Argosy All-Story Weekly, March 15, 1924 — page 160: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

JOSH STEBBINS it. Ef we hadn’t got lost up in the no’th end o’ Baffin Bay where we was huntin’ an’ tradin’ woulda found it. “Ye see, there’s two poles up no’th, what they call the ‘true pole’..an’ the ‘ mag- netic pole.’ The true pole ez jest ezackly under the No’th Star, but the magnetic pole lays about eight degrees soweast o’. the true pole, an’ the needle in the compass . pints straight down, when ye git close to. it; so ef ye steer by compass, without tak- in’ the sun, ye git a long ways off yer course. “Bout halfway betwixt the two poles is Syms’s Hole. ' Them scientists thet hed never seen it, sed thet it reached through the earth from no’th ter so’th an’ thet a ship could sail through it, but ’tain’t so. It’s jest a kind 0’ o-way-sis in a desert of snow an’ ice an’ bad weather, all lumped | _ up together.” “How did you come to find it?” asked some one. ‘We was blowed inter it by a eyclone. Our ship, the Dancin’ Jennie, a no’thern trader outa Halifax, got nipped in the ice, way up in the head o’ Baffin Bay, jest ez we'd got our hold full o’ furs, whalebone an’ walrus hides, an’ was ready ter steer fer home. ‘The hull load went ter Davy Jones, I reckon, an’ we hed ter strike out with our dog teams fer the so’th over the ice. “Ina big snowstorm, Barney an’ me lost the rest o’ the crew, but ez we hed plenty o’ grub an’ ammunition on our sleds, we didn’t mind, an’ kept on hikin’ soweast by compass, but our compass wasn’t right, ez we found when we run foul of a range 0’ mountains covered with snow an’ ice, where we'd kalkalated ter find open water an’ mebbe a whaler thet ’d take us aboard fer a passage back ter Halilax. “Tt was hard scrabblin’ to climb ’em, but we thought we’d-find better travelin’ on the other side; on top it was better goin’, but we couldn’t find a way to git down over the rim rock thet dropped off very steep on the far side, with the clouds so thick thet we couldn’t make out what they was below ’em. Ez we was trailin’ along the edge o’ the drop-off, huntin’ fer a break thet - we could go down, all of a sudden a cyclone with the Eskimos, we never ‘ musta fallen somewhere else. IN GREENLAND, 189 hit us,.an’ saved us the trouble. It blowed us, dogs, sleds, an’ all, up in the air an’ over the edge, end over end, till I lost my. breath an’ my senses, but never let go 0’ my rifle, nor I wan't aware of it when [ -Janded. ‘When I woke up an’ opened my eyes, I was layin’ on bare ground under a butter- ‘nut tree, the sled was hangin’ in the limbs of a beech tree with the dogs still hitched to it by their traces, thet. jest let ’em git their feet on the ground an’ saved ’em from bein’ hung, but two of ’em was stand- in’ with only their hind legs on the ground, an’ they was mighty glad ter see me. The ‘trees was in leaf an’ there was green grass an’. flowers with birds singin’ in the trees, an’ I found some ripe wild strawberries thet tasted mighty good after livin’ on seal an’ bear meat fer so long.. ‘Then I looked round fer Barney, but didn’t find him till ez I was passin’ under a tall pine tree thet didn’t hev any limbs except a short, broken-off-stub or two, fer sixty feet, an’ looked like a ship’s mast ‘with a cedar bush on the top of it, when I heerd his voice. ‘* Hello, Josh,’ an’ I looked all round in the brush, but couldn’t locate him, when he hollered agen: ‘Here I be. Look aloft, yer big bonehead, F’m up in the tree above yer!’ “What yer doin’ up there? down,’ I sez. . ““* Tm here because I’m here; the durned wind blowed me here, but the dogs an’ sled Hain’t you | Come on seen *em?’ ““No,’ I sez, ‘ but I ken hear ’em ki. -yi’ somewhere over in the brush. I reckon they’re tangled up an’ can’t git loose. Come on down an’ we'll hunt ’em up.’ ‘How’m 1 goin’ ter git down? I’ve been figurin’ on it ever since I lit in this ere tree,’ he asks me. “Why, climb down, ye lubber, I thought ye was a sailorman!’ ‘“* Ef I could borry a parayshute it ’d be easy, but they ain’t nary a rope to slide down on, an’ the trunk is too thick ter git a grip on it with my arms round it; an’ I ain’t no squirrel ter stick on the bark with my nails.’ ANICLAOO© CO