Moving Mountains

By Walter L. Bailey

(Previous chapter)

Chapter Four — Into the Unknown

THE STORY THUS FAR: Spike Ambry, engineer of the freighter “Banaza,” with Bob Hamond and Dan Bolin, assistant engineers, was stranded in the Arctic region, their engine dead and their crew having deserted them in the only life boat when the cry went up that there were icebergs ahead. The three gathered provisions, guns, and clothing, pitched them to the icy shelf of an iceberg, and made their leap onto it. They saw the “Banaza” caught between two mountains of ice and crushed with the radio’s dying voice floating out to them: “Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world!” Finding a cave on the iceberg, Bob, Dan, and Spike hastily rigged up a kind of camp. Bob and Dan, after having slept for twenty-four hours during which time a terrific gale had blown their iceberg steadily northward, decided to explore their temporary home. When they returned, they found that old Spike had disappeared, probably worried about their having left. They set out to search for him. As they reached a water lane, they heard him calling for help from the other side and telling them to hurry with guns. Dan hurried back for the guns while Bob pushed ahead trying to find a crossing to old Spike.

As Bob moved along the dim ice-bank, he cast fear-laden eyes at the watery, mist-wrapped lane beside him. In every direction a thick whitish-gray curtain hung over everything. He could see barely six feet in any direction. The gigantic iceberg which was their only home, was lost to sight quickly.

Far ahead his alert ears caught the low rumbling of some unseen, unknown danger. It was barely audible at first, but after a few minutes he noticed that it was growing slowly louder. He listened. The low rumbling roar drummed on his ears, like the far-away, mighty rush of an express train. What it was, he could not even guess.

Its eeriness sent a fresh wave of fear through his cold body, until he was trembling all over. He stood listening. the roaring continued, growing slowly louder. Fearfully he pondered.

Then from somewhere across the watery lane on his right there arose through the mists a long drawn-out shout from old Spike. His shouted word rose above the far-off rumbling, a tiny, wavering ribbon of sound.

“H-u-r-r-y …”

A cold shiver ran up to the roots of Bobl’s hair. A terrible fear tripped his very soul — fear of his awesome surroundings; fear for old Spike’s safety. The all-hiding haze! That awful far-away roar! What could it mean? What was the danger that threatened old Spike? He shivered again.

In the midst of the great fear which gripped him, he seemed to hear the calm voice from the deck radio: ‘Lo, I am with you alway.’

Quickly, Bob raised trembling hands to his mouth, shouting his answer out across the mist-wrapped lane.

C-o-m-i-n-g !

‘With you alway’ he murmured as he pushed steadily and swiftly forward into the icy unknown. It was almost like pushing forward into total darkness. The roaring far ahead grew steadily, steadily louder. But he pushed on and on, searching the haze for a possible crossing in the water-lane.

Then suddenly the ice under him trembled as if from an earthquake. The next instant he saw, through the drifting mists, the end of a great slab of ice. Its end ground hard against the ice on which he stood. He hesitated only a moment. Here was a crossing.

With a nimble bound he leaped upon the floe and darted forward across the floating ice-bridge. How far this ice-bridge extended across the gap of open water, he could not know. He could but push on blindly through the shifting, creeping haze.

Once again the voice of old Spike came to him through the pall of mist. Once again Bob’s shout drifted back as he pushed on, heedless of the unknown dangers about him. He cast out his fear, born of the fearfulness of his surroundings, by repeating over and over the words from the radio: ‘With you alway, even unto the end of the world.’

Old Spike’s voice broke to him again. At the same instant another shout sounded in the gray haze far behind him from Dan, following with the guns. Bob sent an answering shout to both of them.

The terrible roaring sound, now on his left, was growing louder with alarming rapidity. The ice which was under him rocked alarmingly, proving that he was traveling over a huge block of loose ice which had broken away from the solid pack-ice. He hoped the block reached completely across the watery gap. The thought of walking off into icy water in the dense haze caused a cold chill of apprehension to creep up his backbone. Pushing on, he kept an alert eye open for an abrupt ending of the ice directly ahead. But none came. The heaving ice crawled up in front of him through the haze with apparently no ending. Puzzling over the steady increase of the roaring sound he pushed on. What could the rumbling be? He searched his memory desperately for something read about polar expeditions which might explain the sound. For a while he could recall nothing which enlightened his troubled mind.

Then suddenly he remembered something which he had read years before in an epic of arctic exploration. The lines rushed through his mind — the letters seemed to stand out in the haze before him:

“Though the weather is calm and still about our little ice-bound ship, a far-off roaring can be heard through the foggy haze. Each man aboard our doomed vessel holds his breath, knowing full well that the mighty roaring is the shifting and packing of ice caused by the pressure of a distant storm. And each man knows that when the steady advance of the packing ice reaches us, all will be over with our little ship. Our only home on the ice will be crushed and covered by mountains of heavy ice. The rumbling comes steadily on, like the faraway onward rush of a mighty express. Anxious, haggard faces peer constantly out through the misty haze, listening, listening — listening to the unseen ice packing and piling block on huge block in the hidden distance.”

