Newark evening star and Newark advertiser., 1910-07-25


crushed in her stout hull. so that the
open water they had been hoping for
became at once their deadliest peril.
The moment the ice broke away she
would go to the bottom like a plummet.
But still, the slow. irresistible drift OF
the ice-pack carried them north and
west into a latitude and longitude
which, 50 far as they knew. nc
human travellers had ever crossed
before. And then in the depth OF
the Arctic night. bereft of hope and hall
mutinous. they found a land that nevel
had been charted, and. most marvelou:
Of all. human welcome. For here or
the shore were Captain Fielding and
the two other survivors of his ill-fated
expedition.
The fate OF the explorers ship had
been. 1t seemed, precisely that OF .he
Walrus. She nad been caught in tha
pack, crushed In 1t and carried against
this coast Before the coming of spring,
and with 1t the breaking of the Ice,
Fielding and his men had been able 10
carry their stores ashore. and Of these,
the greater part still remained.
OF the Walrus people. in all. there
were eleven, and these, with the three
original castaways. settled down to the
prospect of an indefinite number of
years upon that nameless coast. 1--WE
can live like Christians Captain
Fielding had said. "and we can always
hope"
His superior knowledge OF Arctic
conditions made him, rather than Cap
tain Planck. naturally. commander OF
the little company. He established the
regimen of their life. doled out the
stores from day to day. and, as best he
could. through that long winter night
provided entertainment for the forlorn
little group. He told them of his ex-
plorations on the coast, of the lay OF
the land, Of what they might hope to
see when the sun should come back to
them, marking the beginning of an
other long Arctic day.
Among other things, quite casually Re
told them of a ledge in the hills. across
the glacier, which contained. he he
lieved. the most extraordinary deposit
of gold in the world So incredibly
rich was it, that the rock itself had al
most been replaced by solid metal
The Alaska gold. he said. was only the
sweepings. in his opinion, of this i'm
mense store.
At the sound OF the word ..'gold" the
eyes of the man named Roscoe had
frightened for the first time since they
bad taken him, shivering from his long
immersion in the cold water. aboard
the walrus He drew into the circle
that sat about the reading lamp. and
began asking questions. Gold was
something he knew about He had
IL 1{o a., nd
in the Klondike. He questioned Cap
abouts of the ledge, about the sort Of
ore 1t occurred in. and about the best
means OF cutting 1t out.
To some extent his own excitement
infected the others. Even Captain
Planck. whose only well-understood
form of wealth was whale blubber. be-
gan to take ar interest in Roscoe's
questions and in the explorers an
swers to them.
1t was a strange and rather pathetic
sort of excitement. Captain Fielding
thought. To them, in their practically
hopeless plight. gold was about the
least useful thing they could find; not
hard enough to tip lances or arrows
with, too heavy and too easily melted
for domestic purposes. However. II
gave them something TO think about
and he, without a suspicion Of the
sinister direction in which these
thoughts might turn, went on and told
them all he knew.
When. after a period Of tantaiizing
twilight, the sun again came fairly up
over the horizon, they besought their
commander, with a savage sort of
eagerness from which he might have
augured Ill. that he take them at once
to the ledge. They Mad caught sight of
1t from distance. even as Cayley had
done. hung in the air above the val
ley, and had run recklessiy on ahead
of their leader. When he came UP TO
them he found them dangerously ex-
cited. the man Roscoe fairly dazed and
drunken with IT.
Finally Fielding had left them to