Polaris calmly. "If he was not, then of your brother's death, at +least, I am guiltless. I did but punish his slayer." + +"His _slayer_! What are you saying?" gasped the girl. + +Polaris snapped open the breech of his revolver and emptied its +cartridges into his hand. He took the other revolver from its holster +and emptied it also. He laid the cartridge in his hand and extended it. + +"See," he said, "there are twelve cartridges, but only one empty shell. +Only two shots were fired--one by the man whom I killed, the other by +me." He saw that he had her attention, and repeated his question: "Was +that man your brother?" + +"No," she answered. + +"Then, you see, I could not have _shot_ your brother," said Polaris. His +face grew stern with the memory of the scene he had witnessed. "They +quarreled, your brother and the other man. I came behind the drift +yonder and saw them. I might have stopped them--but, lady, they were the +first men I had ever seen, save only one. I was bound by surprise. The +other man was stronger. He struck your brother into the crevasse. He +would have shot me, but my mind returned to me, and with anger at that +which I saw, and I killed him. + +"In proof, lady, see--the snow between me and the spot yonder where they +stood is untracked. I have been no nearer." + +Wonderingly the girl followed with her eyes and the direction of his +pointing finger. She comprehended. + +"I--I believe you have told me the truth," she faltered. "They _had_ +quarreled. But--but--you said they were the first men you had ever seen. +How--what--" + +Polaris crossed the intervening slope and stood at her side. + +"That is a long tale, lady," he said simply. "You are in distress. I +would help you. Let us go to your camp. Come." + +The girl raised her eyes to his, and they gazed long at one another. +Polaris saw a slender figure of nearly his own height. She was clad in +heavy woolen garments. A hooded cap framed the long oval of her face. + +The eyes that looked into his were steady and gray. Long eyes they were, +delicately turned at the corners. Her nose was straight and high, its +end tilted ever so slightly. Full, crimson lips and a firm little chin +peeped over the collar of her jacket. A wisp of chestnut hair swept her +high brow and added its tale to a face that would have been accounted +beautiful in any land. + +In the eyes of Polaris she was divinity. + +The girl saw a young giant in the flower of his manhood. Clad in +splendid white furs of fox and bear, with a necklace of teeth of the +polar bear for adornment, he resembled those magnificent barbarians of +the Northland's ancient sagas. + +His yellow hair had grown long, and fell about his shoulders under his +fox-skin cap. The clean-cut lines of his face scarce were shaded by its +growth of red-gold beard and mustache. Except for the guns at his belt +he might have been a young chief of vikings. His countenance was at once +eager, thoughtful, and determined. + +Barbaric and strange as he seemed, the girl found in his face that which +she might trust. She removed a mitten and extended a small, white hand +to him. Falling on one knee in the snow, Polaris kissed it, with the +grace of a knight of old doing homage to his lady fair. + +The girl flashed him another wondering glance from her long, gray eyes +that set all his senses tingling. Side by side they passed over the +ridge. + +Disaster had overtaken the camp which lay on the other side. Camp it was +by courtesy only--a miserable shelter of blankets and robes, propped +with pieces of broken sledge, a few utensils, the partially devoured +carcass of a small seal, and a tiny fire, kindled from fragments of the +sledge. In the snow some distance from the fire lay the stiffened bodies +of several sledge dogs, sinister evidence of the hopelessness of the +campers' position. + +Polaris turned questioningly to the girl. + +"We were lost in the storm," she said. "We left the ship, meaning to be +gone only a few hours, and then were lost in the blinding snow. That was +three days ago. How many miles we wandered I do not know. The dogs +became crazed and turned upon us. The men shot them. Oh, there seems so +little hope in this terrible land!" She shuddered. "But you--where did +you come from?" + +"Do not lose heart, lady," replied Polaris. "Always, in every land, +there is hope. There must be. I have lived here all my life. I have come +up from the far south. I know but one path--the path to the north, to +the world of men. Now I will fetch my sledge up, and then we shall talk +and decide. We will find your ship. I, Polaris, promise you that." + +He turned from her to the fire, and cast on its dying embers more +fragments of the splintered sledge. His eyes shone. He muttered to +himself: "A ship, a ship! Ah, but my father's God is good to his son!" + +He set off across the snow slopes to bring up the pack. + + + + +4. HURLED SOUTH AGAIN + + +When his strong form had bounded from her view, the girl turned to the +little hut and shut herself within. She cast herself on a heap of +blankets, and gave way to her bereavement and terror. + +Her brother's corpse was scarcely cold at the bottom of the abyss. She +was lost