Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1910-07-11
CHAPTER III.
The Murderer.
Copyright. 1910.
By the Century Company

AC uIQSIcISs
Two men clad in bearskins were shut
fling rapidly along across the glacier
Dawn was already flooding the arctic
sky with its amazing riot Of colOr-rose.
green-gold. violet. and the ice beneath
their feet was rose color with misty blue
shadows in II.
The foremost of the two wayfarers was
feet tall and of enormous girth OF chest
yet. somehow. despite his size and the
ungainly clothes he wore. he contrived
to preserve an air almost OF lightness:
Of lean. compact athleticism certainly. A
stranger. meeting him anywhere and con-
Q nplating his formidable proportions,
ard then looking up past his great. blunt
jaw into his cold. light blue. choleric
eyes. would be likely to shiver a little
and then get out of his way as soon as
possible.
He was walking steadily. glancing
neither to the right nor the left Even
over the treacherous. summer-giazed
surface of the glacier. his great stride
companion found it difficult to keep up
with. Besides. this companion made his
task the harder by allowing his eyes to
wander from the track they were follow
ing, and casting little furtfve, anxious
glances at the man beside him. In any
other company he would have been a
rather striking figure himself. well above
middle height, powerfully made, and
with a face that had lines OF experience
and determination engraved in 1t. But
the comparison dwarfed him.
He seemed to be trying to make up ms
mind to speak. and still to find this 9
difficult thing to do. At last. with q
deprecatory cough. he began:
What / can't see is. Roscoe. what you
did IT for. 1t was all right to do 1t II
you were figgering out any gain from 1t
wed all agree to that Anything fol
our common good, that's our motto. But
where's the gain in killing just one poor
fellow out Of party OF thirty! ne
seemed a good kind Of chap, too, ane
friendly spoken. We didn't serve YOU
like that when YOU came aboard the Wal
rus at Cape Nome"
1t would have cost you four men to dc
it. Planck, and you were short-handeo al
it was"
was a stranger and you was in a bat
way There was mob OF men thai
wanted you mighty bad. and we gave
you shelter and carried you of ane
made you a regular sharin' member OF
the crew OF course il we'd had an!
reason to act contrary, we'd have done
so. And that's why it seemed to uS-te
me l would say. that you probably hao
some reason in this case here. And. wei
wed like to know what 1t is.
But the man he had addressed al
Roscoe strobe on with undated pace
as il he had not heard. For any atten
ton he paid to his questioner he might
have been alone in that expanse OF ics
and sky.
Planck accepted the silent rebuff as i
it had been only what he had expected
but he sighed regretfully. He had once
known, and 1t was only four years ago
that same staggering trick of contemptu
GUS authority himself. He had beer
master, the most tyrannical sort OF mas
ter some say. to be found anywhere In
the world-the captain of an American
whaler. And this very man, at whose
heels he was scrambling along over the
ice had been one of his crew; had neve
approached the quarterback, where ne
reigned supreme. without an apoiogeut
hand at his fore,eck. and had always
passed to the leeward side OF him up or
deck
But the Walrus had been destined
never to see port again. She fingered TOO
long on the whaling grounds to get pacR
through Bering strait that fall, ant
failed in the attempt to make Mckenzie
bay. where other whalers in simlial
plight put in for the winter. Instead OF
this friendly harbor. she was caught IN
the pack and carried. relentlessly, norm
and westward. The milling pressure OF
null, SO that the open water they had
been hoping for became at once theli
deadliest peril. The moment the ice broke
away she would go to the bottom like
plummet.
But still the slow, Irresistible drift OF
the ice pack carried them north and
west into a latitude and longitude which
so far as they knew, no human travellers
had ever crossed before. And then II
the depth of the arctic night. bereft OF
hoy q
land that never had been charted. and
most marvellous Of ALL human welcome
For here on the shore were capt. f1eld-
ing ard the two other survivors OF MS
Inflated expedition.
The fate of the explorers ship hac
been, it seemed. precisely that Of the
Walrus. She had been caught in the
pack, crushed in it and carried against
this coast Before the coming OF spring
and with it the breaking OF the ice, Field
their stores ashore, and OF these the
greater part still remained.
OF the WaIrus 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 nameiess coast. I'VE can live like
Christians" Capt. Fielding had said
land we can always hope"
His superior knowledge Of arctic condi'
tions made him, rather than Capt
Pl0nCk, naturally, COuiulduOCi VI ehS III
tie 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 explorations on the
coast of the lay OF the land, or Wha'
they might hope to see when the sun
should come back to them, marking the
beginning of another long arctic day
Among other things, quite casually, me
told them OF a ledge in the hills, across
the glacier, which contained. he believed
the most extraordinary deposit OF gold
in the world So incredibly rich was II
that the rock itself had almost been re-
placed by solid metal. The Alaska gold
he said, was only sweepings, In MS opln-
ion of this immense store.
At the sound of the word gold the
ewes Of the. man named Roscoe had
frightened for the first time since they
had 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 ask
ing questions Gold was something he
knew about He had mined ii In Austria
liza, in California and in the klondike. he
questioned Capt Fielding about the ex-
act whereabouts of the ledge. about the
sort of ore It occurred in and about the
best means of cutting ii out.
To some extent his own excitement IN
fected the others. Even Capt. Planck.
whose only well understood form OF
wealth was whale blubber. began to take
an interest in Roscoes questions and in
the explorers answers to them