CHAPTER XVI
QUEST FOR CAMP
Lee Renaud's black eyes looked out anxiously from the shaggy fur of hishooded parka or Eskimo coat as he climbed out on the top of the airshipto see if ice had formed. Not a pleasant task, this, in a wind pressurecreated by a speed of over a hundred miles per hour, and with thethermometer at twenty below zero! Good, no ice sheathing as yet on thegreat shining hull. Coatings of ice and sleet were the danger to adirigible--these could weight the ship down to a tragic fall.
Below the Nardak stretched snow fields, and often great frozen lakeswhere the ice lay sometimes smooth, sometimes thrust high in grotesqueridges where some throe of nature had hurled up the frozen substance.For days now they had been traversing the snow barrens, a strange whiteworld where daylight held continuously. For this was the land of themidnight sun. Through the summer of this weird Arctic world, there wouldbe months of daylight, with the sun riding from horizon to horizon, butnever quite dipping out of sight. With autumn would come a twilight thatwould merge into the long winter night when the sun left this frozenland to months of darkness.
In the present daylight period, the Nardak's men must make theirexploration, then flee before the night, back to civilization and home.
Ordinarily, the great ship kept to a height of well over two thousandfeet, but when the photographers wanted to picture some object, thedirigible would be glided down to a thousand, five hundred, even a merethree hundred feet above ground. Lee Renaud was startled to find thatice sheets which from on high had looked glassy smooth, from the nearview stood out in deep ridges and furrows, as though broken by somegiant's plowshare. Nature turned some strange tricks up here in thisfrozen North.
Everywhere was white stillness. Not a sign of vegetation; not a sign ofanimal life--or so it seemed at first. Those untrained in the ways ofthe Arctic do not at once realize the protective coloring which Naturehas bestowed on her denizens in this land of eternal cold.
To Lee Renaud, a wind-swept hillside over which the dirigible zoomedlow, with moving-picture cameras clicking out film, was--well, was justa hillside dotted with black rocks where the gale had swept off thesnow. Then--and Lee opened his eyes very wide--some of the black rocksbegan galloping off. In truth, these moving objects were a herd ofshaggy musk-oxen that had been pawing for snow moss among the rocks tillthe shadow of the huge ship of the air had sent them snorting off infear. In a white land, Nature had left these creatures dark colored,because they most often grazed on wind-swept highlands where their dunsides melted inconspicuously into the dark splotches of the landscape.
Another time, looking down through the observation window, Lee saw theamazing sight of a snow field that suddenly seemed to leap up intoseparate white parts and go bounding off across the plain. In this caseit was a herd of white caribou that had been huddled at rest on thesnow. Scent of danger, borne down on the wind, must have stampeded them.Soon enough young Renaud saw what that danger was, for another line ofmoving white swept into view--the wolf-pack, white killers of the North!Lee's heart shivered within him. These were so relentless; they knewonly the law of fang and claw. Tails straight behind, noses down, thepack swept on down trail, were lost to view. But, ola, in the end thewolf-pack would pull down its prey; it always did!
In a snow valley, where mountain cliffs rose protectingly on eitherside, nestled a row of white domes. Circular hillocks with faint spiralsof blue smoke drifting upward from a crevice in the top. Eskimoigloos--the round earth-and-stone huts banked in snow that were thehomes of the fur-clad natives of the Arctic! As the huge ship of the airpassed like a menacing shadow above this native settlement, fur-clad mencrept out from their tunnel-like doors, waved their arms and racedwildly over the snow fields. Seen from the airship, they looked to betiny ants swarming out of an ant hill. Then a flight of sharp pointedarrows shot up toward the sky, curved back uselessly to earth. The hugeship drifted on serenely, safe in its heights from this punydemonstration.
