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F012 YOUNG -PEOPLE
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Von. Lxxii. No. :2
Che pilgrim Dress, Jsoston, new Jlzotlt ano cbicago
Dmuzinvn by marlu is. Cornm.
HORFINN KVINESRUD' is the
name he signed on the ship's register
w n came on board at Nomw
the biggest, roughest, bluest-eyed Swede I
CVCI’ SEW
“His discharge papers were in Swedish,
too, and I saw Captain Gillespie look
them over, first one end up, then the
other, not makin out a word of the
writing. Finally he turned to me and
sai :
" ‘Widgery,’ says he to me. ‘these papers
looks greasy, and they smell greasy. I
believe this chap is a cook, and I'm
going to give him a berth."
"‘You’ve made a mistake there, cap-
tain,’ says I. ‘That fellow will ruin what-
ever comfort there is in this cruise.’
“ ‘Well, you can't pick and choose on
such a voyage as this, sailing out of such
a port as Nome,’ and he started back to
the galley with Thoriinn
. “Ar
u a cook?’ asked the captain,
as they started down the deck of our old
whaler.
“ ‘Mate,’ says the Swede in the bit of
English he knew.
“‘l e have a mate,’ shouted Gillespie.
‘You'll have to get ashore,’ and e mo-
tioned with his arm.
“But Kvinesrud shook his head and
rumbled earnestly, ‘Vassenson.’
' “This surprised me, for I didn't think
the Swede even knew where we were
we're going to hunt the Vassen-
son exploring party,’ bawls out the cap-
tain, ‘we're a relief party, you know. Get
that? Relief party!’
“I thought even a Swede must under-
stand such loud talking, but no. IIe said
.‘Vassenson’ again. The captain groaned
and led him aft.
“The next morning we left Nome, and
started up the Alaskan Coast, headed for
e the Vassenson
icebergs in the air, any hint of summer
was lost. .
“When we passed East Cape, or Dezh-
nev, as the Russians call it, then luffed a
dozen points west, rounding Cape V.Vanka,
into Kolyghin, Bay, and still sighted no
field ice, I began to feel hopeful about our
cruise, after all.
> “On the fifth or sixth night out, it fell
my turn to stand the dogwatch, with Cob-
litz at the wheel. All that day'the wind
had been getting fresher and colder, and
had roughened up the sea a bit. -
“lVell, I was pacing the bridge, listen-
ing to the watch’s hoarse ‘The light is
burning bright, sir,’ at every bell, and
I got to thinking of all sorts of
things.
' “I couldn't keep my mind off of Vas-
senson and,his crew, marooned some-
where on that little archipelago around
IVrangcll. They had been stranded there
all summer, living off of seals and birds,
and I,tried to think how they must’ feel
with another wintercoming on.
, “The three of us on deck were keep-
ing A lookout for ice pans, for we could
feel the chill of them in the air. ' The
‘II
i3."
in. ,,
with a shwash-sh, shwash-sh, with the
spray chasing aft like ghosts against the
blackness. '
away out there i e middle of the
Arctic, and their souls were whispering to
me out of the wind and the waves. Oh, a
fellow will think anything by night at
ea!
“VVell, just then, by our port, I caught
the faint twinkle of a light out in the
black ocean. I jumped and ran to the
end of the bridge, and stood staring ahead
with all my eyes, and the next minute I
made out the gray outline of an ice cake,
not more’ than an eighth of a mile
II:
“I must have looked for two minutes,
but there was nothing more of the light,
so I turned to my man at the wheel and
sang out:
“‘Do you see anything by the port,
quartermaster.
“ ‘A berg,’ says my man.
“‘No light?’ says I.
“ ‘A light on a berg, sir?’ repeated Cob-
litz surprised.
“ ‘Well, it must have been my eyes,’ says
I, with a creepy feeling going over me;
for while I'm not superstitious, I know
what's natural and what's ,unnatural.
XVe were sailing by, however, when out of
the cook's galley comes our Kvinesrud,
wallowing like a hear, an sputtering a
foreign jargon while he pointed at the
E .
a‘
rg.
“- ‘What is it?’ I yells to Thornfinn.
He talks back -to me like
Qfgfr“ ggizmund Ifiife
swing it out of the
davits. I chased after
him and caught him.
“‘IIold on,’ I yells.
‘VVe’ll stand by to-night,
and send a boat at day-
brea
“But Thorfinn wanted
to go on, and I had to
catch him and arm him
off from the davits.
Then I took my glass
and looked over that
held carefully. Every
minute I expected to see
a lot of men bundled up
sleeping, but not a man
did I find. The ‘field was as smooth and
as naked as the palm of your hand.
“V’VelI, such an explanation of the light
was just a shade more unreasonable than
none at all, but there are stranger things
at sea than ever happen on land.
“When the ‘Hattie B.’ started westward
again, and that Swede cook found out we
were leaving the cake, I thought he would
mutiny. He jabbered in his outlandish
tongue at me, at the quartermaster, and
finally ran to the stern and began bawling
like a foghorn at that cake. After a mo-
ment. the berg was lost in ‘the darkness,
and he came back to me and shook his
Fist at me.
