CHAPTER x.x.x-IN SWIFT SALUTE

"You're not going to kill anybody?" Helen Marr asked, after a moment's pause.

"Not unless they try to harm you," Stirling replied.

The girl raised her chin and thrust out her right hand. "I was always a wild creature," she said. "Father died soon after I was born, and mother let me run wild in Concord. Then uncle came from across the sea. He always liked me; once he took me to England on a voyage. It was a Boston ship he owned an interest in. I can reef and steer. I had a sloop in Maine-all one summer."

"Can you handle a rifle?"

"Yes. Only I don't want to kill anybody."

Stirling stepped to a gun rack on the starboard side of the cabin, went over the rifles racked there, and picked out a light gun which Marr had brought North for shooting seals.

"We'll load this," he said, laying it across the table. "It's yours in case of trouble. The revolutionists are getting into deep ice and the time is coming when they will call on me. I may have to take command of the ship. Otherwise--"

His pause was suggestive. Helen Marr stared out through the nearest porthole, then turned with a pucker showing at the corner of her mouth.

"What were you going to say?" she asked.

"Otherwise we will be cast away in the land that Heaven forgot. There is nothing up here but death and starvation. There is no food or shelter; there is only cold and ice and desolation. It is almost all unexplored.

Coronation Gulf, where we are heading, leads to Victoria Strait and Lancaster Sound. The pa.s.sage was never made."

"But the Russians may make it. Isn't the season an open one?"

"So open that I fear we will go too far to turn back. There's coal enough aboard to take us to Baffin Bay."

"Uncle has been there."

"But not from this side of the world." Stirling glanced about the cabin and then stepped over to an ornate bookcase beneath which was a drawer filled with maps.

He unrolled a map and spread it across the table. "Come here," he said, nodding to the girl. "I'll show you where we are and where we're heading."

The girl stepped close to his side and leaned over the chart, following his pointing finger as he traced a course from Point Barrow to the mouth of the Mackenzie River. "From there," he said, "we may strike two ways.

The most likely course is through Coronation Gulf, and then by Boothia Gulf, but there's another route to the eastward. It leads west by the compa.s.s and around this land." Stirling pressed his thumb on a maze of inlets and narrow straits. "If the revolutionists try that course we're cast away in the polar pack. It'll be all up with you and me."

The girl drew back the chart and raised her finger to her lips, almost pouting as she asked: "Are you afraid?"

Stirling stammered and rolled up the chart with a swift motion of his right palm. "Not exactly afraid," he said; "but with the crew on deck that we have, there is every chance of getting nipped."

"Nipped?"

"Yes! Caught in the ice and crushed. Many ships have had that happen. I remember the _Beluga_ and the _Prince Charles_ and the schooner _Rosy Enders_. They all were nipped to the eastward of Herschel Island. We're in the same waters."

"But wouldn't it be splendid if the Russians got through to Baffin Bay?

Just think what the world would say. The Northwest Pa.s.sage!"

"The Northeast," corrected Stirling, with a faint smile.

"Isn't there a big reward for going around the American Continent?"

"There was; I don't know about it now. The Norwegians did it in a little ship, but it took them years."

The girl moved across the cabin and pressed her face to the nearest porthole, then turned and found Stirling's eyes fastened upon her.

"I see lots of ice," she said, navely. "There's ice everywhere."

"Except ahead. We're going down a lane of open water between the floes and the sh.o.r.e. Cape Bathurst should soon be sighted."

The girl turned her head and glanced through the porthole. "I see land!"

she exclaimed, with a quiver in her voice. "It doesn't look so terrible.

There're green moss and trees-I think they are trees."

"Arctic pines," Stirling said. "It's No Man's Land on this side of the world. You stand watch with that Remington and I'll go look that sailor over. He must be hungry."

Stirling moved toward the curtain as the girl turned away from the open porthole and stepped to the table where the rifle lay. She lifted it, and frowned in perplexity as her fingers toyed with the trigger guard and c.o.c.king mechanism.

Suddenly she wheeled and laid down the rifle. "I couldn't shoot anybody," she said, staring across the cabin. "n.o.body is going to bother us, now."

"I'm not so sure, Miss Marr. There's a time coming when the revolutionists will be in distress. Then there's Slim to reckon with. He might escape while I'm sleeping. You know I haven't slept for days-just a nap now and then in the crow's-nest and the shaft alley."

Stirling hurried to the dock rat's cabin and pressed open the door after inserting the key in the lock. Slim sat up and twisted his body.

"Nice way you've left me," he said, bitterly.

Stirling examined the bonds and smiled grimly, but he did not answer the sailor. He glanced about the cabin, saw that the porthole was fastened securely, then hurried back to the girl.

"Please get biscuits and water," he said. "That sailor is doing fine. If he doesn't keep it up I'll turn him over to the revolutionists."

"He was all right until after uncle died," Helen said. "Then he started drinking and saying things to me. I wasn't afraid of him, only--"

"Only," interrupted Stirling, "you should have kept that little revolver. I appreciated it, but you needed it worse than I did. Here it is."

Stirling dropped his hand into his pocket and brought out the little silver-plated gun. "Take it, please," he said, "and-will you get me some biscuits and water? I'll feed the sailor."

The girl hurried through an after doorway, opened some tins in a small pantry, and returned with a tray of crackers. She set these on the table, and drew a pitcher of water from the tap in the cabin.

Stirling studied her motions, and dreamed of a fairy or an elf. He was staring at the steps which led to the cabin companion as she offered him the pitcher of water. His eyes dropped, and his lips grew firm. "I'll be back soon," he said in a far-off voice. "You watch for the revolutionists. Fire that rifle if they attempt to get down."

The sailor took the offering with bad grace, as Stirling propped him up in the bunk and released one hand so that he could eat. He retied him securely as the last of the crackers was consumed between yellow teeth.

"Stay right there," said Stirling, as he closed the door. "Better keep mighty quiet, too," he added, sternly, as he drew the key from the lock.

The girl had climbed partly up the companionway steps, and she turned, drawing her skirts about her ankles as she saw Stirling coming from the forward alleyway.

"What's up there?" he asked, setting the empty pitcher and tray on the table. "Can you see anything, Miss Marr?"

"The leader and two other revolutionists are at the wheel," she said.

"They are puzzled over something. I think the leader wants to steer toward the north."