in the trackless wastes--alone, save for this bizarre stranger +who had come out of the snows, this man of strange saying, who seemed a +demigod of the wilderness. + +Could she trust him? She must. She recalled him kneeling in the snow, +and the courtierlike grace with which he kissed her hand. A hot flush +mounted to her eyes. She dried her tears. + +She heard him return to the camp, and heard the barking of the dogs. +Once he passed near the hut, but he did not intrude, and she remained +within. + +Womanlike, she set about the rearrangement of her hair and clothing. +When she had finished she crept to the doorway and peeped out. Again her +blushes burned her cheeks. She saw the son of the snows crouched above +the camp-fire, surrounded by a group of monstrous dogs. He had rubbed +his face with oil. A bright blade glittered in his hand. Polaris was +_shaving_! + +Presently she went out. The young man sprang to his feet, cracking his +long whip to restrain the dogs, which would have sprung upon the +stranger. They huddled away, their teeth bared, staring at her with +glowing eyes. Polaris seized one of them by the scruff of the neck, +lifted it bodily from the snow, and swung it in front of the girl. + +"Talk to him, lady," he said; "you must be friends. This is Julius." + +The girl bent over and fearlessly stroked the brute's head. + +"Julius, good dog," she said. At her touch the dog quivered and its +hackles rose. Under the caress of her hand it quieted gradually. The +bristling hair relaxed, and Julius's tail swung slowly to and fro in an +overture of amity. When Polaris loosed him, he sniffed in friendly +fashion at the girl's hands, and pushed his great head forward for more +caresses. + +Then Marcus, the grim leader of the pack, stalked majestically forward +for his introduction. + +"Ah, you have won Marcus!" cried Polaris. "And Marcus won is a friend +indeed. None of them would harm you now." Soon she had learned the name +and had the confidence of every dog of the pack, to the great delight of +their master. + +Among the effects in the camp was a small oil-stove, which Polaris +greeted with brightened eyes. "One like that we had, but it was worn out +long ago," he said. He lighted the stove and began the preparation of a +meal. + +She found that he had cleared the camp and put all in order. He had +dragged the carcasses of the dead dogs to the other side of the slope +and piled them there. His stock of meat was low, and his own dogs would +have no qualms if it came to making their own meals of these strangers +of their own kind. + +The girl produced from the remnants of the camp stores a few handfuls of +coffee and an urn. Polaris watched in wonderment as she brewed it over +the tiny stove and his nose twitched in reception of its delicious +aroma. They drank the steaming beverage, piping hot, from tin cups. In +the stinging air of the snowlands even the keenest grief must give way +to the pangs of hunger. The girl ate heartily of a meal that in a more +moderate climate she would have considered fit only for beasts. + +When their supper was completed they sat huddled in their furs at the +edge of the fire. Around them were crouched the dogs, watching with +eager eyes for any scraps which might fall to their share. + +"Now tell me who you are, and how you came here," questioned the girl. + +"Lady, my name is Polaris, and I think that I am an American gentleman," +he said, and a trace of pride crept into the words of the answer. "I +came here from a cabin and a ship that lie burned many leagues to the +southward. All my life I have lived there, with but one companion, my +father, who now is dead, and who sends me to the north with a message to +that world of men that lies beyond the snows, and from which he long was +absent." + +"A ship--a cabin--" The girl bent toward him in amazement. "And burned? +And you have lived--have grown up in this land of snow and ice and +bitter cold, where but few things can exist--I don't understand!" + +"My father has told me much, but not all. It is all in his message which +I have not seen," Polaris answered. "But that which I tell you is truth. +He was a seeker after new things. He came here to seek that which no +other man had found. He came in a ship with my mother and others. All +were dead before I came to knowledge. He had built a cabin from the +ruins of the ship, and he lived there until he died." + +"And you say that you are an American gentleman?" + +"That he told me, lady, although I do not know my name or his, except +that he was Stephen, and he called me Polaris." + +"And did he never try to get to the north?" asked the girl. + +"No. Many years ago, when I was a boy, he fell and was hurt. After that +he could do but little. He could not travel." + +"And you?" + +"I learned to seek food in the wilderness, lady; to battle with its +beasts, to wrest that which would sustain our lives from the snows and +the wastes." + +Much more of his life and of his father he told her under her wondering +questioning--a tale most incredible to her ears, but, as he said, the +truth. Finally he finished. + +"Now, lady, what of you?" he asked. "How came you here, and from where?" + +"My name