The mystery of the Erik

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I. The Ship .i

II. Bound North.9

Chapter I The Ship

YELLOW taxicab broke from the traffic jam in front of the Pennsylvania Station and

^ dashed with illegal speed towards the first crosstown street.

“East River dock—Twenty-eighth—ten minutes to go!” came a muffled voice from within the cab.

“Sure!” And the driver jammed on his emer¬ gency half a second before a thundering truck cut across his path.

Seven minutes later the taxi swerved into the dock head and rumbled down the uneven planking. A gang of stevedores blocked the way. Beyond them was a tumbled mountain of packing cases, timbers, coils of rope, and other gear. And behind them all lay moored at the end of the dock a small vessel.

The taxi side-stepped, jumped, and honked, and with one last spin of its steering wheel came to a stop opposite the small vessel’s gangway.

“That’s the Erik, ain’t it?” shouted the driver.

For answer the taxicab door sprang open. Out tumbled a bulky roll which might have been a sleep¬ ing bag, followed by a series of valises and parcels like so many oversized footballs. At the end emerged a stocky red-haired figure, hatless and unmistakably agitated.

“How much?” he asked the driver.

“Five bones,” came the prompt answer.

The stocky young man drew himself up. His haste and agitation curiously disappeared. His flushed cheeks became a deep red. His already chunky hands that had been groups of nervous fingers rolled into solid fists, the bulk of a pair of large Irish potatoes.

“Not on your life!” he said slowly.

The driver opened his mouth but he did not speak. The irate lad before him was but a boy. And yet there was the determination and courage of a man in the narrowed blue eyes, the out-thrust chin, the close-shut mouth.

One fist uncurled and dipped into a side pocket.

“Here’s a dollar; and thanks for the speed,” said the young man quietly. The bluff worked perfectly.

At this moment a kind of booming cough sounded from the ship’s rail. It appeared to come out of the throat of a massive white-whiskered man. The cough broke off into speech:

THE SHIP

“Well, you made it I see.”

“Certainly did, Captain Pike. Chicago train was late and I thought I’d miss the ship.”

“You’re not the missing kind, my lad!” And again the Captain broke into his booming cough which was in reality a laugh hoarsened by forty-odd years of North Atlantic gales and choking fog.

Captain Pike was right. Ruddock Winters— commonly known as “Red,” “Wintry,” or “Rudd”— was the sort that made a habit of seizing every real opportunity that came his way. Though born and brought up in Chicago, he had already made the acquaintance of men and cities from New York to San Francisco.

A certain Uncle Jim Culver had been largely responsible for Rudd’s success. While visiting the boy’s father some years before, he had jokingly asked:

“Rudd, how would you like me to send you to college?”

At which Rudd had without hesitation jammed on his cap, given his dog’s right ear a farewell pull, and replied:

“We’ve just got time to catch the noon train.”

“For where?” gasped the astonished Uncle.

“East,” was the laconic answer.

“Well, I’ll be eternally jiggered!”

But Rudd went and Uncle Jim footed the bill. 3

And likewise, at the end of his Junior year, Rudd went east again on Uncle Jim. Only this time he had been forced to argue not only the generous uncle, but his whole family, into approval of his scheme.

A government expedition had been organized to investigate the Northwest Passage; that is to say, the water route around the north end of North America. Captain Roald Amundsen, the famous Norwegian discoverer of the South Pole, had forced his little ship, the Gjoa, through this Passage some twenty years before. Since that time America had accumulated a vast merchant marine with a great number of vessels plying between the Atlantic and the Pacific coasts. The Panama Canal made the trip thousands of miles shorter than the old way around Cape Horn. But even now there was such a jam of business in the Canal, and both Seattle and the swiftly growing Alaskan cities demanded such vast quantities of freight, that a short cut around the upper fringe of the continent would mean millions of dollars saved.

Rudd had read of the expedition in the papers. Its prospects of exploring new land and uncharted seas had fired him with a desire to try his hand at explora¬ tion. A request to Washington brought only the discouraging reply that he was too young for the work. Though the plans included but a three months’ stay in arctic regions, ice and foul weather might 4

Rudd's Track Chart to Point of Mutiny and Over Route

of Escape.

force the ship to winter north, in which case only the most rugged men could endure the hardship and privation.

