The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1895-10-26
CHAPTER ".

CHAPTER ".
On the top of a hummock sat or
crouched the eight-legged thing that
they had seen three days beforehand
it howled horribly.
Let us follow" said the girl. at
may know some way that does not lead
to Sedna," but she reeled from weak
ness as she took the pulling rope. The
thing moved off slowly and clumsily
across the ridges, heading always
toward the westward and the land. and
they followed while the growing thun-
der at the edge of the foe rolled nearer
and nearer. The foes lip vas split and
cracked in every direction for three or
four miles inland and great pans OF
ten-foot thick ice, from a few yards to
twenty acres square, were jolting and
ducking and surging into one another
and into the yet unbrokcn foe as the
heavy swell took and shook and spouted
between them. The battering-ram ice
was, so to speak, the first army that the
sea was tiinging against the foe. The
inceSsant crash and jar of these cakes
almost drowned the tipping sound of
sheets of pack ice being 0:Iven bodily
under the foe as cards are hastily
pushed under a tablecloth. Where the
water was shallow these sheets would
be piled one atop of another till the bot
tom-most touched mud fifty feet down
and the disoclored sea banked behind
the muddy ice TIL the increasing pres
sure drove all forward again. The many
shadows and sand banks on the north
cast coast of Bylot's island made it
impossible to foretell the course of The
rushing ice. For instance, in addition
to the foe and the pack ice, the gale
and the currents were bringing down
true bergs. sailing mountains of Ice,
snapped off by the frost from the Green
land side Of the water or the north
shore of Melville bay. They pounded
in solemnly from the offing, the waves
breaking white round them. and ad-
vanced on the foe like an old-time fleet
under full sail. But berg that seemed
ready to carry the world before 1t would
ground helplessly in deep water, reel
over and wallow in a lather of foam
and mud and flying frozen spray, while
a much smaller and lower berg would
rip and ride into the fiat ice, flinging
tons of ice on either side and cutting u
track a mile long before 1t was stopped.
The bergs We're perhaps the most ter
rlble things to watch, because their
towers and Dinnacles would fall after
the shock of collision. Some fell like
swords, shearing a raw-edged canal
through the foe; and others, falling on
hard ice, could not break through 1t,
but splintered into a shower of blocks
weighing scores of tons apiece that
whirled and circled among the hum
mocks. Others again rose shoaled,
twisted as though In pain and fell
solidly on their sides. while the sen
thrashed over their shoulders. This
trampling and crowding of the ice into
every possible shape was going on as
far as the eye could reach all along
the north line of the foe. From where
Kotuko and the girl were the confusion
looked no more than an uneasy, rip
pling. crawling movement under the
horizon, but il came towards them each
moment and they could hear far away
to the landward q heavy booming, as 1t
might have been the boom OF artil-
lery through fog That showed that
the foe was being iammed against the
iron cliffs OF Bylot's island, the land to
the southwark behind them.
This has never been before" said
Kotuko, staring stupidity. "This is not
the time. How can ithe foe break
now?"
"Follow that the girl cried, point
ing to the thing. half limping, half run
ming, distractedly before them. They
followed, tugging at the hand sleigh,
while nearer and nearer came the roar
ing march of the ice. At last THE fields
round them cracked and slanted in
every direction and the crackes opened
and snapped like the teeth of wolves.
But where the thing rested. on,a mound
of old and scattered ice blocks some
fifty feet f,igh there was no motion.
Kotuko leaped forward wildly. dragged
the girl after him and crawled to the
bottom of the mound. The talking of
the ice grew louder and louder round
them, but the mound stayed fast, and
AS the girl looked at him he threw his
right elbow upwards and outwards,
maklng the Inuit sign for land in the
shape of an island. Any land IL was
that the eight-legged limping thing had
led them to-some granite-tipped sand
beached islet off the coast. shod and
sheathed and masked with ice so that
no man could have told it from the foe,
but at the bottom solid earth and not
shifting, drifting ice. The smashing
and rebound Of the floes, as they
grounded and splintered, marked the
borders of 1t, and a friendly shoal ran
out to the northward and turned aside
the rush of the heaviest ice exectly as
plowshare turns the loan. There was
danger. Of course. that some heavily
squeezed ice field might shoe. up the
DeutH Dituc tlit 'tDP vi TIE l-ISt
bodily but that did not trouble Kotuko
and the girl when they made their
snowhouse and began to eat and [leard
the ice crack and hammer and skid
along the beach. The thing had disap-
peared and Kotuko was talking exctted-
ly about his knowledge of and power
over spirits as he crouched over the
lamp. In the middle of his wild say
Ing the girl began to laugh and rock
herself backwards and forwards.
Behind her shoulder crawling into
the hut crawl by crawl, there wer two
heads-one yellow and one black-that
belonged 70 two of the most sorrowful
and ashamed dogs that you ever saw.
Kotuko. the dog was one. and the black
leader was the other. Both were now
fat. well-looking and quite restored to
their proper minds, but coupled To each
other in an extraordinary fashion.
When the black leader ran on. you re-
member. his harness was stlll on him.
He must have met Kotuka and played
or fought with him. Tor his shoulder
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