Okolona messenger. (Okolona, Miss.) 1900-current, 1911-04-13

Der OF the crew. VI course II 9
had any reason to act contrary, we'd
have done so. And that's why 1t
seemed to us-to me, l 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" strobe on with undated
pace, as II 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
If 1t had been only what he had ex-
pected, but he sighed regretfully. He
had once known, and it 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
getio 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 anC
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, bereft of hope, and half mutin
Gus, they found a land that never hat
been charted, and, most marvellous o
all, a human welcome. For here OF
the shore were Captain Fielding AM
the two other survivors Of his Ill
fated expedition.
The fate Of the explorers ship ha,
been, 1t seemed, precisely that of tn
Walrus. She had been caught in tn
pack, crushed in 1t and carried agains
this coast. Before the coming Q
spring, and with it the breaking q
the ice, Fielding and his men had bee
able to carry their stores ashore, an
Of these, the greater part still re
manned.
OF the Walrus people, in all, Their
were II, and these, with the tire
original castaways, settled down t
the prospect Of an indefinite numbe
Of years upon that nameless coas
I'VE can live like Christians" Cal
tain Fielding had said, "and we ca
always hope"
His superior knowledge Of arcti
conditions made him, rather than Cal
tain Planck, naturally commander {
the little company. He e~stabflshe
the regimen Of their life, doled OF
the store from day to day, and,
best he could, through that long Wi
l ter night, provided entertainment fl
, the forlorn little group. He told the,
of his explorations on the coast, of II
lay Of the land, of what they migl
hope to see when the sun shou
come back to them, marking the b
ginning Of another long arctic day.
Among other things, quite casual
he told them Of a ledge in the hill
across the glacier, which containe
he believed, the most extraordinaI
deposit of gold in the world. So /
credibly rich was it, that the roo
itself had almost been replaced
solid metal. The Alaska gold, he sal
was only the sweepings, In his OPT
ion, of this immense store.
At the sound Of the word gold" Il
eyes of the man named Roscoe h
frightened for the first time sin
they had taken him, shivering fro
his long immersion in the cold watt
aboard the Walrus. He drew into t
circle that sat about the reading Ian
and began asking questions. Gold W
something he knew about. He h
mined it in Australia, in Californ
and in the Klondike. He question
Captain Fielding about the exa
whereabouts Of the ledge, about t
sort Of ore 1t occurred in, and abe
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
swers to them.
1t was a strange and rather pathe
sort Of excitement, Captain Field
thought. To them, in their practiC
ly hopeless plight, gold was about
least useful thing they could find;
hard enough to tip lances or AFRO
with, too heavy and too easily mel
for domestic purposes. However,
gave them snmething to think abe