is Rose--" + +"Ah, that is the name of a flower," said Polaris. "You were well named." + +He did not look at her as he spoke. His eyes were turned to the snow +slopes and were very wistful. "I have never seen a flower," he continued +slowly, "but my father said that of all created things they were the +fairest." + +"I have another name," said the girl. "It is Rose--Rose Emer." + +"And why did you come here, Rose Emer?" asked Polaris. + +"Like your father, I--we were seekers after new things, my brother and +I. Both our father and mother died, and left my brother John and myself +ridiculously rich. We had to use our money, so we traveled. We have been +over most of the world. Then a man--an American gentleman--a very brave +man, organized an expedition to come to the south to discover the south +pole. My brother and I knew him. We were very much interested in his +adventure. We helped him with it. Then John insisted that he would come +with the expedition, and--oh, they didn't wish me to come, but I never +had been left behind--I came, too." + +"And that brave man who came to seek the pole, where is he now?" + +"Perhaps he is dead--out there," said the girl, with a catch in her +voice. She pointed to the south. "He left the ship and went on, days +ago. He was to establish two camps with supplies. He carried an airship +with him. He was to make his last dash for the pole through the air from +the farther camp. His men were to wait for him until--until they were +sure that he would not come back." + +"An airship!" Polaris bent forward with sparkling eyes. "So there _are_ +airships, then! Ah, this man must be brave! How is he called?" + +"James Scoland is the name--Captain Scoland." + +"He went on whence I came? Did he go by that way?" Polaris pointed where +the white tops of the mountain range which he skirted pierced the sky. + +"No. He took a course to the east of the mountains, where other +explorers of years before had been before him." + +"Yes, I have seen maps. Can you tell me where, or nearly where, we are +now?" he asked the girl. + +"This is Victoria Land," she answered. "We left the ship in a long bay, +extending in from Ross Sea, near where the 160th meridian joins the 80th +parallel. We are somewhere within three days' journey from the ship." + +"And so near to open water?" + +She nodded. + + * * * * * + +Rose Emer slept in the little shelter, with the grim Marcus curled on a +robe beside her pallet. Crouched among the dogs in the camp, Polaris +slept little. For hours he sat huddled, with his chin on his hands, +pondering what the girl had told him. Another man was on his way to the +pole--a very brave man--and he might reach it. And then--Polaris must be +very wary when he met that man who had won so great a prize. + +"Ah, my father," he sighed, "learning is mine through patience. History +of the world and of its wars and triumphs and failures, I know. Of its +tongues you have taught me, even those of the Roman and the Greek, long +since passed away; but how little do I know of the ways of men--and of +women! I shall be very careful, my father." + +Quite beyond any power of his to control, an antagonism was growing +within him for that man whom he had not seen; antagonism that was not +all due to the magnitude of the prize which the man might be winning, or +might be dying for. Indeed, had he been able to analyze it, that was the +least part of it. + +When they broke camp for their start they found that the perverse wind, +which had rested while they slept, had risen when they would journey, +and hissed bitterly across the bleak steppes of snow. Polaris made a +place on the sledge for the girl, and urged the pack into the teeth of +the gale. All day long they battled ahead in it, bearing left to the +west, where was more level pathway, than among the snow dunes. + +In an ever increasing blast they came in sight of open water. They +halted on a far-stretching field, much broken by huge masses, so +snow-covered that it was not possible to know whether they were of rock +or ice. Not a quarter of a mile beyond them, the edge of the field was +fretted by wind-lashed waves, which extended away to the horizon rim, +dotted with tossing icebergs of great height. + +Polaris pitched camp in the shelter of a towering cliff, and they made +themselves what comfort they could in the stinging cold. + +They had slept several hours when the slumbers of Polaris were pierced +by a woman's screams, the frenzied howling of the dogs, and the +thundering reverberations of grinding and crashing ice cliffs. A dash of +spray splashed across his face. + +He sprang to his feet in the midst of the leaping pack; as he did so he +felt the field beneath him sway and pitch like a hammock. For the first +time since he started for the north the Antarctic sun was shining +brightly--shining cold and clear on a great disaster! + +For they had pitched their camp on an ice floe. Whipped on by the gale, +the sea had risen under it, heaved it up and broken it. On a section of +the floe several acres in extent their little camp lay, at the very +brink of a gash in the ice-field which had cut them off from the land +over which they had come. + +The water