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Updated: June 23, 2025
It occurred to Wyllard that this was a thing very few men except sealers could have done had they been cast ashore without stores or tools to face the awful winter of the north. "How did you get through?" he asked. "Well," said Lewson, "we had a rifle, and the ca'tridges weren't spoilt. The killers hadn't taken their cooking outfit, and by and bye we got a walrus in an open lane among the ice.
Lewson went on again. "Food was scarce that season, and we got 'most nothing in the traps," he said. "Besides, there were Russians out prospecting, and that headed us off. We figured that some of the Kamtchadales who traded skins to the settlements would put them on our trail.
At length his heart throbbed furiously, for a faint splash of oars came out of the darkness, and they both ran forward to the windlass. The sharp clanking it made drowned the splash of oars, but in another minute or two there was a crash as the boat drove alongside, and Charly scrambled up with a rope while Lewson hurled sundry bags and cases after him.
Wyllard's face flushed, but he said nothing, and it was Charly who asked the next question. "The others are dead?" Lewson made a little expressive gesture. "Hopkins was drowned in a crevice of the ice. I buried Leslie back yonder." He broke off abruptly, as though speech cost him an effort, and Wyllard turned to Overweg. "This is the last of the men I was looking for," he said.
Tom Lewson had been an hour in camp before he began the story of his wanderings, and at first, lying propped up on one elbow, with the lamplight on his worn face, he spoke slowly and with faltering tongue. "We broke an oar coming off the beach that night, and it kind of crippled us," he said. "Twice the boat nearly went back again in the surf, and I don't quite know how we pulled her off.
After what Overweg had once or twice told him, it was unthinkable that they should fall into Smirnoff's hands. Lewson and Charly melted away into the darkness. Wyllard and the Siwash walked quietly down to the water's edge, a little up-stream of the schooner, as the stream was running strong.
He paused and pointed towards the distant sea. "You have got to push right on with Lewson as fast as you can while I try to bring the Siwash along." Wyllard started within the next few minutes, and afterward never quite forgot the strain and stress of that arduous march.
It was 'most a minute before three of them pulled me off him, and he was considerably worse to look at then." There was silence for a minute or two, and Wyllard, who felt his own face grow warm, saw the suggestive hardness in Charly's eyes. Lewson was gazing out into the darkness, but the veins were swollen on his forehead and his whole body had stiffened. "We'll let that go.
Wyllard, who had inspected the stores, fancied that a fortnight was the very longest that could be counted on, though they ate no more than would keep a modicum of strength in them. From their kind and quality he surmised that they had been intended for the officials in charge of the settlement. "How did you get them, Tom?" he asked. "The thing," said Lewson quietly, "was simple.
At last his heart leaped, for a faint splash of oars came out of the darkness. Both men ran forward to the windlass. The sharp clanking it made drowned the splash of oars, but in another minute or two there was a crash as the boat drove alongside, and Charly scrambled up with a rope while Lewson hurled sundry bags and cases after him.
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