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Blue Envelope

<h2 id="id00883" style="margin-top: 4em">CHAPTER XII</h2> <h5 id="id00884">"WHAT IS THAT?"</h5> When the man had gone, Phi sat down upon an up-ended ice-cake to rest and think. His logical course was evident enough; to wait for perhaps half an hour, allowing the man, who would doubtless be able to overtake his guide, to get a sufficient distance ahead to prevent any further unpleasant encounters. Still, he was glad now to have his rifle, small as it was. He had brought only a few cartridges for it, as they were an added weight. These had been spilled from his pocket in the scuffle, but by a diligent search he was able to find five. He was about to abandon the search when, with an exclamation of astonishment, he sprang forward, and bending, picked up an envelope. "The blue envelope," he exclaimed. "My blue envelope. He must be the bearded miner the girls told me about. It was lucky he tried to assassinate me after all." The envelope had been torn open, but the letter, though blurred with grime and dirt, was still in it. With eager fingers he pulled it out. "Couldn't read our cipher, so he was going to Nome for help, I reckon," he muttered. "All I've got to say is, it's lucky he lost it and I found it." He read the missive hastily, then a light of hope shone in his eye. "If only I can make it back to the American shore," he exulted. "Rover, old boy, get back on your job. We're going to the islands." Hopefully he hurried forward. But they had tarried too long, for, not a hundred rods from their starting point, they came upon a broad, dark break in the floe, such a break as no draw-bridge of ice would ever span. "And, like the other, it's endless," Phi groaned as his eye swept the line from left to right and from right to left again; then he sat down to think. A half hour before this Lucile had said to Marian: "Listen, I think I hear a dog bark." They listened and the bark came to them very distinctly. "Is it Rover, or does it come from the island?" asked Lucile. "I can't tell," whispered Marian. For some time they listened. When at last they prepared to resume their journey, Lucile glanced upward again. Then a cry of consternation escaped her lips; the fog had thickened; the stars were lost to them. They were again adrift on the trackless floe without compass or guide. At the moment when Phi sat down to think, they were just coming in sight of that same break in the floe, on the side of which he sat. They were not a mile apart, but the distance had as well been a hundred miles as, in this labyrinth of ice-floes, no person finds another, and, as it turned out later, Phi took the trail to the left and they the one to the right. Why the two girls chose to travel to the right along the break, they could not have told, nor why they traveled at all, unless because motion quieted their nerves and served to allay their fears. Perhaps there was something of Providence in it. Certainly it did bring them a bit of good fortune. Lucile had rounded a gigantic ice-pile when suddenly she gripped Marian's arm. "What's this?" she exclaimed. A brown object lay some distance ahead of them. With bated breaths they crept cautiously forward; it might be a white bear or walrus. Suddenly Marian threw up her head and laughed. "It's only a kiak. Some Eskimo has left it on the ice and the floe has carried it away." "May be a valuable find. Let's hurry," exclaimed Lucile. Breaking into a run, they soon reached its side. "Let's explore it!" whispered Marian. "You take the forecastle and I'll take the after-cabin," she laughed, as she thrust her arm into the open space toward the stern of the kiak. "Why, there is something there!" she exclaimed. "Something here, too!" answered Lucile excitedly, as her slender white hand tugged away at a bundle which had been thrust into the prow of the boat. "It's like going through your stocking Christmas morning!" laughed Marian, for the moment quite forgetting their dilemma in the excitement of discovery. Marian drew forth a large sealskin sack. It was heavy and was tied tightly at the mouth. It gave forth a strange plop as she turned it over. "Some sort of liquid," she announced. "Probably seal-oil." With difficulty she untied the strings and opened the sack. Then quickly she pinched her nose. "Whew! What a smell!" "Let's see," said Lucile, dropping the bundle she had just dragged forth. "Yes, it's seal-oil. That's a good find." "Why? We can't use that stuff. It must be at least a year old and rotten. Talk about limburger cheese! Whew!" She quickly tied the sack up again. "Well," said Lucile, "we probably won't want to use it for food, but white people as fine-blooded as we have been compelled to. It's better than starving. But I was thinking about a fire. If we ever find any fuel where we're going—wherever that is—" she smiled a trifle uncertainly, "we'll need some oil to help start the fire if the fuel is damp, as most driftwood is." "Driftwood? When do we go ashore?" laughed Marian. "It's well to be prepared for anything," smiled Lucile. "Let's see what's in my prize package." Marian leaned forward eagerly while Lucile untied a leather thong. "Deerskins!" she cried exultantly. "Four of them! Enough for a sleeping-bag! And wrapped in a sealskin square which will protect us from the damp. I believe," she said thoughtfully, "that this native must have been planning a little trip up the coast, and if he was there must be other useful things in our ark, for an Eskimo never ventures far without being prepared for every emergency." Once more they bent over the kiak, each one to search her corner. "Another sack!" cried Lucile; "a hunting sack, with matches wrapped in oiled sealskin, a butcher knife, some skin-rope, a pair of boola balls with the strings, a fish line with hook and sinker; two big needles stuck in a bit of canvas. That's about all, but it's a lot." "I've found a little circular wooden box," said Marian. "More food, I guess; probably the kind you can't eat without gagging. No," she cried, after a moment, "here's a big square of tea—the Russian kind, all pressed hard into a brick. There's enough for a dozen tea parties. Oh, joy! here are three pilot biscuits!" "Pilot biscuits!" Lucile danced about on the ice. These large brown