“Goodness knows, I’m strong enough,” Rudd had wailed at the ever willing Uncle. “And it’s a chance I’ll never have again!”

So Uncle Jim had sent him to his old friend Cap¬ tain Pike, skipper of the Erik, which had been chartered for the expedition. And Captain Pike, recognizing the value of Rudd’s type, had in turn recommended him to Dr. Barlow, who was in charge of the scientific party. The upshot was a telegram Rudd had received from the Doctor just forty-eight hours before:

Will you accept position as my assistant? Erik sails Friday, June twenty. Wire reply.

In exactly one hour Rudd had thrown what camp¬ ing gear he owned into several bags, dashed to the station and caught the fastest express for New York. He could not sleep for excitement, but lay tossing the whole night in a stuffy berth thinking of polar bears and Eskimos, dogs and walruses, and all the other arctic thrills he long had dreamed about.

And now his dream was at last to come true!

While Captain Pike sent a seaman for the bags Rudd glanced over the vessel that was to be his home for the summer. She was a stumpy, high-bowed 6

THE SHIP steamer with one smoke pipe and two masts. The rigging of these masts was unusually heavy for a vessel of her size, and just above the crosstress of each was secured a barrel.

“What’s the idea of the barrels ?” Rudd asked the seaman.

The man laid down the small trunk he had just hoisted to his shoulder and looked curiously at Rudd.

“Ain’t ye never been north afore, sir?” he asked.

His speech and tone were those of a “down easter” as the Grand Bank fishermen call people who live along the coast above Maine.

“Once to Halifax,” asserted Rudd.

The seaman shook his head. “They ain’t no ice there, sir. Them barrels is for our lookouts when we’re in the ice pack.” He lifted his hand vaguely.

“Great masses an’ mountains of ice big as-” he

hesitated, “big as ’em!” He pointed to the great office buildings towering along the New York sky line.

“Gosh!” ejaculated Rudd.

“Yessir. And they ain’t no way for a little ship like this to get through the floes except as how the lookout tells our helmsman to steer her. And some¬ times-” he shook his head and stopped.

“And sometimes what?” asked Rudd after waiting a moment for the man to go on.

He stepped closer and put his mouth to Rudd’s ear. “And sometimes they get crushed!” he whis¬ pered.

Some invisible thing gripped strangely at Rudd’s heart. It wasn’t fear. It was more a sudden, serious understanding of the perils he would meet on this voyage. He glanced at the blunt bow of the Erik, at her staunch and heavy-timbered sides, her powerful masts. She was a bulldog, a fighter, with¬ out a doubt.

“And yet—” muttered Rudd. There came to him memories of terrible arctic disasters he had read about: Sir John Franklin, the great Englishman, his ships smashed to kindling by gigantic icebergs, his crews starving and dying, never seen again alive.

The seaman’s whispered words rang true:

“And sometimes they get crushed!”

Chapter II

D R. BARLOW bustled aboard before Rudd had a chance to go below. He was a tall spare man with a huge nose and a wrinkled leathery skin. All his life he had been leading expe¬ ditions to queer parts of the world, and so combined the scholarly bearing of a scientist with the rugged and weathered physique of a mariner.

“Hello, Rudd!” he greeted the boy familiarly. “Looks a mess, doesn’t it? But we’ll get away this afternoon.”

He waved his hand at the littered deck. In fact, very little deck was visible for the great collection of supplies and equipment that were rapidly being swung aboard by the donkey engine.

“Ten thousand pounds of food along,” laughed the Doctor. “Might have to winter in Coronation Gulf if we get stuck. And there’s that mass of magnetic instruments which are heavier than they look. By the way, I haven’t had a chance to find out whether you can do ordinary chart work. Can you ?” “Had a six months’ course of it with my trigo- 9 nometry,” Rudd replied. “But I’m not much on the drawing end.”

“Oh, that will all be done in Washington.” Dr. Barlow came a little closer to Rudd and lowered his tone. “You see our real task is to collect information. Our figures are worked up by specialists after we return. And while the territory through which we shall pass is part of the Canadian domain, we have agreed to keep quiet on any commercial discoveries we may make.”