was raging like a millrace through the widening rift between +them and the shore. Caught in a swift current and urged by the furious +wind, the broken-up floe was drifting, faster and faster--_back to the +south_! + + + + +5. BATTLE ON THE FLOE + + +Helpless, Polaris stood at the brink of the rift, swirling water and +tossing ice throwing the spray about him in clouds. Here was opposition +against which his naked strength was useless. As if they realized that +they were being parted from the firm land, the dogs grouped at the edge +of the floe and sent their dismal howls across the raging swirl, only to +be drowned by the din of the crashing icebergs. + +Turning, Polaris saw Rose Emer. She stood at the doorway of the tent of +skins, staring across the wind-swept channel with a blank despair +looking from her eyes. + +"Ah, all is lost, now!" she gasped. + +Then the great spirit of the man rose into spoken words. "No, lady," he +called, his voice rising clearly above the shrieking and thundering +pandemonium. "We yet have our lives." + +As he spoke there was a rending sound at his feet. The dogs sprang back +in terror and huddled against the face of the ice cliff. Torn away by +the impact of some weightier body beneath, nearly half of the ledge +where they stood was split from the main body of the floe, and plunged, +heaving and crackling into the current. + +Polaris saved himself by a mighty spring. Right in the path of the gash +lay the sledge, and it hung balanced at the edge of the ice floe. Down +it swung, and would have slipped over, but Polaris saw it going. + +He clutched at the ends of the leathern dog-harness as they glided from +him across the ice, and, with a tug, into which he put all the power of +his splendid muscles, he retrieved the sledge. Hardly had he dragged it +to safety when, with another roar of sundered ice, their foothold gaped +again and left them but a scanty shelf at the foot of the beetling berg. + +"Here we may not stay, lady," said Polaris. He swept the tent and its +robes into his arms and piled them on the sledge. Without waiting to +harness the dogs, he grasped the leather bands and alone pulled the load +along the ledge and around a shoulder of the cliff. + +At the other side of the cliff a ridge extended between the berg which +they skirted and another towering mountain of ice of similar formation. +Beyond the twin bergs lay the level plane of the floe, its edges +continually frayed by the attack of the waves and the onset of floating +ice. + +Along the incline of the ridge were several hollows partially filled +with drift snow. Knowing that on the ice cape, in such a tempest, they +must soon perish miserably, Polaris made camp in one of these +depressions where the deep snow tempered the chill of its foundation. + +In the clutch of the churning waters the floe turned slowly like an +immense wheel as it drifted in the current. Its course was away from the +shore to the southwest, and it gathered speed and momentum with every +passing second. The cove from whence it had been torn was already a mere +notch in the faraway shore line. + +Around them was a scene of wild and compelling beauty. Leagues and +leagues of on-rushing water hurled its white-crested squadrons against +the precipitous sides of the flotilla of icebergs, tore at the edges of +the drifting floes, and threw itself in huge waves across the more level +planes, inundating them repeatedly. Clouds of lacelike spray hung in the +air after each attack, and cascading torrents returned to the waves. + +Above it all the Antarctic sun shone gloriously, splintering its golden +spears on the myriad pinnacles, minarets, battlements, and crags of +towering masses of crystal that reflected back into the quivering air +all the colors of the spectrum. Thinner crests blazed flame-red in the +rays. Other points glittered coldly blue. From a thousand lesser +scintillating spires the shifting play of the colors, from vermilion to +purple, from green to gold, in the lavish magnificence of nature's +magic, was torture to the eye that beheld. + +On the spine of the ridge stood Polaris, leaning on his long spear and +gazing with heightened color and gleaming eyes on those fairy symbols of +old mother nature. To the girl who watched him he seemed to complete the +picture. In his superb trappings of furs, and surrounded by his shaggy +servants, he was at one with his weird and terrible surroundings. She +admired--and shuddered. + +Presently, when he came down from the ridge, she asked him, with a brave +smile, "What, sir, will be the next move?" + +"That is in the hands of the great God, if such a one there be," he +said. "Whatever it may be, it shall find us ready. Somewhere we must +come to shore. When we do--on to the north and the ship, be it half a +world away." + +"But for food and warmth? We must have those, if we are to go in the +flesh." + +"Already they are provided for," he replied quickly. He was peering +sharply over her shoulder toward the mass of the other berg. With his +words the clustered pack set up an angry snarling and baying. She +followed his glance and paled. + +Lumbering forth from a narrow pass at the extremity of the ridge