"Must have thought we were some vast evil spirit, drifting up fromSermik-suak, Eskimo spirit-land!" said Valchen who had been much amongthe Arctic natives and knew their life and beliefs. "The sight of thisgreat gas bag sweeping like a black shadow across their village wasenough to strike terror to their hearts and set them on the defensive.On the whole, these Eskimo tribes are a kindly, hospitable lot. Let aman come among them in peace, and they'll take him in and give him thebest they have. I've known them, in times of famine, to divide the lastmorsel of fish, the last chunk of blubber with some utter stranger."
Through the speeding miles, the white northland revealed itself to eyesthat by degrees were learning to distinguish between the still whitethat meant snow wastes, and the moving white that meant some animalleaping into action on hoof or padded paw. On the ice of great lakesthat were almost inland seas, now and again one glimpsed some shaggymound of flesh and white fur that was a great polar bear, seeking hisfood through a break in the lake ice. In the air, the honk of geese, theweird laughter of the long-billed loons flying north in the continuousdaylight, often echoed the siren of the dirigible.
In the navigating-room, maps and charts were always in evidence now.Across their surfaces, lines drawn in day by day showed the progress ofthe ship. Its position was checked constantly both by magnetic compassand by sun compass. The ship's course was directed away from northwestand headed due north now.
"There it is--the tri-pointed crest of Coronation Mountain!" shoutedOlaf Valchen, eye to the telescope and one arm wildly waving, beckoningthe others to come and see for themselves.
In the distance, like a regal crown, showed the points of a group ofmountains, rising above swirling clouds that masked all save thehigh-flung peaks themselves.
"It's somewhere near that range that we'll find RottenstoneLake--Nakaluka, the Eskimos call it. And when we stand on its shoreswe'll be standing on wealth. There are rock mounds in this region wherethe stone is so old, it has cracked and lets the shining treasure veinsshow through. I know. I've seen it myself." Valchen's usually deep voicewas high-pitched with excitement. He pulled from beneath his furovergarment a tiny map of caribou hide with some lines scrawled upon it."The hunger fever was upon me when I drew this, some five years ago, butI am sure the lines are right. There's the tri-mountain; and the sunobservations I took then tally with our present check-up, in part,anyway."
Below them stretched snow field and ice crag. Somewhere in that maze ofpeaks and ridges lay the frozen waters of Nakaluka and its encirclingtreasure mounds. In all this whiteness, its frozen waters would be nomore noticeable than a tiny grain of dust would be on the expanse of agreat plate glass show window.
The only feasible method of procedure seemed to be to get aerialphotographs, piece together the long strips of film, and from a study ofthese get an idea of the lay of the land. This would take time. Tocruise continually would burn the precious fuel and oil that must bemore or less hoarded for the return trip. Better to establish a centralcamp for sleeping and eating, then to radiate out on air trips atregular intervals.
For a time the dirigible forged ahead, the eyes of all watcherssearching the snow barrens for a safe base camp. Below them a snow fogbegan creeping over the land, a mysterious curtain of blue and graylight. As they swept on in this strange haze, snow hills and valleystook on warped, unreal proportions. The official decision was that itwas better to land now than to risk crashing into some shrouded peak.
At other landing fields there had been hundreds of men to pull at thedrag ropes and gently ease the ship to earth. Here there was naught savesnow and perhaps a polar bear or two--no very active assistance atlanding in that!
Lee Renaud, like the rest of the crew, was full of anxiety as to how thenew, and untried method Captain Jan was depending on would work. Hehurried along the corridor to a trapdoor section where Bartlot and anumber of his officers and men were grouped about a great flat metalplate that was connected to a windlass by hawsers passing over two setsof pu
lleys.
In the meantime, the dirigible, by motor power and the use of elevators,had been descending lower and lower, until it was now less than ahundred feet above the great ice field.
At a word of command from the Captain, the metal plate was let downthrough its opening in the ship. They heard when it struck the ice witha clank.