“You mean there may be gold or-”

“See those timbers,” Dr. Barlow rudely inter¬ rupted. “We shall make sledges from them in case we winter.”

Rudd was startled at this sudden change of tone and subject until he looked up and saw a third man had joined them.

“Ah,” said the Doctor, as if he had just noticed the newcomer, “Rudd, I want you to know our First Officer, Mr. Menon.”

Never before had Rudd looked into such a face as he saw confronting him. The man himself was of average size and build. His clothing was the rough blue of a down-east merchant sailor. In fact, there was nothing to make one look twice at him until his face was noted. It was the darkest, ugliest, most evil-featured countenance Rudd had ever seen on a man. His nose and chin were large and coarse.

io

His eyes were black points half hidden by great bushy brows. And the broad, loose slit of his mouth was circled by a long, thin mustache that drooped below his chin on either side and might have been made of horsehair so wiry was it.

“How do you do, Mr. Winters?” said the officer with a bow and ostentatious courtesy which made Rudd suspicious at once.

After he had gone Dr. Barlow again spoke in a low voice.

“Don’t ask me why we have such a man aboard, Rudd, because I can’t answer the question. After the Erik arrived here, Dinger Brothers, from whom we had chartered her, wired that the regular First Officer would be replaced by Mr. Menon. When I saw him I objected strenuously. But Dinger Brothers insisted; and as it was too late to get an¬ other vessel I had to accept him. Between you and me we’re going to have trouble with the scoundrel before this cruise is over. The worst of it is the men seem to like him.”

Here Captain Pike stepped up and announced that all would be ready to cast off at noon.

“Will the tide be right ?” queried the Doctor.

“There, there,” boomed the old Skipper with a twinkle in his eye. “Now just you let little things like tides and currents alone on this trip. From the amount of instruments and gilguys and gadgets I’ve ii seen come aboard my ship, I think you’ll have your hands full of science without bothering with how we go or when.”

“That’s right, Pike,” agreed the Doctor. “After that last trip along the Labrador, I’m willing to take your word about anything but weather.” And turn¬ ing to Rudd he added: “The old imbecile doesn’t think it’s blowing hard till the bower anchor has to be used to hold the helmsman to his wheel!”

“Now, Doctor, you’ve never seen any real wind,” said the Skipper, raising a thick finger for emphasis. “Why, I can remember the time it blew so hard it took ten men to hold a sheepskin over a gimlet hole!”

“Yes, and you also told me about that rain you had off Newfoundland. Let’s see, there was a barrel lying on its side by the bridge; and it didn’t have any top or bottom in it; and the rain came in faster through the bunghole than it could run out the ends! Wasn’t that it, you old liar?”

The Captain went off shaking and booming and coughing until Rudd thought he would explode.

“That’s exactly the kind of man for a trip like this,” said the Doctor. “Always in good humor; afraid of nothing under heaven; and with a physical strength and courage that breeds a truly respectful fear in the men under him.”

Just as the city whistles were blowing for noon all lines were cast off, the Erik stood out under her own steam, and headed up towards Hell Gate.

It was a great moment for Rudd. When would he see his native land again? How would he bear the trials of such a voyage? Where would luxury and comfort next meet him after the confining months aboard the cramped little ship?

These thoughts but flashed across his mind when there came the joyful realization that he was off— off for foreign lands and strange peoples! He took a deep breath of salt air and turned to find some one with whom he could share his great happiness.

He found himself staring into the hideous face of Mr. Menon.

“Very nice to be away, eh?” said the officer, with the same affected politeness that had proved so dis¬ tasteful to Rudd on their first meeting. “Do you expect soon to come back here?”

Rudd hesitated. He didn’t wish to talk to the man he so instinctively hated. Yet if he were to enjoy the voyage he, like Dr. Barlow, would cer¬ tainly have to be civil to him.

“Why, yes,” said Rudd slowly. “Yes, of course. I have to be back for my senior year at college next fall.”

“Well, my dear young man, I trust that if you don’t get home for a year or so it won’t make any too great difference.”

For a moment Mr. Menon leered at Rudd’s amazed look and then turned away.

“What on earth does the ape mean?” Rudd asked himself. “We shan’t winter north unless we are forced to. Yet he seems to take trouble for granted.”

