A sharp command broke through Stirling’s thoughts, and he turned from his view of the village. Marr stood at the weather poop steps.
The little skipper pointed toward the waist of the whaleboat. "Lower that!" he snapped. "You and Eagan and about two seamen drop up to East Cape. See if there’s any bone there."
Stirling answered the skipper’s command with a slow glance, moved not too hastily toward the whaleboat, and climbed inside. From this position, he called Eagan and two seamen who were idling on the forepeak.
The boat was cleared of lashings and lowered, with Stirling in the bow and Eagan in the stern, then the seamen came down the dangling falls and dropped aboard. They thrust out two long oars and shoved the whaleboat from the ship.
Stirling glanced at the telltale on the _Pole Star_, then motioned to up the single sail and lower the centerboard. The light craft sailed into the wind and canted far to leeward, gliding from the shadow of the headland as the sun swung over the shoulder of Siberia.
East Cape was reached soon after dark. Stirling sprang ashore and shouted; then repeated the call. Lights shone from the windows set in the summer shacks.
A pack of shaggy dogs, followed by three natives, came out and stared at the whaleboat. One dog crept down the beach and sniffed Stirling’s native boots, then raised his snout and called a wolf’s long howl of welcome.
A rude door was opened in the larger shack, and the chief stood revealed in the glow of the inner fire, about which native women were squatted. Stirling advanced and held out his hand, touching the chief on the shoulder. "You remember me," he said. "Me ice pilot of the _Beluga_. You got any whalebone to trade?"
The chief’s face cleared, and he voiced a noisy welcome. He had no whalebone; furs he showed and also tusks. Some of these were carved with running men and spouting whales.
It was after dawn when Stirling gave the order to run out the whaleboat and make for the _Pole Star_. The chief, his family, and a score of natives waved a silent farewell, standing on the beach until the boat turned a ledge of rock and vanished into the smooth waters of the Strait.
Stirling was steering as the light boat swung under the _Pole Star’s_ stern and glided alongside. He glanced up at the overhanging poop where lights showed through the portholes. Out of one an arm reached and waved, and he heard a low-voiced warning. It was muffled and indistinct, but it was a girl’s tones which warned. He had but time to swing the tiller when the boat scraped against the whaler’s sheathing and Eagan caught a dangling fall.