, half solid. Main and fore were close furled, the headsails also,
and the _Karluk_ was nosing against the far end of the rapidly
diminishing basin. The wind was still lively.

All about were other floes, but they were widely separated, and between
them crisp waves of indigo were curling snappily.

The island stood up sharp and jagged, much larger than Rainey had
anticipated. It boasted two cones, from one of which smoke was lazily
trailing. Ice was piled in wild confusion about its shores, wrecked by
the gale that had blown hard from four till eight, and was now
subsiding with the swift change common to the Arctic.

A deep hum of bursting surf undertoned all other noises and, prisoned as
she was, the schooner and her floe were sweeping slowly toward the land
in the grip of a current rather than before the gusty wind.

Lund had fendered the schooner's bows effectively before he went below
with old sails that enveloped stem and swell, stuffed with ropes and
bits of canvas.

Within an hour the wind had ceased and the slush in the lagoon had
pancaked into flakes of forming ice that bid fair to become solid within
a short time, for the day was bitterly cold and tremendously bright. The
sky rose from filmy silver-azure to richest sapphire, and the rolling
waters between the floes were darkest purple-blue. As the whip of the
wind ceased they settled to a vast swell on which the great clumps of
ice rose and fell with dazzling reflections.

Lund came up within the hour and stood blinking at the brilliance.

"My eyes ain't as strong yit as they should be," he said to Rainey. "I
shouldn't have slung them glasses so hasty at Carlsen, though they
sp'iled his aim, at that. If this weather keeps up I'll have to make
snow-specs; there ain't another pair of smokes aboard." He made a shade
of his curved hand as he gazed at the island.

"Current's got us," he said, "an' we'll fetch up mighty close to the
beach. It lies between those two ridges, close together, buttin' out
from the volcano. Long Strait current splits on Wrangell Island, and
we're in the trend of the northern loop. That's why the sea don't freeze
up more solid. It's freezin' fast enough round us, where there ain't
motion."

He seemed well satisfied with the prospect. "Had breakfast?" he asked
Rainey, and then: "All right. We'll git the men aft."

He bellowed an order, and soon every one came trooping, to gather in two
groups either side of the cabin skylight. Th