was a +gigantic polar bear. His little eyes glittered wickedly, hungrily, and +his long, red tongue crept out and licked his slavering chops. As he +came on, with ungainly, padding gait, his head swung ponderously to and +fro. + +Scarcely had he cleared the pass of his immense bulk when another +twitching white muzzle was protruded, and a second beast, in size nearly +equal to the first, set foot on the ridge and ambled on to the attack. + +Reckless at least of this peril, the dogs would have leaped forward to +close with the invaders but their master intervened. The stinging, +cracking lash in his hand drove them from the foe. Their overlord, man, +elected to make the battle alone. + +In two springs he reached the sledge, tore the rifle from its coverings, +and was at the side of the girl. He thrust the weapon into her hands. + +"Back, lady; back to the sledge!" he cried. "Unless I call, shoot not. +If you do shoot, aim for the throat when they rear, and leave the rest +to me and the dogs. Many times have I met these enemies, and I know well +how to deal with them." + +With another crack of the whip over the heads of the snarling pack, he +left her and bounded forward, spear in hand and long knife bared. + +Awkward of pace and unhurried, the snow kings came on to their feast. In +a thought the man chose his ground. Between him and the bears the ridge +narrowed so that for a few feet there was footway for but one of the +monsters at once. + +Polaris ran to where that narrow path began and threw himself on his +face on the ice. + +At that ruse the foremost bear hesitated. He reared and brushed his +muzzle with his formidable crescent-clawed paw. Polaris might have shot +then and ended at once the hardest part of his battle. But the man held +to a stubborn pride in his own weapons. Both of the beasts he would +slay, if he might, as he always had slain. His guns were reserved for +dire extremity. + +The bear settled to all fours again, and reached out a cautious paw and +felt along the path, its claws gouging seams in the ice. Assured that +the footing would hold, it crept out on the narrow way, nearer and +nearer to the motionless man. Scarce a yard from him it squatted. The +steam of its breath beat toward him. + +It raised one armed paw to strike. The girl cried out in terror and +raised the rifle. The man moved, and she hesitated. + +Down came the terrible paw, its curved claws projected and compressed +for the blow. It struck only the adamantine ice of the pathway, +splintering it. With the down stroke timed to the second, the man had +leaped up and forward. + +As though set on a steel spring, he vaulted into the air, above the +clashing talons and gnashing jaws, and landed light and sure on the back +of his ponderous adversary. To pass an arm under the bear's throat, to +clip its back with the grip of his legs was the work of a heart-beat's +time for Polaris. + +With a stifled howl of rage the bear rose to its haunches, and the man +rose with it. He gave it no time to turn or settle. Exerting his muscles +of steel, he tugged the huge head back. He swung clear from the body of +his foe. His feet touched the path and held it. He shot one knee into +the back of the bear. + +The spear he had dropped when he sprang, but his long knife gleamed in +his hand, and he stabbed, once, twice, sending the blade home under the +brute's shoulder. He released his grip; spurned the yielding body with +his foot, and the huge hulk rolled from the path down the slope, +crimsoning the snow with its blood. + +Polaris bounded across the narrow ledge and regained his spear. He +smiled as there arose from the foot of the slope a hideous clamor that +told him that the pack had charged in, as usual, not to be restrained at +sight of the kill. He waved his hand to the girl, who stood, statuelike, +beside the sledge. + +Doubly enraged at its inability to participate in the battle which had +been the death of its mate, the smaller bear waited no longer when the +path was clear, but rushed madly with lowered head. Strong as he was, +the man knew that he could not hope to stay or turn that avalanche of +flesh and sinew. As it reached him he sprang aside where the path +broadened, lashing out with his keen-edged spear. + +His aim was true. Just over one of the small eyes the point of the spear +bit deep, and blood followed it. With tigerish agility the man leaped +over the beast, striking down as he did so. + +The bear reared on its hindquarters and whimpered, brushing at its eyes +with its forepaws. Its head gashed so that the flowing blood blinded it, +it was beaten. Before it stood its master. Bending back until his body +arched like a drawn bow, Polaris poised his spear and thrust home at the +broad chest. + +A death howl that was echoed back from the crashing cliffs was answer to +his stroke. The bear settled forward and sprawled in the snow. + +Polaris set his foot on the body of the fallen monster and gazed down at +the girl with smiling face. + +"Here, lady, are food and warmth for many days," he called. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Polaris of the Snows, by Charles B. 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