Stirling’s blood tingled at the excitement of the game, and he lost his enmity for the Russians. They acted like children freed from bondage. They had fled from Vladivostok, been wrecked in the Gulf of Anadir, and were now on the second leg of their adventure. It led to the icy North and strange waters.
The ship plunged away from the coast and toward the North pack. Stirling realized that the _Bear_ would follow to the bitter end, and he knew there was also another revenue cutter in the Arctic Ocean—the chances were slim for the Russians to escape, and the trap might be sprung at Point Barrow which juts far out into the Arctic.
Hurtling west, and then edging toward the north as the day advanced, the _Pole Star_ avoided the pack and settled down to steady progress toward the American shore in the vicinity of Icy Cape.
The day unrolled with the cold sun swinging over the land and through the mists. The night, which came with slow shadowing, found Stirling weak and listless from lack of food and water, and he realized that an effort would have to be made to escape from the crow’s-nest. The crew had drunk the entire store of gin and trade whisky, and they roamed the deck in groups, their attention fastened upon the low coast along which many Arctic whalers had been wrecked. The passageway between this coast and the grounded ice was narrow in places. A north-easter would crush the ship and drive it ashore.
The lane of ice-free waters widened as Cape Lisburne was passed. This lane often had been blocked by light floes, and Stirling studied the grounded pack to the west and north, coming to the conclusion that the season would be an extremely open one. Never before in his experience had he seen clearer steaming to the eastward.
Night came on with the _Pole Star_ logging thirteen knots. The ship was surprisingly handled by the Russians, who worked more by intuition than from experience, but they had the sense of drift and direction. The _Bear_ was left hull down in the flecked field astern, but still coming on grimly.
Walruses and seals were distributed by the wash of the ship; lone wolves howled from the shore; a polar bear lumbered over the ice as the _Pole Star_ crashed through, staggered, and resumed its eastward course. The Russians on deck surged aft for fear of catastrophe. Surrounding the wheelman and the leader, they peered anxiously toward the after companion which was barricaded on the inside.