Page:A Wild-Goose Chase - Balmer - 1915.djvu/115

Rh the little channels between the ice. Koehler steered for a bit of sloping beach and brought them to the foreshore upon which they could drag the boat above the tide. They climbed up and waving good-bye to the Viborg, they set off on their tramp to the old Aurora depot.

As they followed the shore about the cape and the ship sank out of sight, there was no place Geoff had ever seen with which to compare in barrenness and desolation this piece of Arctic land. Off shore as far as the eye could see there was ice, and the black rock upon which they marched was as barren. Naked of soil, no bush or twig or shoot of tree or shrub found any root there; nor was there grass or herb. In cracks in the rock shreds of grey moss and lichens grew; nothing else. Mile after mile was marked with no change but the shifting of the lines of the rugged rocks rising in the interior and a different indentation of shore.

Yet this was the land toward which, after the Aurora was lost, the four men who returned had struggled on and on and the gaining of which at last had saved their lives. Here