“ ‘Back to ‘your galley!’ I yelled. ‘I'm
your otlicer, understand?’ He jabbered
on, but I turned and left him. I wouldn't
waste time on a fellow who couldn't un-
dustaml anything as plain as that.
little later my watch ended, and I turned
in till dawn.
"As I expected, next morning we
sighted the main field of ice about ten
miles to the west.
“Captain Gillespie was on deck with me.
‘There's the end of our rescue work,’ says
I. ‘VVe’ll never get to Wrangell Island,
for it's a good forty knots farther on.’
“The captain considered. ‘Herald Is-
land is close e Vassensoii crew
might have got across the ice from “Iran-
gell to Herald.’ Then he lowered his
voice and said, ‘VVidgery, are you sure
there was no one on that cake of ice, last
night?’
d..4,., Iz...,L.
Mziiicu 2o, I915
walked out, seeming all cut up about
something. Widgery,’ says the captain to
me, ‘th ' y for a cook to act.
I'm sorry I ever shipped him.’
“At six bells we stood by the ice field,
looking for a lead to get to Herald Is-
land. VVaves had thrown the edge of
the ice '
stretched north and south like little moun-
tain ranges‘, and kept cracking and pop-
ping like artillery.
“Captain Gillespie stood looking gloom-
ily at it. ‘ 's the end of our‘cruise,’ e
remarked, watching the glittering blues in
the fresh-broken ice.
“ ‘It looks so, Captain,’ I admitted.
“ ‘But we, we men won't stop here to
leave the poor fellows to freeze and
starve, e .
“ ‘What are the orders?’ I asked.
“‘ ipe the men forward for a landing
.
'0
ti:
“With that I told the boys to get into
their heavy clothes, and provi e them-
selves with enough food to last forty-eight
hours. VVe would cross the ice field as
far as Herald Island, if we could reach it.
By eight bells everything was ready, and
we piled into the small boat, cook and all,
and set out for the fiel .
“We had some trouble landing on the
ice, for the surf was heavy, and kept the
hummocks cracking and roaring all the
‘Hattie B.’ to stay aboard ship till we re-
turned. He pointed in his dumb way to
this man and that, meaning for me to send
them aboard instead of himself.
“To tell. the truth, I could easily have
picked a man who would have stayed with
a ‘Thank ee, sir’; but an otiicer must be
obeyed every time he speaks, or he won't
be obeyed any 'me he speaks. IVe
bundled Thorfinn into the small boat, and
started him with the bo'sun back to the
‘Hattie B.‘
“Coblitz fell to my lot as running mate,
as we set out in pairs, headed in the
d
went, stumbling and sliding down one
hummock and up another. After a while
we grew hot enough with our tripping and '
falling and running down slopes and
boosting each other up
t h e next slope. XVc
the burr of a capstan.
“ ‘Did you see a light?
A light?’ I tried to make
a motion likea light, and
finally pointed at the bin-
nacle amp.
“He nodded his big
head. I turned to the
quartermaster.
“ ‘Lay a point closer to
that berg. Coblitz, ring
fo r h al f speed-this
Swede thinks he saw it,
I
‘,‘lVe stared as the
‘Hattie B.’ eased down
her coughing and began
to wallow in the waves,
as a broad-beamed
whaler will. I stepped
into the chart room after
my glasses, and when
got back, the berg was
close to us, a big dim,
white thing, about an
acre broken off the edge
hadn't gone a mile be-
fore I lost sight of the
‘Hattie B.’ although she
a schooner. We ept
straight ahead, working
kept this up’till along
toward noon, when we
reached a lead of open
water lying in a flat
field, between two ranges
of hummocks. We were
both good and tired, and
Coblitz says:
“'Let's heave to and
have a bit of lunch,
te, I'm hungry’
I, and as the wind was
little swale at the head
of the lead, out of the
of some ice field.
“Just then, I caught
another little Hicker of
light, and at the same time, Kvinesrud
grabbed my arm.
" ‘I see it i’ I yelled to him; and clapped
my glasses on the spot.
“Then I could see it as plain as day-
light-a smashed up tin bucket, out of
which rose a thin stream of smoke. As
I looked, it.crackled up into a bit of a
flame and died down again. By this time
the ‘Hattie 13.’ had laid to. Suddenly,
Thorfinn started for the cutter, ready to
"KVINBSRUD HIMSELF moan WHOOPING Aim ROARING AT -n-is ‘ HATTIE n."'
"‘iVhose been telling you?’ I inquired.
“ ‘Coblitz.’
“ ‘I looked over every inch of it,
Captain.’
“‘Well, I was in the chart room a mo-
mcnt ago,’ went on the captain, ‘and in
comes that cook. I yelled in his ear to
get out, but it was no good. Finally he
looked at my chart, picked out the spot
where we sighted that ice cake, drew oi?
the longitude and latitude, and then
win .
“Coblitz agreed to
.this, and he led the
way through the shingly ice. “’e were
' st rounding the breast of a little rise
into the swale, when Coblitz gave a gasp
and looked back at me.
“‘What’s up?’ I asked, coming to his
Z
:1.
e.
"‘Wliy it-it's the cook!’ says Coblitz,
staring ahead with his little blue German
eyes stretched wide open.
“ ‘The cookl' says I, pushing into view,
‘why it can't be!’
had fairly tall masts for .
k
‘All right, lad,’ says-
nil
;.'.I."’--Iva J
3....