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

CHAPTER III.

The murderer8.
" WO men clad in bear-skins were
III shutting rapidly along across
the glacier. Dawn was already
flooding the Arctic sky with its amaz-
ing riot Of color-rose. green gold, vio-
let. and the ice beneath their feet was
rose color with misty blue shadows
In It.
The foremost of the two wayfarers
was man of gigantic stature, six and
half feet tall and of. enormous gtrtt
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 athletic
ism, certainly. A STR niger, meeting
him anywhere and contemplating his
formidable proportions, and then look
4 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 glazed
surface OF the glacier. his great stride
carried him along at pace which his
companion found 1t difficult to keep ur
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
self well above middle height, power
fully made, and with a face that hac
lines of experience and determination
engraved in 1t. But the comparison
dwarfed him.
He seemed to be trying to make III
his mind to speak. and still to find thi!
a difficult thing to do. At last, with 9
deprecatory cough he began:
"What l can't see is, Roscoe, wha'
you did IT for. 1t was all right to dc
1t II you were lingering out any gair
from 1t. We'd all agree to that. Any
thing for our common good. that's oul
motto. But where's the gain In killing
Just one poor fellow out Of party o.
thirty? He seemed a good kind Of
chap, too, and friendly spoken. We
didn't serve you like that when yor
come aboard the Walrus at Caps
Nome"
.It would have cost you four men tc
do II. Planck. and you were short.
handed as 1t was"
THAT wasn't why we didn't do 1t
You was a stranger and you was in 6
bad way. There was mob of mer
that wanted you mighty bad, and we
gave you shelter and carried you of
and made you regular sharin' mem
ber OF the crew. OF course, IL we'o
had any reason to act contrary we'd
have done so. And that's why 1t seemed
to us-to me I 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 strobe on with undated pace
as If he had not heard. For any at
tention he paid to his questioner he
might have been alone in that expanse
of ice and sky.
Planck accepted the silent rebuff as
If it had been only what he had ex-
pected, but he sighed regretfully. He
had once known, and it was only foul
years ago, that same staggering trick
of contemptuous authority himself. He
had been master, the most tyrannical
sort of master, some say. to be found
anywhere in the world; the captain OF
an American whaler. And this very
man, at whose heels he was scrambline
along over the ice, had been one of his
crew; had never approached the quar-
ter-deck, where he reigned supreme
without an apologetic hand at his fore
lock, and had always passed to the lee
ward side of him upon 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 an 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. relent-
lessly. north and westward. The mill