His first impulse was to tell Dr. Barlow what he had heard. But on second thought he concluded to find out more if possible before adding to the leader’s burdens.

The ship touched at Boston long enough to pick up Professor Deal and a young sport named Caverly. The former was to collect arctic plants and animals for the University Museum, and the latter was simply a passenger. His father, the wealthy head of Caverly & Company, famous importers, had con¬ tributed to the expedition with the understanding that his son might become a member with no particu¬ lar duties. Thus young Caverly might have the benefit of a rough trip and at the same time collect valuable information for his father on the fur situation north of Hudson Bay.

As regards the rough trip part of it, Reginald Caverly certainly needed some such treatment. His principal luggage consisted of tinned sweets and cigarettes. His principal idea consisted of more or less contempt for his fellow men. And his chief and only ambition was to convince every one that he 14 was the cleverest and most original young man in the world.

There were now in the cabin mess Captain Pike, Dr. Barlow, Rudd, Mr. Menon, Professor Deal, and Reginald Caverly. The Second Officer, a young Canadian named Norman, and the old Scotch Chief Engineer ate at such such irregular times that Rudd saw little of them the first few days out.

The last days in June, coal was taken aboard at Sydney, Nova Scotia, and by the morning of July 2 the Erik was well on her way across the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

Rudd had come on deck for a look about before breakfast. He was still full of the excitement of leaving civilization behind him and yet he had been a little out of luck in the way of companionship. The ship officers had been so busy getting cargo stowed below and the two scientists so engrossed with their plans that Rudd was left much to his own devices. Caverly, of course, was nearly his own age. But that unfortunate young man had been deathly sea¬ sick ever since the ship sailed, thereby causing him much personal humiliation.

Rudd found the ship surrounded by a murky fog. At regular intervals the whistle gave a long groan of warning for any ship that might be in the neighbor¬ hood to look out. Shrouds dripped and the black smoke rolled overboard, laying a dirty blanket astern.

He found the bridge was deserted except for helmsman and one officer. The latter stood close to the wheel conversing in low tones with the slickered seaman. As Rudd arrived just as the whistle gave a blast, his presence was not noticed.

“It won’t do down here,” he heard the officer say. It was Mr. Menon’s harsh voice!

“But ain’t it dangerous to wait till we get her north?” replied the helmsman.

“Not for us who have had sledging experience. And there are Eskimos at Pons Inlet that would look out for us during the winter.”

The helmsman shook his head. “I ain’t strong for takin’ chances, I ain’t. But I guess a man’d do most anything for the price you offer.”

“Sure,” said Menon, “and haven’t I made the deposit you asked for at Sydney? How about the others?”

“Well, there are six out of the seventeen forrud that you can count on. Maybe more later on when Johnson and I have had a chance to talk with them. Aft you know better than I.”

Menon shrugged his shoulders. “They’re easy enough. Why-”

At that moment he spied Rudd, and nudged the seaman.

“Good morning, Mr. Winters,” he said. “We’ve just been discussing a little entertainment we might 16 give aboard when the ship gets north—sort of sailor’s minstrel, you might say.”

Out of the corner of his eye Rudd saw the officer step meaningly on the helmsman’s foot. He walked to the end of the bridge without answering their weak attempt to deceive him. Then, realizing the danger of letting Menon know how suspicious he was over what he had just heard, he returned and remarked: “Good idea, Mr. Menon. We need something to cheer us up in weather like this.”

Rudd meant to go to Dr. Barlow that very morn¬ ing and broach the subject of his anxiety about the First Officer’s nefarious plans—whatever they might be. But one thing after another prevented. Then, in the late afternoon, after Belle Isle Straits had been passed, the wind freshened and any sort of undis¬ turbed conversation was impossible.

“Little breeze to-night, eh?” remarked Captain Pike, after the Chief Engineer had invited him up to have a look at the sky.

“Yes, sir, and I’m thinking we might lash that lumber on the skids so my smoke pipe guys won’t loosen up when the rub comes.”

“Right!” agreed the Skipper. “Here, Boatswain, rig for heavy weather.”

