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North-Pole Voyages

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<h2>CHAPTER VI.</h2> <div class='chaptertitle'>THE OPEN SEA.</div> <div class='cap'>MORTON and Hans returned to the brig on the tenth of July, after having been on their separate exploration three weeks and a half. Their story is full of thrilling incidents and important results.</div> The first day they made twenty-eight miles, and were greatly encouraged. The next day the arctic enemies of exploration appeared on the field, skirmishing with deep snow through which dogs and men had to wade. Next came a compact host of icebergs. They were not the surface-worn, dingy-looking specimens of Baffin Bay, but fresh productions from the grand glacier near which they lay. Their color was bluish white, and their outlines clearly and beautifully defined. Some were square, often a quarter of a mile each side. Others were not less than a mile long, and narrow. Now and then one of colossal size lifted its head far above its fellows, like a grand observatory. Between these giant bergs were crowded smaller ones of every imaginable size and form. Through these our explorers had to pick their way. Beginning one night at eight, they dashed along through a narrow lane, turning this way and that, for seven hours. Then they came against[54] the face of a solid ice-cliff, closing the path altogether. Back they urged their weary dogs, and their own weary selves, looking for an opening by which they might turn north, but none appeared until they reached the camp from which they had started. Resting awhile, they commenced anew. Sometimes they climbed over an ice hillock, making a ladder of their sledge. Morton would climb up first, and then draw up the dogs, around whose bodies Hans tied a rope; then the load was passed up; lastly Hans mounted, and drew up the sledge. Having broken through the bergy detachment of their arctic foes and reached smoother ice, other opposing columns met them. Dense mists, giving evidence of open water, chilled and bewildered them; but the welcome birds, giving other proof of the nearness of the Polar Sea, cheered them on. The next attack was in the form of insecure ice. The dogs were dashing on in their wild flight when it began to yield beneath them. The dogs trembled with fear and lay down, as is their habit in such cases. Hans, by a skillful mingling of force and coaxing, succeeding in getting the party out of the danger. At one time a long, wide channel presented its protest to their farther progress. To this they were obliged so far to yield as to go ten miles out of their way to reach its northern side. Their right of way was also challenged by seams in the ice often four feet deep, filled with water,[55] and too wide for their best jumping ability. These they filled up by attacking the nearest hummocks with their axes and tumbling the fragments into it until a bridge was made. This work often caused hours of delay. The signs of open water became more and more apparent. The birds were so plenty that Hans brought down two at one shot. Soon they struck the icy edge of a channel. Along this they coasted on the land side. It brought them to a cape around which the channel run close to a craggy point. Here they deposited a part of their provisions to lighten the sledge. Morton went ahead to learn the condition of the land-ice round the point. He found it narrow and decaying, so that he feared there would be none on their return; yet, forward! was the word. The dogs were unloosed and driven forward alone; then Hans and Morton tilted the sledge edgewise and drew it along, while far below the gurgling waters were rushing southward with a freight of crushed ice. The cape passed, they opened into a bay of clear water extending far and wide. Along its shore was a wide, smooth ice-belt. Over this the dogs scampered with their sledge and men with wonderful fleetness, making sixty miles the first day! The land grew more and more sloping to the bay as they advanced until it opened from the sea into a plain between two elevated rocky ranges. Into this they entered, steering north, until they struck the entrance of a bay; but the rugged ice across their path forbid farther sledge-travel in[56] that direction. So they picketed, securely, as they thought, the dogs, took each a back load of provisions, and went forward. Their trusty rifles were in hand, and their boat-hook and a few scientific instruments were carefully secured to their persons. Thus equipped, they had tramped about nine miles from the last camp when an exciting scene occurred. It was a bear fight, shaded this time with the tender and tragic. A mother-bear and her child came in sight. They were a loving couple, and had plainly been engaged in a frolic together. Their tracks were scattered profusely about, like those of school children at recess in a recent snow. There were also long furrows down the sloping side of an ice-hill, upon and around which the footprints were seen. Morton declared that they had been coasting down this slope on their haunches, and this opinion was supported by the fact that Dr. Kane did, at another time, see bears thus coasting! Five of the dogs had broken away from their cords and had overtaken their masters. So they were on hand for the fight. Mother and child fled with nimble feet, and the dogs followed in hot pursuit. The bear, being overtaken by her enemies, began a most skillful and heroic skirmishing. The cub could not keep up with its mother, so she turned back, put her head under its haunches and threw it some distance ahead, intimating to it to run, while she faced the dogs. But the little simpleton always stopped just where it alighted, and waited for mamma to[57] give it another throw! To vary the mode of operation, she occasionally seized it by the nape of the neck and flung it out of harms way, and then snapped at the dogs with an earnestness that meant business. Sometimes the mother would run a little ahead and then turn, as if to coax the little one to run to her, watching at the same time the enemy. For a while the bear contrived to make good speed; but the little one became tired and she came to a halt. The men came up with their rifles and the fight became unequal, yet the mother's courage was unabated. She sat upon her haunches and took the cub between her hind legs, and fought the dogs with her paws. "Never," says Morton, "was animal more distressed; her roaring could have been heard a mile! She would stretch her neck and snap at the nearest dog with her shining teeth, whirling her paws like the arms of a windmill." Missing her intended victim, she sent after him a terrific growl of baffled rage. When the men came up the little one was so far rested as to nimbly turn with its mother and so keep front of her belly. The dogs, in heartless mockery of her situation, continued a lively frisking on every side of her, torturing her at a safe distance for themselves. Such was the position of the contending parties when Hans threw himself upon the ice, rested upon his elbows, took deliberate aim, and sent a ball through the heroic mother's head. She[58] dropped, rolled over, relieved at once of her agony and her life. The cub sprung upon the dead body of its mother and for the first time showed fight. The dogs, thinking the conflict ended, rushed upon the prostrate foe, tearing away mouthfuls of hair. But they were glad to retreat with whole skins to their own backs. It growled hoarsely, and fought with genuine fury. The dogs were called off, and Hans sent a ball through its head; yet it contrived to rise after falling, and climbed again upon its mother's body. It was mercifully dispatched by another ball. The men took the skin of the mother and the little one for their share of the spoils, and the dogs gorged themselves on the greater carcass. After this incident the journey of our explorers soon ended. Hans gave out, and was ordered to turn leisurely aside and examine the bend of the bay into which they had entered. Morton continued on toward the termination of a cape which rose abruptly two thousand feet. He tried to get round it, but the ice-foot was gone. He climbed up its sides until he reached a position four hundred and forty feet, commanding a horizon of forty miles. The view was grand. The sea seemed almost boundless, and dashed in noisy surges below, while the birds curveted and screamed above. Making a flag-staff of his walking-stick, he threw to the wind a Grinnell flag. It had made the far southern voyage with Commodore Wilkes, and had come on a second arctic voyage. It now floated[59] over the most northern known land of the globe. Feasting his eyes with the scenery for an hour and a half, Morton struck his flag and rejoined Hans. The run home had its perils and narrow escapes, but was made without accident, and with some additional surveys. <hr style="width: 65%;" />[60] <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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