Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 176, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 July 1916 — The Lead In the Ice [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

The Lead In the Ice

By H. M. Egbert

' (Copyright. 1916. by W. Q. Chapman.) \ At twenty-five Captain Truefltt had been in love and had been unsuccessful. He thought his heart was broken. But at forty he knew that this had been a fallacy. He loved Mabel Renton, and her heart was another’s. But this time It was an optimistic hope, a love that Is stronger than its recognition of Its impossibility. James Fawn bad Introduced him to Mabel, his fiancee, before he started north for the discovery of Baldwin Land. If he did not return two summers later Truefltt was to command the relief ship that would come after him. The summer had come, and it was middle July. The relief ship would have to start at once to reach the Arctic before the pack ice formed in September. Truefltt had called on Mabel to encourage her a few days before he sailed. “Listen, Captain Truefltt,” said Miss Renton. “I have been thinking and planning. I feel it is my duty to be with James, especially since there will be another long winter of suspense before me. I want you to take me with you." Captain Truefltt was appalled. "Miss Renton, you don’t understand the conditions,” he said. “It isn’t any picnic up in the North. The temperature drops below zero even in September. How can you go?” “My place is with Mr. Fawn,” answered Mabel gravely. “I have calculated what I shall have to face. I am prepared to go. And if he is dead” — tears came into her eyes—“l shall at least be spared the long agony of waiting.” Truefltt was thinking. He knew that the long agony would be his, in the continual presence of the woman he loved, whom he could never tell of his

lore. However, since she continued to beseech him, he would not refuse her. A week later Mabel Renton sailed aboard his ship for the Arctic. 11. They had reports of Fawn at last. He had lost his ship in the pack ice and was living with a tribe of Eskimos twenty miles distant from where Truefltt’s ship lay, already hemmed in by the thin ice of early September. The wreck of Fawn’s vessel lay alongshore. It had been looted and the report spoke of a subsequent mutiny, of a break-up of discipline and of sailors who had started southward in a wild attempt to fight their way to civilization. Truefitt left Miss Renton aboard and started out on his twenty-mile tramp along the coast until he reached the friendly village of the Eskimos. Two women and a dog came out to meet him. Their speech, so far as Tryefitt could understand it, told of horrors such as had never come upon the village before. Outside the encampment was—a mound of empty gin bottles! Eskimo graves were scattered everywhere. It was a village of the dead. A white man staggered toward Truefitt. Gaunt and emaciated, his eyes blazing with delirium, Truefitt recognized in him James Fawn. Fawn knew him, but only as a delirious man half recognizes a companion of old time. From his disjointed utterances Truefitt learned what had happened. Fawn had taken a cargo of gin to the north to exchange for walrus Ivory, in the Jtope of making a quick fortune. He had been the destruction of the settlement and had nearly killed himself during the long months, after he had abondoned hope of rescue. And round about his hut was heaped the ivory that had been gathered for him by the native hunters. For two days Tiyefltt attended

Fawn, until the light of reason came back into his eyes. On the third morning Truefltt told him of Mabel's presence on board. “Pull yourself together, man,” he said, “and she shall never know what has happened. Be a man. Make yourself worthy of her.” “You speak as if you were interested in her yourself," sneered Fawn. Truefltt, without replying, began to pack the sleigh. But before he had completed this task he saw another sleigh coming toward them over the ice. Presently Mabel and a sailor descended. “I couldn’t wait; I was so alarmed when you did not return,” she cried. "Where is he?” Truefltt pointed silently into the hut. Mabel went in. When she emerged, half an hour later, there was a grave look on her face. “We must take him aboard at once,” she said.

111. Fawn would not leave until his ivory was all packed. That meant that Mabel and Truefltt had to walk the entire distance. Mabel continued to look in strange surmise upon Truefltt. It was plain that Fawn had not attempted to conceal the moral degeneration that had overtaken him. Hours passed. The sleigh had left the land and was proceeding slowly across the ice. They were forced to encamp for the night by a violent snowstorm. An icehut was constructed, and they shivered air the night through in their sleepingbags. At midnight Fawn began an altercation with Truefltt in a low voice. The lack of his accustomed stimulant had made him querulous, almost insane. “You love her,” he mumbled fiercely. “Hush!” said Truefltt, looking across toward the girl. “Miss Henton will hear you.” Toward dawn Fawn subsided and watched, the others craftily. There was something in his mind which Truefitt could not devine. They harnessed in the dogs and proceeded across the pack ice. Fawn left Mabel and proceeded with the leading sleigh that contained the ivory. He seemed unwilling to leave his treasure. He sent the sailor back to the others and walked alone, guiding the dogs. This was the sleigh that found the course among the hummocks. The second Bleigh had nothing to do but follow in its tracks. Presently it seemed to Truefltt that Fawn was going a little out of the way. The ship was visible now, lying offshore, and Fawn was steering a course directly out to sea. Suddenly he swerved, as if he had made a wrong

course, and started immediately toward the vessel, after a little delay. Fawn changed again. Ho was doubling upon his track. The second sleigh was quite near him now. Fawn shouted something. Suddenly Truefitt saw a wide lead open in the ice. and the dark water beneath the sleigh. A second later he went slipping down, and the icy water numbed his hands as he struggled to regain his footing. Mabel screamed out. At the same instant Fawn ran up with a sleigh-hook and began deliberately hammering Truefltt’s fingers. He was shouting like a maniac, ard Truefltt perceived that he was, iD fact, insane. Mabel cried out and tried to catch at him, but Fawn, with an oath, turned on her and sent her spinning across the ice. Then he drove the sieighhook into Truefitt’s body. As he did so he lost his balance on the slippery ice and fell. He went head first into the water. And Truefitt, who was fast growing numbed and helpless, roused himself for a supreme effort. He grabbed the hook that lay across the ice and hoisted himself out of the water. Then he attempted to raise Fawn.

Fawn whirled round and round in the center of the open place. He shrieked in terror and clutched at Truefitt’s fingers. But the lead was widening; the sleigh went toppling down. Truefitt’had just time to cut the harness and free the straining dogs before it sank like a stone, with all the ivory. With a last cry Fawn threw up his hands and sank beneath the water. There was no chance of rescue now. Truefitt stared into Mabel’s frightened face. Presently she looked up at him. “Let us go on,” she said in a low voice. IV. The return voyage was a quick one. Truefitt got his ship out ot the ice and got back to the United States by the middle of October. No word about Fawn’s death passed between him and Mabel. He did not know whether she knew of Fawn’s treachery or whether she held him guilty for his death. It was not until their final parting, at her home, that she spoke of the subject. “Tell me everything, now,” she said. Truefitt hesitated; then, as kindly as he could, he told her. He felt that it would be. unfair to her to let her live in the belief that Fawn was what she had believed him. She was silent when he had ended. Then: “I have thought it all out and come to that conclusion,” she said. “I am going to be frank now. Do you know why I'asked you to take me north?” “Because you loved him,” Bald Truefitt miserably. “No,” she replied. “Because I wanted to know—just why—l had ceased to care for him.” .Then Truefitt knew that his first love had been a worse fallacy than he had ever suspected.

Gaunt and Emaciated, His Eyes Blazing With Delirium.