THE

Dr. Lopp was of all men in Alaska, white or Eskimo, the most skilled in the handling of reindeer. For him to go with the herd to Point Barrow meant that he must leave his wife and children alone, the only white people in a village of over five hundred Eskimos. Yet Mrs. Lopp in the name of humanity, readily consented to the plan.

Nine days later Dr. Call and Charlie arrived with their herd, and on February 3 the great drive started with 438 reindeer and 18 sledges. But a most disappointing progress was made. The drivers kept the herd back from the coast for the benefit of the forage to be found on the windswept hills, and the great amount of baggage impeded it. Only six or eight miles were made each day. Already Jarvis was a week behind his schedule. He pictured Bertholf at Kotzebue Sound with the supplies, impatiently awaiting his arrival. So, taking Dr. Call, Jarvis went down to the coast to secure a dog-team and travel on ahead of the herd. This

(Continued from page 188)

would take away much of the weight of baggage that was wearing down the deer; and moreover, Jarvis would inform all the coast natives of the coming of the herd, because the natives north of the Cape had never seen domesticated deer and might hunt them in the belief that they were wild. Morcover, Jarvis wished to ascertain if it would be safe for the herd to cross northward over the ice of Kotzebue Sound, because much time and distance could be saved by such a short cut.

It had been a trying winter on this part of the coast. Dogs were few and hard to get. No Eskimo cheerfully let his team go on through with Jarvis. Progress was made from village to village, and in each Jarvis had to repeat his pleadings, bribings, and threatenings to get any assistance at all. When he finally reached the shores of Kotzebue Sound, his food was exhausted, and the natives had no faith in his claim that sled-loads of provisions awaited his arrival on the other side, the mountains of which were visible from the south shore.

After two days of urging, the natives on Kotzebue Sound agreed to take Jarvis and Call across. The white men now possessed only a few cracker

crumbs and some frozen deer meat, with a forty-mile journey ahead. Late that night they reached Cape Blossom on the north side, and there they found Bertholf. He had arrived only the night before, after an arduous experience in crossing the highlands of the neck of the peninsula. It was the night of February 12. Jarvis and Bertholf had not seen each other since the preceding December 20, yet each had faithfully carried out the plans, and now the prospects looked bright for the success of the expedition.

Jarvis had left word for Lopp not to attempt to cross the uncertain ice of Kotzebue Sound with the deer, but to make the detour inland, a journey of ten days. To fill in this interval the senior officer decided to take Bertholf's dog-team and go on to Point Hope, a week's journey further north, expecting to find at the bountifully-supplied whaling-station at Point Hope some tidings from Point Barrow. Bertholf was to wait for the deer and follow with them if Jarvis had not returned.

Jarvis was favored with clear, cold weather, and as the days were rapidly lengthening, his progress was swift. In four days he reached Point Hope, and there he found two of the ship

wrecked sailors from Point Barrow, who reported that large herds of caribou had come into the country near Point Barrow and that the hunters had been able to secure enough meat to relieve the famine somewhat. The stranded men still had food to last them until the middle of May.

Almost as soon as Jarvis received this encouraging news, a messenger who had been hotly pursuing him from Kotzebue, reported that Lopp had crossed the ice of the Sound after all, having failed to get Jarvis's instructions to the contrary, and was ready to start on the last 400-mile drive at once.

Jarvis turned back to the herd. Reaching the camp February 27, he arranged for the deer to go overland due north across the mountains, so as to cut off the journey around Cape Lisburne. He himself with Bertholf and Call, took the coastal route. Jarvis left Bertholf at the Point Hope whaling-station to take charge of some of the whalemen that the senior officer intended to send down to that point to take some of the strain off the supplies at Point Barrow. Then he and Dr. Call went on up the desolate coast. At the mouth of the Pitmegea River, he found that Lopp had already passed northward with the deer. Each day now seemed to bring its blizzard from the north-east, the travelers squarely facing the gales. One of these blizzards kept Jarvis and Call in a snowhouse for two days and frosted black the faces of most of the deer drivers on ahead. By March 17 the storm abated, however, and a few hours later Jarvis caught up with the herd.

He then went on ahead, day after day being a repetition of all the hardship and danger that had gone before. The deer followed closely behind, although the drivers constantly had to fight off the bands of gaunt wolves that range this part of Alaska. On the 26th, in the afternoon, Jarvis reached the whale-ship Belvedere in the ice a little way down the coast from Point Barrow. The half-starved crew would not believe Jarvis at first when he said he had come from the United States to their rescue in the dead of winter, and that the deerherd-food in plenty-was only a day's march behind. Assuring these men that their danger was past, Jarvis pressed on. He was stopped by the usual blizzard the next day, but on March 29, two days before the time he had fixed for himself on December 15, when he landed on Cape Vancouver, fifteen hundred miles to the south, he surprised the crowded huts and dormitories of Point Barrow. The desperate men there in their wild(Continued on page 247)

whoop, snatched the iron ring from Dick's hand, and, bending down, with a hard effort fitted its ends into the chiseled holes. The ring clamped and held-firm and shipshape as if the old schoolmaster had never tugged it free.