These preparations were none too soon. The Erik was out in the broad Atlantic north of Newfound¬ land. The whole three-thousand-mile sweep of open 1 7 sea from Baffin Bay down was a breeding place for gales. Now heavy gusts came out of the northwest and sheets of spray laced up over the bulwarks at every dip of the bow.

By supper time a full gale was blowing. Great combing seas reared mast-high on either hand. The inky water was streaked with froth or riddled by cutting streams of brine shot across it by the terrific wind.

Captain Pike’s great hulking figure clung to the bridge rail. “Stand by your sea anchor!” he bawled.

With painful slowness his men struggled on deck below him. An old sail was broken out of its locker and dragged forward. Two spare whaleboat spars and several two-by-fours were finally lashed together to make what looked like a rough dip net. From the net’s corners led a bridle of stout lines joined by a metal ring to a heavy hawser, which in turn was let up through the starboard hawser-pipe.

“Heave her!” roared the Skipper. But his voice was swept away in the storm. Only the signal of his raised arm indicated that all was ready for casting the sea anchor overboard.

“Down helm!” he commanded, and the laboring vessel swung slowly into the teeth of the gale.

Ten minutes later the Erik rode safely nose to wind. The mass of water-logged canvas and spars to which she was fast acted as a floating anchor— 18 whence its name—and kept her from falling off into the trough of the sea and being capsized.

As Rudd left the bridge for some dry clothes he was filled to bursting with admiration for the skill and hardihood of all seamen, Captain Pike in par¬ ticular. But just as he entered the after hatch his glow of pleasure was cooled by sight of Mr. Menon’s friend and accomplice—the helmsman of the previous watch. And he would have been still further dis¬ couraged had he heard the man say to another sailor:

“I tell you I don’t like it. If she’s what the Boss says there sure ain’t no safety in this kind of weather!”

Chapter III Ice!

HE seaman’s misgivings as well as Rudd’s luckily proved ill-founded. The stout little

Erik rode out the gale as if she had been a fat-sided duck. Three days the wind roared through the shrouds and the seas flung by in whitecrested ranks. But the decks were scarcely wet.

On the fourth morning the wind hauled aft. The sea anchor was cut adrift and canvas spread on both masts. With a full head of steam on the engines, the Erik boiled northward at a good fifteen knots.

“I thought we’d see some ice along here,” Rudd remarked to Dr. Barlow.

“Patience, old scout,” smiled the leader. “You’ll see a-plenty when the time comes. As a matter of fact that blow took us a little outside the southerly stream that flows down from Baffin Bay. In it are the thousands of great icebergs which are born yearly from the Greenland glaciers. One of them sank the Titanic a few years ago. No, there’s no ice near yet.”

Rudd wasn’t sure how the Doctor could be so positive until a few days later when he awakened

ICE!

from a sound sleep with the feeling that something must be wrong with the ship. For a minute he laystill wondering what could bring such a queer sensa¬ tion of danger. All was quiet. There was no sound of any sort of commotion overhead. Unable to stand his anxiety Rudd threw on his trousers and leather coat. On deck he suddenly realized what was wrong. After ten days of tossing the vessel was absolutely level in the water. And though the throbbing engines told him she was under way, there was no movement of the steady deck to indicate she was even afloat. It was as if he had in some miracu¬ lous way been transferred to the tranquil hold of a Mississippi River steamboat.

On topside there was still no explanation of the mystery. Due to the northern latitude, daylight now lasted all night; even midnight being bright enough to read a newspaper. The fog common to northern regions still clung to the sea’s surface which was flat and glassy.

“Can we have entered some inland water?” thought Rudd, and made his way hastily to the bridge. Scarcely had he reached the head of the ladder when a long cry came from the barrel in the foremast. It was the lookout.

“Hard a-sta-a-a-r-board, sir!”

The words brought a quiver to Rudd’s back.

Something was happening. He still didn't know exactly what.

The wheel spun round and the Erik's nose fell off so rapidly she seemed to spin on her heel.

A sudden chattering sound broke from the smoky mist ahead. It was as if a thousand seabirds were twittering to one another.

“Full speed astern!" barked Norman, who had the deck.

A quartermaster swung the engine-room telegraph back with a vicious jerk that threatened to pull the mechanism out by its roots.

