The Anaconda standard., 1895-12-15

sng fhe end of a tunnel. All the end Of
the passage we came upon what looked
ike a section of a, ship; and In It's deck
sure enough, the mast was firmly Fast
ened.
This" he said, leading me around
the mast to the other stde. us the gal-
ley; and here. on digging around. we
found the crew." -.
ALIVE. Generaa?" I asked.
.n "Oh. no." he said; frozen solid. We.
them7 Those little drawers here were
the cook ols-where he kept his pepper.
salt and other seasonings. We keep
the crew in them now"
Before / could express my amaze
ment he drew out one of the tiny
drawers and set II on a rude slab thar
had served as a table. It contained
what / at first thought was a doll,
dressed IN the efderdown hood and long
fawn-skin skirts of a Norwegian baby.
AS he took It up in his hands and
laid IT upon my arms. saw that 1t ac-
1t was an unpleasant sight; Its wizened
face drawn with suffering.
YES" said Captain Fytch, as II read
Ing my thoughts, they had a hard
time of II. Twenty of EN- we have In
THE drawers around this galley. We
clasps the mantle that this was the
captain; but this" he continued. open
ing another drawer and exhibiting an
other midget face. was the last sur
vivor. He was an ancient Viking OF
some learning. and he 1t was who
wrote upon the mast in Runic charac-
ters the story of their voyage, their
distress. and their extinction. He says
that he was about 70 when the ship
drifted into these parts and began to
go around In the whirlpool. while the
rest were much younger: and, OF
course. they grew smaller and smaller,
and perished first. There seems to have
been no solid ice here at that time: but
there was a great maelstrom here. d.
rectly at the pole, filled with floating
ice, and the ship was drawn into II
and couldn't get out. The people never
knew what was the matter with them
AS they had to float round the pole
constantly with the sun. they could not
try any experiments such as we tried
on the solid ice before we had been
here a week. They swung he1plessly
round and round, and kept getting
younger and younger, but knew not
why. Jim Ruf, as ithts man called him.
self, began to suspect when the rest
became little children what the matter
was. and wrote on the mast IN his
strange letters,-'Doomed! We are rum
ming down the sun! He records thar
he kept his companions alive by feed
ing them long after they became per-
But he added, I. too, am falling into
the green and tender leaf AS to his
end we are left to inference, but as
sumo that he also became too young
to feed himself and died of inanition."
"A strange looking child" I said,
handing back the little old man, whose
eyes followed me as if he were alive.
Yes; the ladies' have taken great
interest in him." said Fitch. when we
made this discovery, which was not
until after Ku-Kuok and I had been
back to the states a couple OF times.
they used ITO take him out every day
and run around the pole against the
sun trying to make him grow older.
But It was no use. They grew older
themselves. but ne did not recover the
vital spark He was goner."
What do you suppose the lbttle folks
lived on. Is 1t known?" Fl
,7""Oh. yes" he said. Jim Rui wrote
out the story on the mast. Wild ami
mails from the whole Arctic region were
attracted upon the broken ice by the
curious whirling of the sun, they. too.
kept growing younger and younger;
and when they were young and tender
the crew caught them and used them
for food. At last the venerable infants
got too young to capture any. and then
they seem to have shut themselves UP
In THE gallery. 1t kept showing faster
and faster, and freezing harder and
harder, till at laSt-probably 10000
years ago, and some centuries after all
had perished-ithe great Palaeocrystic
sea became Sohdly CONCEALED, and re-
volved only with the earth. Great num-
bers of animals had assembled in the
snow at this point. having yielded to
the centrfpete influences, and their car
casses were frozen UP solid. So this
ice under our feet, and around this
wreck for miles, is a vast refrigerator
full of fresh meat. Some of It has been
dead for thousands of years. yet Ii is
just as good as ever. We often find
these savory castaways, and turn them
to good account,-though we generally
prefer the artificial fiavors. We even
find fresh flowers" tst
WHAT / exclaimed. ''FuIowers In
this boreal region?" - .-s;r
Certainly" he laughed. The first
Christmas we spent here -
IT noticed that fine spike of hlac
blossoms" / remarked. -fa
"Come on, or you'll lose your dim
nerl' shouted he.
The voice startled me, for n suddenly
seemed as If II were not his voice; and
] perceived that the hand was not his
which was laid lightly on my shoulder.