Perrysburg journal. (Perrysburg, Wood Co., O. [Ohio]) 186?-1965, 1911-06-30


had any reason to act contrary, we'd
have done SO. And that's why 1t
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 1t is
But the man he had addressed as
Roscoe" strode on with unabated
pace, as If he had not heard For any
attention he paid to his questioner he
might have been alone in that ex-
panse of ice and sky.
Planck accepted the silent rebuff as
IL 1t had been only what he had ex-
pected, but he sighed regretfully. He
had once known, and 1t was only four
years ago, that same staggering trick
Of contemptuous authority himself
He had been master, the most tyran-
nical 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
scrambling along over the ice, had
been one of his crew. had never ap-
preached the quarterback where he
reigned supreme, without an apollo
getic hand at his forelock, and had
always passed to the leeward side of
him up on the 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 Mckenzie bay. where other
whalers in similar plight put in for the
winter. Instead of this friendly har-
Dor, she was caught In the pack and
carried, relentlessly, north and west
ward. The milling pressure of great
masses Of Ice 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, so far as they knew, no human
travellers had ever crossed before.
And then in the depth of the arctic
|
Gus, they found land that never had
been charted, and, most marvellous OF
all, a human welcome For here on
the shore were Captain Fielding and
the two other survivors of his i'll
fated expedition.
The fate of the explorers ship had
been, 1t seemed, precisely that of the
Walrus. She had been caught in the
pack, crushed in 1t and carried against
this coast. Before the coming o.
spring, and with 1t the breaking o.
the ice, Fielding and his men had beer
able to carry their stores ashore, ant
Of these. the greater part still re
NAMED
OF the Walrus people, in all, there
were II, and these, with the three
original castaways, settled down t.
the prospect of an indefinite numbe
Of years upon that nameless coast
I'VE can live like Christians" CAP
tain Fielding had said, "and we cal
always hope"
His superior knowledge of arcti
conditions made him, rather than Car
tain Planck, naturally commander O
the little company. He establishe
the regimen of their life, doled ou
. the store from day to day, and, a
| best he could, through that long viii
ter night, provided entertainment fo
the forlorn little group. He told ther
of his explorations on the coast, of tn
lay of the land, Of what they Nigh
hope to see when the sun shoul
come back to them, marking the b,
ginning of another long arctic day.
Among other things, quite casual
he told them of ledge in the hill
across the glacier, which containe,
he believed, the most extraordinar
deposit of gold in the world. So Il
credibly rich was it, that the roc
itself had almost been replaced b
i solid metal. The Alaska gold, he sal
was only the sweepings, in his OPT
i ion, of this immense store.
L At the sound of the word gold" IL
/ eyes of the man named Roscoe hs
/ frightened for the first time SIM
/ they had taken him, shivering fro
/ his long immersion in the cold wate
/ aboard the Walrus. He drew into Il
/ circle that sat about the reading lam
and began asking questions. Gold wi
something he knew about. He hi
mined 1t In Australia, in Californi
and In the Klondike. He question,
Captain Fielding about the exa
whereabouts of the ledge, about Il
/ sort of ore 1t occurred In. and abo
the best means of cutting 1t out.
To some extent his own exciteme
infected the others. Even CAPITA
Planck, whose only well-understo
form of wealth was whale blubber, |
/ gan to take an interest In Rosco,
questions and in the explorers O
4 swers to them.
/ 1t was strange and rather pathet
4 sort of excitement, Captain Fieldi
Il thought. To them. in their practic
4 ly hopeless plight. gold was about