, 1911-02-09

the best means of cutting 1t out.
To some extent his own excitement
infected the others. Even Captain
Planck. whose only MISUNDERSTOOD
form of wealth was whale blubber, be-
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 practical
ly 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. 1t
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 tantalizing
twilight, the sun again came fairly
e the horizon. they ~besought their
commander, with a savage sort Of
eagerness from which he might have
augured i'll. that he take them at
once to the ledge. They had caught
sight Of 1t from a distance, even as
Cayley had done. hung In the air
above the valley, and had run reck-
lessly on ahead of their leader. When
he came up to them. he found them
dangerously excited. the man Roscoe
fairly dazed and drunken with 1t.
Finally Fielding had left them to
their W devices, and came away
with his two companions. And until
the light of that short day had begun
to fail. they-the Walrus people
stayed. gloating over this strangely
useless treasure.
For three days after that the man
Roscoe never spoke q word. On the
fourth day, when the little party as
sembled for their midday meal, the IL
men of the Walrus were the only
ones to answer the Cap
tain Fielding and his two companions
had disappeared.
Captain Planck could not recall that
meal o without ~shuddering, for
there at the foot of the table, oppo-
site to him. had sat the man Roscoe,
with murder written plain in every
line of his face. He had looked a
beast, rather than a man, that day.
The stated blood lust in his eyes made
them positively terrifying. so that The
others shrank away from him. He
had seemed not to notice 1t, at least
not to take offense at 1t. He was in
hilarious spirits for the first time
since they had known him; seemed
really to try to be a good companion.
Captain P'anck abdicated his lead
nrChNp fhnt lau
conscious of the fact. He had known
that to retain the leadership he must
take that murderer out and execute
him. He knew that II he did not do
this. the murderer. not he. would here
after command the party, and that
unless he himself yielded the prompt
est obedience of any. he would follow
the luckless trio whom they were
never to see again.
From that day to this there had
been no more murders. Roscoe had
ruled them with a decision and a
turbulence which put anything like
characterization out of the question.
He had been obeyed better than Cap
tain Planck ever had been. He had
worked them fercely all those four
years. cutting, everlastingly, at that
wonderful, exhautless golden leIs-,
beating the friable ore out of 1t with
heavy mauls. then, laboriously, con-
veyins the great rude slabs of pure
metal on rough sledges over the per-
petual ice of the glacier to a cave
near the shore. where they had de-
posted 1t. There were literally tons
OF 1t hidden there when the smoke
from the yachts funnel was first seen
on h horizon.
The moment the news Of the ap-
preaching steamer was reported to
Roscoe. he had entered upon what
seemed to his followers a thoroughly
irrational and inexplicable lima OF &C.
ton. He had ordered them, irst, to
remove all signs of recent habitation
from the hut to the cave where their
gold vas concealed; then. to cover the
cave mouth with a heap of boulders.
TO secure It against discovery.
Long before the strongest glass on
the ship could have mad out their
moving figures. he took the whole
party back to the hills in hiding. He
had kept them from answering the
halls and the gun-ire from the yacht
by the sheer weight Of his authority,
without v~ouchsafing a word Of expla-
nation.
The mex day they had seen the
searching party come ashore. and with
their knowledge of the lay OF the
land found 1t perfectly easy to evade
observation, though nothing but the
strong habit of obedience kept them
from counting 1t.
Then, along in the afternoon. had
happened what seemed to them the
strongest thing of all. They had seen
q solitary s%traggler from the search
ing party coming along across the
Ice. He could not see them. II would