disks of hardtack, so often despised, would not have been half so welcome had they been solid gold. "Well, I guess that's about all," but Marian smiled. "I'm hungry already, but we daren't eat anything yet. We'll save these and eat the deer meat first that we brought along." "We'll be pretty awful hungry, I am afraid," said Lucile, "before we leave the ocean. But what worries me just now is a drink. Do you suppose we could find an ice-pool of fresh water?" A short search found them the desired pool, and each drank to her heart's content. They then sat down upon the top of the kiak for a brief consultation. After talking matters over they decided that the best thing they could do was to remain by the kiak until the fog cleared. It was true that the kiak, carefully managed, would carry them across the break in the floe, but, once across, they would be no better off than before, since they had no way of determining directions. Furthermore, neither of them had ever handled a kiak and they knew all too well what a spill meant in that stinging water. "Guess we'd better stick right here," said Marian, and Lucile agreed. "Now," suggested Lucile, "we'll put your middy on a paddle and set it up as a sign of distress; then, since the ice isn't piling, I think we might both sleep a little while." The flag was soon hoisted, and the girls, with the sealskin square beneath them, lay down under the deerskins and attempted to sleep. But the deerskins were not large enough to cover them, and kept sliding off. They were chilled through and sleep was impossible. "Lucile," said Marian at last, "I believe we could set the kiak up and bank it solidly into place, then creep into it and sleep there." "We might," said Lucile doubtfully. The kiak was soon set, and, after many doublings and twistings, with much laughter they managed to slide down into it, and there, with two of the deerskins for a mattress and two for covers, they at last fell asleep in one another's arms, as peacefully as children in a trundle-bed. "Oh, Marian, you're too—too chubby!" Lucile laughed, as she attempted to struggle from the bean-pod-like bed, after they had slept for some time. Their first glance at the break in the floe told them it had widened rather than narrowed. A look skyward showed them that the fog too had thickened. Lucile's brow wrinkled; her eyes were downcast. "Cheer up!" said Marian. "You can never tell what will happen. Things change rapidly in this Arctic world. We'd better explore our ice-floe, hadn't we? And don't you think we could eat a bit before we go?" Cheered by the very thought of something to be done, Lucile munched her half of the pilot biscuit and bit of reindeer meat contentedly. Then, after they had seen to it that their white middy flag was properly fastened, for this must act as a guide back to camp, they prepared to go exploring. Armed with the butcher knife, Lucile led the way. Marian carried the fishing tackle, and about her waist were wound the strings of the boola ball. "Quite some hunters," laughed Marian. "Regular Robinson Crusoettes!" Several wide circles of the camp revealed nothing but ice, the whiteness of which was relieved here and there by spots of water, black as night. "Might be fish in them," suggested Marian. "Yes, but you couldn't catch them. You can only catch tomcod through a hole in the ice." They were becoming tired, and had spoken of turning back, when Marian whispered: "Down!" She pulled her companion into the dark side of an ice-pile. A shadow had passed over the ice. Now it passed again, and Lucile, looking up, saw a small flock of ducks circling for a pool of water not twenty yards away. "Wha—what's the idea?" she whispered. "Boola balls. Maybe we can catch one. They come from the north; not easily scared." "Can you—" "Yes, my brother showed me how to handle the boola balls. You whirl them about your head a few times, then you let them go. If the string strikes a duck's neck, it winds all about it; then the duck can't fly." With eager fingers Marian straightened out the twelve feet of double-strand leather thong. "There! There! They're down!" whispered Lucile. "You stay here. If they rise and fly away, call me." Creeping around two piles of ice, Marian threw herself flat and began to crawl the remaining distance across a flat pan of ice. Her heart was beating wildly, for in her veins there flowed a strain of the hunter's blood of her Briton ancestors of many generations back. Now she was forty feet away, now twenty, now ten, and the ducks had not flown. Stretching out the thong, she rose on an elbow and set the balls whirling over her head. Once, twice, three times, then up she sprang and with one more whirl sent the string singing through the air. The young ducks, craning their necks with curiosity, did not move until something came crashing at them, and a wildly frantic girl sprang toward them. To the duck about whose neck the string had encircled, this move was too late, for Marian was upon him. And a moment later, looking very much like the old woman who went to market, with a dead gray duck dangling from her right arm, Marian returned in triumph. "Oh, Lucile," she cried, "I got him! I got him!" "Fine! You shall have a medal," said Lucile. "But how will we cook him?" "Well," said Lucile, after a moment's thought, "it's growing colder; going to freeze hard. They say freezing meat is almost as good as cooking it. I don't know—" "Look!" cried Marian suddenly, balancing herself at the crest of a high pile of ice. "What's all that black a little way over there to the left? It's not like ice. Do you suppose it could be an island?" "Is the ice piling there?" Lucile asked, clinging to her friend's side. "No, it isn't, so it can't be an island, for the island would stop the ice as it flows and make it pile up." "But what can it be?" "We can't go over there, for we can't see our flag from there." "Yes, we can," said Marian. "I'll take off my petticoat and put it on this ice-pile. We can see it from there, and when we get back here we can see the flag." This new beacon was soon established. Then, with trembling and eager footsteps, the girls hastened to what appeared to be an oasis in a desert of ice. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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