The Argosy, Christmas 1912 — page 27: what you’re looking at

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

LOOSING THE TEMPEST. The strong man—the man upon whom I had looked as my superior in physical power and endurance, had proven unequal to the task. I had been left alone to bear the suffering. I hurried back to him, in my excite- ment, still hanging on to the goose. “Ordway! Oh, Jack!” I cried. “Why did you do this? ”’ He looked at me with glittering eyes. | He grinned in a strange, unnatural way, then began to babble. “Tell ’em—tell ’em to play—to His mind was wandering. There was no use asking him questions. Frantically I began hunting for the wound. There was no blood to be seen. It did not then strike me as being strange that he had not chosen his head, the unexposed part, and, there- fore, offering no obstruction to the charge, as the place at which to point the gun. The wound must, therefore, be hid- den somewhere in his thick clothing with the blood held in check and sur- ging about his body. My fingers trembled till they were almost powerless while I tore at this garment, and then at that, striving to locate the wound. But there was no blood, no wound. The' strong man had simply gone under the stress, as is sometimes the case, unable to withstand the terrible suffering. Great strength needs some- thing to feed upon. z But the situation now BECARTE a hun- dred times more desperate than it had been. To permit Ordway to lie there an hour was to let him die. I moaned in the very Bitterness of my spirit. All my own hunger and physical sufferings were forgotten. I rose to my feet, and in sheer wildness of agony of soul shouted at the top of my voice for help. Think of it! of waters, alone with an unconscious man, I called for help. That merely illustrates the situation In that dreary waste - 13 better than a volume of description could do. Perhaps that cry for aid was not in vain. At any rate, a wild, desperate change came over me. I hurled aside my despair as I would cast off a be- fouled garment. From a victim of the most horrible tortures, suffering from circumstances over which I had no con- trol, impelled by some force I had never known before, I now leaped to the sum- mit of my human power, and became a man, Instead of being the unwilling victim of circumstances, I would be the mas- ter. Ordway should not die. At least, so the desperate resolve shot itself into my brain, if Ordway had to die, then I would lose my own life try- ing to save him. As I look back now, that wasn't much of a sacrifice to offer. Even if I remained inactive and let Ordway die I would follow in a few hours. But none of this entered my head at that time. I was obsessed by the one idea, that I must save Ordway. I made my way to the edge of the cake nearest the berg. The gap had grown no wider. The ice had not thinned, but seemed to be more quiet. The slant of the cake now brought that edge down near the water. Stand- ing there on the hummocky surface, I could see the hull of the Northbird, which had, by some trick of nature, clung to the berg as Ordway had fas- tened it, and the face of the grotto being open to the light, I could see our stores piled neatly as he had arranged them. I studied the rise and fall of the small ice cakes. I noted the open lanes running in crooked lines this way and that, and sought the most direct one from me to the Northbird. Throwing aside my furs, I lowered myself into the water, and, with slow, deliberate, studied strokes, started along the open lane I had chosen toward the boat. I was surprised to find that the water did not freeze me as I had imagined it CoOMmicbook CO