Then Rudd got the thrill of his life. For a sec¬ ond he thought an ocean liner was bearing down upon them. But instantly he realized no vessel was to be met in these deserted waters. Already the Erik was a thousand miles north of the trade lanes. A gray mountain loomed dead ahead. Its size was so colossal that the ship seemed to have slid into the gloom of a land-locked harbor.

Such is the gigantic stature of an iceberg.

“Give her all you’ve got!" bawled Norman down the voice tube.

He was not a moment too soon. Scarcely had his maneuver carried the Erik clear and given her a comfortable sternboard when a rumble like that of April thunder arose from the berg. A series of fearful crashes followed. It was as if some sea

ICE!

monster had broken loose and in his rage was throw¬ ing boulders big as houses about in the sea. Swirling water frothed past the ship and strange choppy waves rocked her jerkily.

Rudd stood petrified at the phenomenon. A voice at his elbow startled him out of his trance.

“Pleasant navigation, what?” It was Dr. Barlow grinning broadly. “Nice little surprise for break¬ fast, I call it, to have a million-ton iceberg crop up right in the course we’re trying to steer I”

“Well—I—guess—yes!” stammered Rudd.

“Notice the difference in the sea?” asked the Doctor.

“No roll, you mean? What’s the trouble?”

“I’d hardly call it trouble. Pretty nice after that storm, I think. Means ice. Soon as a flat calm comes we know there’s ice ahead. Ice kills even the ground swell. Trash ice, small broken pieces that is, are about all we find along here. Trash ice and bergs. That fellow we nearly rammed must be on the edge of the field.”

“Guess we’d have stove the whole bow in if we’d hit it,” ventured Rudd.

“No, the danger is not so much that of collision. Our bow is ten feet of solid oak. And the timbers running aft are double-braced for fifty feet. Peril lies chiefly in the calving. ‘Calving’ is the arctic term for breaking off of huge masses of ice from a glacier or iceberg. Both become rotten in the summer warmth and the slightest shake will snap off lumps as big as apartment houses. All that noise you heard was the calving caused by the slight ripple we made on our approach. And the subsequent row was the capsizing of the berg itself.”

“You mean it turned over?”

“Yes. Ice is so nearly the same density as water that seven-eighths of it floats beneath the surface. That mountain we saw through the mist was only a fraction of the whole. And when large hunks came off, its balance was disturbed sufficiently to cause the entire iceberg to topple over and float in a new position.”

While Dr. Barlow was speaking a rift of sun¬ light cut through the fog. Several puffs of air rip¬ pled the water, then freshened to a breeze; and in the space of seconds, as if by an invisible hand, the heavy vapor blanket was drawn from the sea’s sur¬ face.

“Oh-h!” gasped Rudd.

Spread before his eyes lay an endless expanse of sparkling blue water dotted by a myriad of pure white ice floes. Near at hand, in isolated grandeur, floated the great berg that had so nearly annihilated the Erik. Here and there through the field floated other bergs. And from it all came the unending chattering noises that had so mystified Rudd, noises 24

ICE!

caused by little waves splashing under the shelves they cut in the fragile edges of each ice cake.

“Summer slush,” explained Dr. Barlow. “The solid fields that jam the upper end of Baffin Bay break out with the tide each summer and drift south¬ ward until they gradually go to pieces in the warm edge of the Gulf Stream off Newfoundland.”

Already the ship had begun to crunch through the cakes, her way perceptibly slowed.

“Won’t it cut a hole in our side?” asked Rudd anxiously.

“Not by a jugful! Double sheathing we’ve got, with a metal plating over that to stand for just such scraping as this.”

While Rudd continued to marvel at the brilliant scene he noticed emerge from the cabin hatch a staggering figure he recognized as Caverly. Poor fellow! He at least could begin to enjoy some of the voyage now that his seasickness had disappeared. In friendly spirit Rudd stepped down to greet him.

“Great stuff!” he exclaimed, nodding towards the berg astern.

Caverly stared coldly at his shipmate without so much as glancing at the berg.

“Nearly rammed it, you know,” continued Rudd, a little embarrassed by the other’s rudeness.

“Really?” said the green-faced Caverly. “Humph!”