The Argosy, Christmas 1912 — page 35: what you’re looking at

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

LOOSING THE TEMPEST. sation, though our compact kept us from an open quarrel. We neglected to wind our watches, and the chronometer from the North- bird became damaged. We knew noth- ing, cared nothing about the lapse of time. Every time we lay down to sleep we did so with the feeling that we might never wake, and scarcely cared. We seemed to have forgotten home and friends. Ordway did, at one time, suggest that we keep a journal for others to read, and I nearly kicked him. There was nothing about this miserable ex- perience I wanted anybody else to know about. Anyway, there wouldn’t be anybody else to read, unless, our bodies were found a few years afterward, frozen and preserved in the ice. We lived on dolphin till we turned our faces from each other as we ate it. We thawed snow and ice to drink, mixing the water with whisky, brandy, or wine. This made the water taste better, and eked out the supply of the liquids. This supply we had been using very sparingly. But we reached the end at last. We looked like savages. Ordway had a beard that sadly needed trim- ming, but it was a beard. My face was covered with a growth of broom-corn that rustled when I chewed anything. We no longer made any attempt to comb: our hait. It grew long and matted. We never changed our clothes. In fact, we had degenerated into a couple of hopeless, witless, useless dregs of humanity, not expecting to. live beyond the limit of what food we had on hand. No geese came to visit us any more. We seemed to have drifted into a region where fish were few. This would account for the absence of fish- ing-vessels. Then one day, in a fit of desperation, I drank more than my share of brandy, and Ordway glared at me. He reached for the bottle. I tried ta keep it from him. No words were uttered. 21 He got the bottle and drained it, hurling the flask against the wall of ice. We were going mad—together. We sank into a deep slumber and almost froze to death. But that in- cident saved our reason and our lives. “Good God, Ordway,” I said, when I had stretched my stiffened limbs after my sleep, and he awoke about the same time, “do you realize what we are doing? Is your brain clear now? ” “ Yes, and I feel like jumping off the berg.” “That won't do any good. We've got to brace up and be men. We are not in the habit of going to pieces like this. We’ve got to brace up, I tell you, or we'll be two raving madmen here; and think of the horror of it all. I’m going to take a look on the other end of the berg.”’ Since the closing in of the two parts neither of us had been up on the sur- face where we had seen and admired the glimmering spires as they reflected the sun. I picked up a rifle, and Ordway took the fowling-piece. In our condition this was a dangerous thing to do, but our will-power held us together. We found a way to the top. It was covered with snow, and once more the sunlight played upon the spires. To the north we saw a beautiful display of the aurora borealis, and the scene put new life in us. “ Look!” cried Ordway. A flock of wild northern geese were coming toward us, and, as they hovered about the ice, we bagged three of fhem. We went back to the grotto. There was no oil-fuel for the stove. We broke up some of the Northbird, and built a re. In this way another week passed. The sun remained warm. There was a resumption of the cracking of the berg we had heard at first. The great thundering that had taken place when the two pieces had come to- gether had never been explained. One day Ordway exclaimed loudly, and pointed toward a thin line of water CoOMmicbook CO