Bob shuddered. The ice under his feet began to tremble more violently. Then abruptly a shout pierced the haze far ahead, to be followed immediately by a second shout far behind.

Bob cupped his hands to his mouth, answered Spike ahead and Dan, following with the guns. Then he pushed fearfully on again, his heart beating a fast tattoo beneath his ribs. Fearful questions began to beat at his brain. What if the ice broke up before old Spike could be reached? What if, in the breaking up of this icy world, their friendly berg should be swept away before they could get back aboard it? They would be left without even a morsel of food.

BOB was afraid — there was no need in trying to make himself believe otherwise. He found himself trembling in every limb. The urge to wait for Dan to catch up was strong within him. But minutes might be precious. One of them might save old Spike.

Breathing a silent prayer, he lurched forward again through the eerie haze. The rumbling continued in the distance, while somewhere ahead, in the icy haze, the voice of old Spike arose again and again — guiding him on and on.

Then abruptly Bob found himself on stationary ice. He had crossed the lane — he could tell by the absence of the rocking, swinging motion which prevailed on the ice he had just left. Only a slight trembling could be felt on the ice now. The effect of the distant storm had not yet reached that far. Bob sped on.

But suddenly he found himself facing a perpendicular wall of ice. It loomed across his path, a great white, fog-wrapped barrier which seemed totally impassable. Bob hesitated. Then moved closer — to find that what seemed, in the haze, a smooth wall of ice was a broken, ridge-cut, shelf-dotted precipice which was not perpendicular at all, but which rose upward at a steep angle like the side of a high mountain back in the states. The icy wall lost itself quickly in the haze, making it impossible for Bob to see over ten or fifteen feet upward. How high the wall of ice could be or what lay higher up, he could not even guess.

Another tremor of apprehension passed over Bob. He stood still a moment, looking upward. All was haze — wrapped around and over him. It was beginning to tell on his nerves — this white, icy, hazy world; this lost world. The immediate and imminent silence; the far-off rumbling, sinister and threatening. The earth’s end — that was it — this was the end of the earth!

“‘I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world,’” Bob repeated the words.

Without knowing it, he clinched his hands; his head and shoulders thrust forward and he moved on again, upward this time into the icy haze, clinging desperately to the small slippery ledges.

And as he climbed, always the muffled shout of old Spike broke the impending silence. And always the eerie, echoing shout from Dan followed. Each time Bob paused on a narrow, icy ledge long enough to send a third haze-wrapped shout out over the frozen Arctic wastes.

Old Spike’s voice puzzled Bob. The sound was coming from somewhere on the ridge above, but the old engineer seemed to be as far away as ever. The youth could find no explanation for this. He pushed upward as fast as possible, clinging to the icy side of the ridge, stepping from ledge to ledge.

/\fter what seemed an hour or more, but which was in reality only a few minutes, he suddenly found himself peering over the edge of a huge icy gorge on top of the great ice-mountain. Here the wind could be felt keenly, springing up from the direction of the far-off roaring sound. The mist was clearing slightly before the driving wind.

The ice slanted gradually for several dozen feet from the top of the ridge, then made a sheer drop. Bob crept down close to the edge of the precipice and peered cautiously over. He could see a scant eight yards down through the haze. The gorge was a seething rolling world of misty whiteness. Intently he listened for old Spike to shout again.

He had but a minute to wait. The old engineer’s voice floated up from somewhere down in the mist-filled gorge at his feet. He understood now, why old Spike’s voice had seemed to come no nearer. Cupping his hands the youth sent an answering shout down through the rolling haze.

And as he did so a movement some distance out along the icy precipice caught his eye. It was a movement barely discernible in the mist, and there was no sound accompanying it, but by some miracle of fate he had seen it, as if a watching and guiding hand had cast his eyes in that direction at the proper moment. His hair seemed to rise straight up on his head, and an icy fear as cold as his surroundings gripped him.

He saw the misty outline of a huge polar bear turning from a crouched position on the edge of the precipice. It came silently, almost ghost-like, along the edge of the gorge toward him.

Suddenly Bob realized the need for action. He sprang away from the edge of the crevasse and started back up the slight rise to the top of the ridge, intending to make his way back down the opposite side of the ridge again to meet Dan with the guns. But the shadowy form of the bear swung upward away from the gorge also, and Bob soon saw that he could not climb as fast as the bear. He would be overtaken before he reached the top.

Quickly changing his course he continued upward at a long angle, dodging frantically this way and that, around and between humps and peaks of ice, hoping against hope to lose his pursuer; to outwit somehow this wily creature of the ice-world. But this king of the icy north had trailed his quarry too many times to be fooled by dodging.

The huge form always made the same turns Bob did; always loomed up again directly behind him and a little bit closer. Bob could hear the scratch of the beast’s paws on the ice; the rasping of its breath. He glanced back. The beast was reared on its hind legs not six feet behind him with mouth open, ready for him.

Bob scrambled forward with renewed effort, flinging himself first this way, then that. His heart was racing madly beneath his ribs; his breath came in short gasps. He glanced back once more, dodged the mighty sweep of a forepaw, lost his footing and went skidding helplessly down toward the edge of the mist-filled gorge below.

(To be continued)