Along one of those pulley hawsers had been affixed a heavily insulatedlength of pliable electric wiring. Now, with hand that trembled a littleas he began his great experiment, Captain Jan pushed an electric buttonthat connected power from one of the ship's generators to this wireleading down to the plate resting on the ice far below. This plate wasin reality an electric stove. As the current hit it, it was supposed byits heat to sink rapidly into the ice. Then when the electricity was cutoff, it would freeze deep and fast into the ice--or so men hoped andprayed it would.
After a breath-taking interval, Captain Jan turned the windlass gently,to see if the plate-anchor held in the ice. More and more he wound onthe turn shaft--and the anchor held! The experiment was working! A greatshout went up from all sides. Many hands cranked at the windlass, takingin the lines, gradually forcing the ship down and down.
At last the pneumatic bumpers touched ice. It was all hands out to seewhat manner of frozen world they had landed in.
Viewed from above, this surface had looked smooth enough, but now theyfound it to be far from a "looking-glass surface." There were up-endedice cakes and pressure ridges to be clambered over. Of a certainty,water must be somewhere under this ice sheet. For water freezing,expanding, contracting, was what shot up the slabs of pressure ice. Thiswas no pleasant place to dwell. There were whole stretches where the icefloor had split asunder in deep crevasses and purple chasms. Seemingsnow hills were mere masks across gully traps.
For a night, or for the length of a period that would have been a nighthad the hazy red ball of the sun ever dropped entirely below thehorizon, the expedition rested in this strange ice waste.
Then a party set out on foot to reconnoiter the land. Captain Jan,Valchen, a dozen others. Lee Renaud was glad his strong young legsgained him a place in this crew. Of necessity, each man had to bear astout load. One could not venture out in the bare white wastes withoutfood and weapons, a fur sleeping-bag to crawl into in case of a storm,and a great knife for cutting snow blocks to build a wind-break. Also,the party carried bundles of bright, orange-hued flags to mark theirtrail.
Excitement hung over this little group as they made their start attrail-breaking into the unknown. Some on snowshoes, some on skis, theymarched out under the strange glow of the Arctic sun, a glow thatsometimes crisped and blistered, but never seemed to hold any cheer inits pale gleams that slanted over eternal ice.
After they had crossed miles of ice level and laboriously scaled frozencliffs, they came down into a strange valley. On every side were snowmounds, like haycocks in assorted sizes, some the height of a man, someas tall as a one-story building. They were the roofs of round pits. Somepressure below had blown up these weird snow bubbles.
Bartlot, in the lead, stumbled against one. Its sides caved in and theCaptain shot out of sight down in a snow hollow fifteen feet deep. Lineswere flung down and soon he was drawn out, breathing hard and prettywell banged up, but luckily not seriously injured. After that, the partymoved forward, roped together for protection.
Out of curiosity, they now and again slashed openings in the snow domes.Some covered pits fifty and a hundred feet wide, and vastly deep. Itbehooved them to pick their way carefully here, and to test each stepwith an Alpine staff thrust into the snow ahead. Behind the party, theorange gleam of the route flags marked a zig-zag trail and showed theway back to the base camp.
After threading this valley checkered with pitfalls, and climbing arange of ice hills all pitted and honeycombed by underground pressure,Bartlot's party halted on the crest of the ridge to gaze ahead in blankastonishment. A huge dark blot, a triangle in shape, loomed blacklyagainst the white of a mountain of snow. It was as though some giant,passing up this valley, had painted his huge triangular flag on thesmooth white, and had gone on his way.
To find the meaning of that mysterious black tri-cornered surface, theymust push on to it. It could not be far, just across the valley and upthe next height.
But "just across the valley" was a deceptive term. In the haze of theever shifting Arctic lights, horizons are most uncanny things. Sometimesobjects far away seem almost under the nose. And again, men find theirfeet mounting some small rise that in the haze they had thought was faraway. Mirages, too, fling processions of strange scenes before the eye.A mountain, a lake, a river looms vividly ahead, then fades back intothe shadows from which it has sprung.