With swift jabs of their pocketknives, the boys cleared the circular crevice of dirt and moss. Then Dick seized the ring and, with a tremendous heave, fetched up the round stone. Ann, breathless with excitement, knelt close at his side. As the stone came free and revealed a gaping black hole, she lost her balance, toppled forward, and disappeared down the opening.

"Ann! Speak! Where are you?" screamed Dot, while the boys, too aghast for speech, prepared to lower themselves down into the hole.

"All-right! Not-hurt!" said a shaky voice from a few feet below; and at this, thrilling with relief, Dot fled toward the cellar stairs to get a candle.

In another two seconds Dick and Bob stood beside Ann on a small platform about four feet beneath the cellar level. While Dick lighted matches and peered about him, Bob, clutching Ann's arm, burst out with enthusiasm: "Gee, Ann, you're spunky! And I thought a couple of days ago you-well, never mind what I thought; but I reckon you're like the Athenians they curled their hair a lot before they went to battle, but

(Continued from page 206)

While Bob delivered this eulogy, Dot returned with a candle, swung herself down the opening, and step

they licked the. Spartans just the or potatoes. "We're breathing the same!" air of '76!" said Bob, in a half-whisper. Dick raised the crumbling lid of the last bin, and Bob held the candle down inside it. From four throats came a sudden wild shout of triumph. Dick slapped Bob on the back and showered him with hot grease. The candle-light shone and flickered on a blackened box!

DESERT RAINS

By JESS LINKLETTER

SUDDEN rain, silver rain, Blotting out the land, Bringing waxen lilies,

To open on the sand.

Desert rain, drenching rain,
In shining azure sheet,
Waking shrub and cactus
To flaunt gay flowers sweet.

Swift rain, welcome rain, Bringing velvet green To clothe a somber desert With a fairy sheen.

ping down from the platform, all four began examining the subcellar. It was a small, windowless place, fitted with vegetable bins, and apparently a cold-room for summer storage. The bins had wooden lids, almost rotted away, below which were scraps of sacking, which fell to shreds when touched, and hard, fibrous lumps which might once have been turnips

Once back in the lighted cellar above, it was impossible not to take one peep into the unlocked silver jewel-box before carrying it to the rightful owners. That glimpse, though, was to the girls, at leastvery disappointing. The box was filled with grime-coated chains, earrings, bracelets, and brooches, whose gems twinkled dimly through dirt and mold. But when one had vaguely hoped for frosty, shimmering brightness, the ponderous, old-fashioned jewelry looked clumsy enough. Ann could not even imagine the stones being reset. "I don't care for themnot a bit; but maybe Grandma and Grandpa will," she said, stifling a sigh.

"There aren't any emeralds suitable for a mermaid," grinned Bob, as he looked up to survey his cousins with bright, dancing eyes. "Tell you what, though, we've found we can be friends no matter what state of the Union we come from, and that was sort of worth finding, too, wasn't it?"

THE SNAKE-BLOOD

RUBY

(Continued from page 242)

and I presume that one from a white or albino tiger would be especially valuable. Unfortunately I do not know where to locate that special brand of tiger."

"I do," broke in Captain Vincton, who had been an interested listener to this conversation. "There's a part of the Malay Peninsula where a white tiger is seen nearly every year. Once or twice in a lifetime some native shikari manages to land one. When that happens the skin and the two lucky bones go to the sultan of that province. No ruler owning one would any more sell it than he would his crown jewels."

"Could you land one?" demanded the lumber-king.

"Well," said the captain modestly, "I could try. I have been able to do the sultan some favors when I was younger and I think he would let me organize a hunt in his district." (To be continued)

A New Magazine

THE CENTURY

HE name is old and distinguished, honored wherever the best American traditions are honored. But the magazine itself is new. New in its outward appearance, new in its type and its paper, but above all new in its attitude toward life, new in the character of its contents — - the wide variety and the unfailing human interest. New in that its appeal is to men and women alike, that in the circle of a year it covers the whole field of American activities, searchingly but sympathetically. New in that it isn't afraid to be entertaining or unexpected or different. But new as it is, it is not futuristic, impressionistic or fadistic; it is modern but not modern. As one distinguished admirer has said: "It is as American as Indian corn.

THE OVERLAND CRUISE OF THE "BEAR"

(Continued from page 245)

est hopes had not expected relief to come down in the winter.

The Bear had set out from Unalaska on June 14, 1898, and slowly smashed her way northward through the heavy ice of the arctic, reaching Point Barrow on July 28. She was caught in the ice there and nearly lost, but on August 17 the floe moved away and the Bear started south with the surviving whalemen on board, reaching Unalaska on August 31, and Seattle, September 13.

The nation was then so excited about the Spanish War that little attention was paid to the heroic exploit of the Bear and her intrepid officers and men; but in the Revenue-Cutter Service headquarters in Washington, the logbooks and diaries from which this narrative is taken, were filed away in the archives as their chief treasure. The Service to-day points to that cruise as its greatest feat. Suitable rewards came to those whose tireless energy carried them across frozen seas and snow-clad mountains to do the President's bidding. Bertholf, who so faithfully performed a subordinate task in the great enterprise, later rose rapidly in the Service until he became its commandant.

COMMUNITY DRAMA

Prepared by the Playground and Recreation
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