The Salt Lake tribune. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1890-current, 1910-07-24
CHAPTER iii.
THE MURDERERS.

WO InCU Clau III DedI'ShlHS were SUul
fling rapidly along across the glacier
Dawn was already flooding the Arctic
sky with its amazing riot of color-rosc
green gold, violet, and the ice beneath
their feet was rose color with misty
blue shadows in it.
The foremost of tho two wayfarer.
was a man of gigantic stature, six and
a half feet tall and of enormous girtl
OF chest; yet, somehow. despite his size
and the ungainly clothes he wore, he
contrlved to preserve m air almost OF
lGhtness; of lean, compact athleticism
certainly. \ stranger, meeting him any
where and contemplate ting his formidable
his great, blunt jaw into his cold light
blue, choleric eyes, would be likely TO
shiver little and then get out of his
way as soon Us possible,
He was walking steadily, glancine
neither to the right nor the left. Even
over the treacherous. summer glazed sur
face OF the glacier, his great stride car
panion 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 following, and casting little fur
tive. anxious glances AT the man beside
him. In any other company he would
have been a rather striking figure him
fully made, and with face that had
lines of experience and determination
engraved in it. But the comparison
dwarfed him.
He seemed to be trying to make up
his mind to speak. and still to find
this a difficult thing to do, AT last,
with "A deprccatory cough he began.
What | ic RnSpOa uba 4
you did it for. IL was all right to do
it if you were flggering out any gain
from it. We'd all agree to that Any
thing for our common good, that's our
motto. But where s the gain in killing
Just one poor fellow out of party
of thirty? He seemed good kind of
chap. too, and friendly spoken. We
didn' serve you like that, when you
come aboard the Walrus at Cape
Nome -
'It would have cost you four men
to do it. P!anck, and you were short
handed as it was.'
"That WASH t why we didn t do it.
You was stranger and you was in a
bad way. There was a mob of men
that wanted YOU mighty bad. and we
gave You shelter and carried you Off
and made you regular sharin' mem
Der of the crew. OF course If we'd
had any reason TO act contrary, we ID
have done so. And that's why it
seemed to us-to me ! would say, that
YOU probably had some reason in this
case, here. And, well,-we' d like to
know what it is
But the man he had addressed as
' Roscoe strode on with unabated
pace. as if he had not heard For anv
attention he paid 10 his questioner, he
might have been alone in that expanse
of ice and sky.
Planck accepted the silent rebuff as
If it bad been only what he had expect
ed, bur he sighed regretfully. He had
once known, and it was only four years
ago, that same staggering trick Of con-
temptuous authority himself He had
been master, the most tyrannical sort
OF master. some say, to be found any
where 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 never approached the quarter deck
where he reigned supreme, without an
apologetic hand at his forclock. and
had always passed TO the leeward side
or HIM up on deck.
But the Walrus had been destined
never to see port again, She fingered
TOO long on the whaling grounds to get
back through Behring Strait that fall;
and failed in the attempt TO make Nc.
Kenzie Bay. where other whalers in
similar, plight put in for the winter
Instead of this friendly harbor, she was
caught in the pack and carried, re-
lentlessly, north and westward The
milling pressure of great masses of
ice crushed in her stout hull, so that
the !oDen water they had been hoping
Tor. became. at once, their deadliest
peril The moment the ice broke away
she would 60 to the bottom like a plum
met
But still. the slow, irresistible drift
of the icepack 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 In the depth of the Arctic night,
hereft of hone, and half mutinous, they
found 4 land that never had been
charted. and. most marvellous OF all
human welcome. For here on the
shore were Captain Fielding and the
two other survivors of his illfated ex
pedition.
The fate of the explorers ship had
been. II 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, Fielding and his men had been
able TO carry their stores ashore. and
OF these, the greater part still re.
OF the Walrus neople, in all. there
were eleven, and these. with the three
original castaways. settled down to the
prospect of an indefinite number of
wears upon that nameless coast "We
ran live like Christians" Captain Field.
ing had said, "and we can always
hone
His superior knowledge of Arctic
conditions made him. rather than Cap.
tain Planck. naturally. commander of
the. little COMPANY. He established the
regiment 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, of what they might
hone to see when The sun should come
back to them. marking the beginning
OF another long Arctic day.
Among other things. quite casually
he told then, Of a ledge in the hills,
across the glacier, which contained he
II M 40 E5I7zH III m El2H E7E5A %76Y H.