So it was a good ten hours of hard travel, and stumblings, and dodgingsof ice pitfalls, before the exploration party came within "normaleyesight" view of the great black triangle.
Then they found that, instead of a black surface on the mountain side,it was a great black hole leading back and back into the mountaindepths.
"A cave! A whale of a cave!" shouted Renaud who was taking his turn atleading, and had scrambled up the slope a rope-length ahead of theothers.
It was a whale of a cave--one of those mammoth, finned and flukedcreatures of the sea could have drifted in here and brought his wholefamily with him.
The snow domes and pits the party had just passed were as toys comparedto this evidence of mighty pressure forces within the earth. Someterrifically violent cataclysm must have flung up these two great wallsof rock and ice that slanted together and formed a vast triangulartunnel.
At close view, it was a place of beauty. The depths that penetrated themountain were dark. But here at the mighty three hundred foot entranceall was white. Crystal fringe of ice stalactites hung from the roof likehuge prisms on a giant's candelabra. Snow banks, in soft mounds, guardedthe opening. Now and again the stiff wind swept flurries from thesedrifts and scattered the white powder over the floor of the cavern inever-changing patterns.
"A hangar for our dirigible! She could ease into here slicker than abanana into a peel!" shouted Captain Bartlot.
"Banana in a peel!" echoed Valchen. "Why, Captain, she could park inhere and still leave room for an airplane to sail in rings around her!Whew! Some house we've found ourselves!"
"Think I'll do housekeeping over there, set up my portable stove andall." Sanderson indicated a side cave like a wing room off the maintunnel.
Electric torchlights were pulled from their packs and put into use.Excited laughter and shouts echoed from the mighty roof and rumbled backthrough the cave, as they pushed slowly on, exploring wonders as theywent. The ice drip on the cave walls had built itself into beautifulfantasies. Here stood a row of mighty columns like the pipes of a vastorgan. Over there hung delicate ice lacework. Further on was a scallopedbasin with a pillar rising out of it, icy semblance of a statue set in afountain basin.
But even an ice wonder-hall set with frozen filigree could not turntheir minds over long from the pangs of hunger. The journey had been onecontinuous round of labor and anxiety. The steep climb in the rarefiedatmosphere told on strength and lungs. So before penetrating the depthsof the cavern, the party decided to halt for food and rest. Back nearthe entrance, they dropped down, eased their heavy burdens to the snowyfloor, and joyously opened up their packets of sandwiches and thermosbottles of steaming hot chocolate.
As they ate, this advance crew went ahead with their planning of howthey could utilize the great tunnel to house the airship.
"We can drop the ice anchor out there on the slope," said Captain Janbetween hearty bites of a thick meat sandwich. "Then all hands can manthe drag ropes and with a little help from the motor, we ought to beable to ease the Nardak into this ready-made hangar as pretty as youplease."
"And some of the ice pillars will do for anchor posts to knot the ropesa--Hi, what's that?" The big fur-clad fellow who spoke cocked an eyeupward.
Suddenly zooming almost over their heads, flapping its long
wings andquavering its hoarse hooting call, a great white cliff-owl departedindignantly, his raucous voice hurling back protest to these invaders ofhis icy domain.
"Umph!" grunted Sanderson. "Looks like he's serving notice on us thatthis house is already taken. Don't you reckon we'd better step up thestreet to the real estate agent in the next block and see what he's gotin the way of nice Arctic mansions and cottages to offer us."
Sanderson's gay banter choked off in a sputter, and a wild look cameinto his eyes.
A sound swept, through the cave, the long-drawn, shivery "wha-o-o-o-ah!"of the wolf-pack trailing meat.
Another moment, and the killer pack surged into view, speeding out ofthe depths of the cave itself.
The men screamed and leaped for the cavern walls, clambering madly up,clinging grimly to ice ledge and ice stalactite, praying that they wouldbear human weight.