The Magnetic North | Page 2

one hand, bailed the boat with the other; but for all
their promptness a certain amount of the water froze solid before they
could get it out.
"Great luck, if we're going to take in water like this," said the cheerful
Kentuckian, shipping his oar and knocking off the ice--"great luck that
all the stores are so well protected."
"Protected!" snapped out an anxious, cast-iron-looking man at the
rudder.
"Yes, protected. How's water to get through the ice-coat that's over
everything?"
The cast-iron steersman set his jaw grimly. They seemed to be
comparatively safe now, with half a mile of open water between them
and the western shore.
But they sat as before, stiff, alert, each man in his ice jacket that
cracked and crunched as he bent to his oar. Now right, now left, again
they eyed the shore.
Would it be--could it be there they would have to land? And if they
did...?
Lord, how it blew!
"Hard a-port!" called out the steersman. There, just ahead, was a great
white-capped "roller" coming--coming, the biggest wave they had
encountered since leaving open sea.
But MacCann, the steersman, swung the boat straight into the crested
roller, and the Tulare took it gamely, "bow on." All was going well

when, just in the boiling middle of what they had thought was foaming
"white-cap," the boat struck something solid, shivered, and went
shooting down, half under water; recovered, up again, and seemed to
pause in a second's doubt on the very top of the great wave. In that
second that seemed an eternity one man's courage snapped.
Potts threw down his oar and swore by----and by----he wouldn't pull
another----stroke on the----Yukon.
While he was pouring out the words, the steersman sprang from the
tiller, and seized Potts' oar just in time to save the boat from capsizing.
Then he and the big Kentuckian both turned on the distracted Potts.
"You infernal quitter!" shouted the steersman, and choked with fury.
But even under the insult of that "meanest word in the language," Potts
sat glaring defiantly, with his half-frozen hands in his pockets.
"It ain't a river, anyhow, this ain't," he said. "It's plain, simple Hell and
water."
The others had no time to realise that Potts was clean out of his senses
for the moment, and the Kentuckian, still pulling like mad, faced the
"quitter" with a determination born of terror.
"If you can't row, take the rudder! Damnation! Take that rudder! Quick,
or we'll kill you!" And he half rose up, never dropping his oar.
Blindly, Potts obeyed.
The Tulare was free now from the clinging mass at the bow, but they
knew they had struck their first floe.
Farther on they could see other white-caps bringing other ice masses
down. But there was no time for terrors ahead. The gale was steadily
driving them in shore again. Boat and oars alike were growing
unwieldy with their coating of ever-increasing ice, and human strength
was no match for the storm that was sweeping down from the Pole.

Lord, how it blew!
"There's a cove!" called out the Kentuckian. "Throw her in!" he
shouted to Potts. Sullenly the new steersman obeyed.
Rolling in on a great surge, the boat suddenly turned in a boiling eddy,
and the first thing anybody knew was that the Tulare was on her side
and her crew in the water. Potts was hanging on to the gunwale and
damning the others for not helping him to save the boat.
She wasn't much of a boat when finally they got her into quiet water;
but the main thing was they had escaped with their lives and rescued a
good proportion of their winter provisions. All the while they were
doing this last, the Kentuckian kept turning to look anxiously for any
sign of the others, in his heart bitterly blaming himself for having
agreed to Potts' coming into the Tulare that day in place of the
Kentuckian's own "pardner." When they had piled the rescued
provisions up on the bank, and just as they were covering the heap of
bacon, flour, and bean-bags, boxes, tools, and utensils with a tarpaulin,
up went a shout, and the two missing men appeared tramping along the
ice-encrusted shore.
Where was the Mary C.? Well, she was at the bottom of the Yukon, and
her crew would like some supper.
They set up a tent, and went to bed that first night extremely well
pleased at being alive on any terms.
But people get over being glad about almost anything, unless
misfortune again puts an edge on the circumstance. The next day, not
being in any immediate danger, the boon of mere life seemed less
satisfying.
In detachments they went up the river several miles, and down about as
far. They looked in vain