Chapter XXI: Wall of Glass

Rusty was not the only one disturbed by this storm. At the very moment when Johnny was at grips with the Oriental on the ship’s deck, Lawrence, Blackie and George were battling for their very lives.

What had happened? The distance from the trapper’s cabin to shore was, they had discovered, far greater than they had supposed. When at last the fog cleared they found themselves far from any shore on a black and threatening sea.

“Might as well keep headed for the mainland,” was Blackie’s decision.

Head for the mainland they did. After that, for hours, with the storm ever increasing in intensity, they rowed as never before.

The clumsy oars were rough and hard to manage. Lawrence’s hands were soon blistered. Tearing strips from his shirt, he bound them up and rowed on.

Fortune favored them in one thing. They were going with the wind. Had they been forced to face into the storm, their boat would have been swamped at once. As it was, just as darkness began to fall the skiff began to fill.

“Lawrence, you start bailing,” Blackie commanded. “George and I will row.”

“Ya-as, sir, we’ll row. Don’t nebber doubt dat,” George agreed. Then he began to sing,

“Roll, Jordan, roll.
Oh! Oh! Oh! I want to go dere
To hear old Jordan roll.”

Lawrence thought with a shudder that he might be there to hear Jordan roll before day dawned.

By constant bailing he was able to keep the skiff from swamping. So, chilled to the bone, hoping against hope, he labored on.

When at last they found themselves near to some shore, his heart failed him.

“Towering rocks,” he groaned.

“There’s a break in those rocks,” said Blackie. “I saw it before dark. We’ll follow along and here’s hoping.” Once more he put his stout shoulders to the oars.

A half hour passed, an hour, two hours. Numb with cold and ready to drop from exhaustion, Lawrence wondered if Blackie could have been wrong. Was there a break in that wall? And then—he saw it.

“There!” he exclaimed. “There it is. Straight ahead!”

He dared not add that it seemed a strange break. Not very deep, it appeared to give off an odd sort of glimmer at its back.

Just as they were ready to enter the gap, a great cloud went over the moon and all was black.

Steering more from instinct than sight, they rowed on. To Lawrence, at that moment, the suspense was all but overpowering. Where were they going? Could they find a landing? What was the end to be?

One thing was encouraging, the waves in this place were not so wild. They no longer dashed into the boat. So with darkness hanging over them they rowed, for what seemed an endless time, but could have been only a few moments, straight on into the unknown.

And then. “Man! Oh, man! What was that?” The boat had crashed into an invisible wall.

Lawrence put out a hand. “Glass!” he exclaimed. “A wall of glass.”

“Not glass, son,” Blackie’s voice was low. “A wall of ice. The end of a glacier. This is a spot where icebergs break off. If one of them had been jarred loose by the bang of our boat—and if they had been sent tumbling by the sound of a voice—man! Oh, man! We would be lost for good and all.”

“Blackie, look!” Lawrence spoke in a hoarse whisper. “A light.”

“It’s a star,” said Blackie.

“A light,” Lawrence insisted.

“Yas, man! A light,” George agreed.

Just then the moon came out, revealing a sloping mountain side. And, close to a shelving beach was a cabin. The light shone from that cabin.

“Oh! Oh! Lord be praised!” George whispered fervently.

Ten minutes later, as they drew their boat up on the beach, the cabin door was thrown open and a man, holding a candle close to his face, peered into the darkness to call, “You all come right on up, whoever you all are.”

“That,” said Lawrence in a surprised whisper, “is Smokey Joe.”

“Smokey Joe, you old bear-cat!” Blackie shouted.

The grizzled prospector let out a dry cackle. “Come on up an’ rest yerself,” he welcomed. “I got a Mulligan on a-cookin’.”

At first Lawrence found it hard to believe that this was really Smokey Joe. “How,” he asked himself, “could he come all this way?” As he studied a faded map on the deserted cabin’s wall, however, he realized that the distance overland was short compared to the way they had traveled by water.

Joe’s Mulligan stew proved a rich repast. He had killed a young caribou two days before. There had been bacon and hardtack in his kit. Besides these, he had found dried beans and seasoning in the cabin.

“Yep,” he agreed, as Blackie complimented him after the meal was over, “hit’s plum grand livin’ when you sort of git the breaks.

“An’ listen,” his voice dropped. “Hit’s plumb quare how things git to a comin’ yer way. Yesterday I found gold. Struck hit rich, you might say.” From a moose-hide sack he tumbled a handful of nuggets.

“Gold!” Blackie exclaimed.

“Yup. Hit’s might nigh pure gold,” the old man agreed. “Nuther thing that’s plumb quare. Hit’s nigh onto that little blue bear’s den.”

“What?” Lawrence started up. “A blue bear! A—a glacier bear?”

“Reckon you might call ’em that,” the old man agreed.

“He’s been a-stayin’ in a sort of cave up thar fer a right smart spell.”

“How—how far is it?” Lawrence asked almost in a whisper.

“Hit—I reckon hit’s—” the old man studied for a moment. “Why, hit’s right about three peaks, a look an’ a right smart.”

“What does that mean?” Blackie asked in a surprised tone.

“Wall, you jest climb one of them thar least mounting peaks,” the old man explained. “Then another, an’ another.”

“Three peaks,” said Blackie.

“Fer startin’,” said Smokey Joe. “Arter that you take a look an’ hit’s a right smart furder than you can see.”

“Perhaps about ten miles,” suggested Blackie after they had had a good laugh, which Smokey Joe took good-naturedly.

“Near on to that,” the old man agreed.

Long after the old man had rolled himself in his blankets and fallen asleep Lawrence and Blackie sat beside the cracked stove talking.

“Blackie,” Lawrence said in a husky voice, “that little blue bear is worth a lot of money. The Professor told us he’d trade us a tractor for one. They’re rare, about the rarest animals on earth. There’s not one in captivity anywhere.”

“That won’t help much,” Blackie grumbled. “If this wind goes down, we’ve got to get out of here at dawn. Something’s happened to Johnny and MacGregor. We’ve got to look for them.”

“Yes,” Lawrence agreed. “But if the wind doesn’t go down?”

“We’ll have to stay here,” said Blackie. “And,” with a low chuckle, “we might go ‘three peaks, a look and a right smart’ looking for your blue-eyed bear.”