CHAPTER XIV

GOOD WORK IN THE BLIZZARD

"BE sharp, lads," exclaimed Ranworth excitedly, "they're nearly done for."

With a leap he alighted upon the ground, and, running with the drifting snow, made towards the newcomers, Leslie and Guy following at his heels, and O'Donovan bringing up the rear. Running hardly describes their progress, for at every step the crew of the _Bird of Freedom_ sank almost to their knees.

The two strangers gave no sign of having seen their rescuers. They floundered heavily through the snow, with their shoulders hunched and their heads sunk on their chests. They were enveloped with furs, while, as they struggled against the falling snow, the front of their clothing was plastered white with the frozen flakes. The pair were trudging side by side, dragging a light sleigh by means of cords slung over their shoulders.

"Ahoy!" shouted Ranworth.

At the sound of his voice, both men raised their heads. Their faces were black and almost hidden by thick beards.

One of the men raised his arm and gave vent to a feeble shout which seemed almost stifled in his throat, and pitched inertly upon the snow. His companion stood stock still for a few seconds, then rubbed his eyes vigorously as if unable to credit his sense of vision. Then, extending both arms, he struggled forward for a few paces and collapsed in a heap.

Ranworth and Guy raised the man to a sitting position, while Leslie and O'Donovan directed their attention to the unfortunate individual who had been the first to collapse.

The former was not unconscious, but almost done up through sheer exhaustion. He was a great, hulking fellow of more than six feet in height, and too heavy for even the united efforts of the _Bird of Freedom's_ crew to carry through the snow.

"Lift him on to the sleigh," ordered Ranworth. "You, Guy, steady him so that he won't fall off. We'll drag him back to the _Bird of Freedom_. The other man is unconscious. A few minutes more won't hurt him much."

It was an easy matter to drag the light sleigh with its burden, but the difficulty was to get the heavy man up and through the doorway in the side of the _Bird of Freedom_. He was incapable of assisting himself, and his bulk, rendered additionally great by his thick fur clothing, afforded little grip. The "entry port" of the motor-sleigh was not intended for men of his girth.

"Can't we raise him on this, sir?" asked Leslie, indicating the little sleigh on which the man had been brought alongside the _Bird of Freedom_.

"Right-o," assented Ranworth. "Get on board, Leslie, and open the hatchway. Then lower that rope-ladder from the roof."

This Leslie did, then, descending to the interior of the motor-sleigh, he "stood by," while by dint of strenuous exertion, his three companions raised the impromptu stretcher and its burden until one end rested on the sill of the door. Then Leslie assisted in hauling in the helpless man until the stretcher was almost balanced, half in and half out of the _Bird of Freedom_.

"Can you steady him?" asked Ranworth.

Receiving an affirmative reply from Leslie, his companion ascended the rope-ladder and gained the cabin of the _Bird of Freedom_ by means of the hatchway in the roof, since the doorway in the side was completely blocked by the massive form of the helpless man. It was then a comparatively easy matter to drag the rest of the stretcher across the sill and deposit its burden upon the floor.

"See to him, O'Donovan," said Ranworth. "Now then, you fellows, we'll get the other man in. Sling that sleigh out, Guy, we'll want it."

It was now snowing heavily, so much so that by the time the rescuers retraced their steps to the place where they had left the second man, his body was almost hidden in the drift.

"I'd rather drag this thing a yard than a mile," thought Leslie, as with Guy he seized the cords attached to the sleigh and literally fought his way through the blinding snow. "I wonder how far those poor chaps have come?"

The second of the two rescued men was short in stature, but of a massive build, and it took almost as much exertion to get him on board the _Bird of Freedom_ as it had done to deal with his companion.

"Attend to this poor chap, Guy," said Ranworth. "Leslie, will you start the motors? If we don't get a move on pretty smartly, we'll be snowed in."

"How about this, sir?" asked Leslie, indicating the sleigh which the two men had been dragging.

"Sling it overboard. It won't be wanted now, I fancy. Cut adrift that bundle and see what it contains before you get rid of the sleigh."

Leslie did so. The contents of the package told their own tale, for wrapped up in a piece of fur were two lumps of raw seal's flesh and some broken bits of mouldy biscuits.

"Starvation rations," commented Ranworth. "Now, Leslie, start her up; we've no time to lose."

Under the action of the decapod wheels, since the runners were no longer of any use in the soft snow, the _Bird of Freedom_ resumed her slow crawl, five miles an hour being the maximum speed under such adverse conditions.

Meanwhile Guy, following O'Donovan's example, had divested his patient of most of his clothing, and was rubbing his chest and forehead with snow. Both men were nearly worn to skeletons. Their ribs stood out sharply under their skin, which was almost black with grime, soot, and oil.

Presently the tall man, who had never actually lost consciousness, feebly made signs that he wanted food.

O'Donovan had already opened a tin of soup and had put the contents to simmer over a spirit stove. A few spoonfuls revived the man considerably.

"Where did you leave the rest of the Ranworth Expedition?" asked Guy.

The man looked at him wonderingly, then shook his head.

Guy repeated the question, receiving in reply some words which he could not understand.

"It's my opinion, Master Guy," said O'Donovan, "that this chap's something he ought not to be."

"What do you mean?" asked the lad.

"He is a foreigner, an', bedad, ne'er a foreigner belonged to Mr. Ranworth's party. They were British to a man, not excepting the few that belonged to Ould Oireland."

Guy, having seen his patient warmly wrapped up, went to Ranworth, who was at the steering-wheel.

"One of those men is a foreigner, sir," he reported.

"Never!" ejaculated Ranworth, incredulously; then he added: "It's a rotten business if he is. Here, Guy, take the wheel a few minutes. Shout if you want me."

Leaving Guy in charge of the helm, Ranworth approached the rescued man.

"Feeling better?" he asked.

The patient shook his head and replied in a guttural and unintelligible language. It bore no resemblance to English. It certainly was not German, which Ranworth knew fairly well.

"Dansk? Norge? Sverige? Russe?" inquired Ranworth, naming the northern kingdoms of Europe.

"Yes, I am a Russian," replied the man, speaking in excellent French. "My name is Ivan Petrovitch, and I am a captain in the Imperial Guard. My companion there is Dmitri Rapoulin, of the Moscow University. To whom are we indebted for saving our lives?"

"Members of the Ranworth Relief Expedition," was the reply. "You have possibly fallen in with the Polar Exploration party under the direction of my brother, Claude Ranworth?"

The Russian shook his head.

"We knew not that there were others in Nova Cania," he replied. "We were wrecked three weeks ago."

"Wrecked?" echoed Ranworth in unbelief. "Then how comes it that we found you so far inland?"

Petrovitch smiled feebly, for he was still very weak, although steadily regaining his vitality.

"There are other ways of being wrecked than on the seashore, monsieur," he said. "We were cast upon the barren land from an airship, in which we were making a scientific voyage. The blizzard brought us down like a stone. _Pouf!_ In one second all was gone; our provisions, stores, instruments, in short, everything we possessed except what we stood upright in, although later on we recovered several things which had been blown far across the snow.

"We were stranded, and on the verge of starvation, sixty miles from the coast and without means of communicating with any wireless station."

"Without provisions--then how did you exist?" asked Ranworth,

"We found a tin of biscuits which had by a miracle escaped destruction," answered Ivan Petrovitch. "Two days later we fell in with a flock of seals. Then came the great blizzard."

"The same that played havoc with my brother's resources."

"Undoubtedly," agreed the Russian. "It was frightful. Even we Russians, accustomed to the cold, were on the point of death. Finally my friend Dmitri and I resolved to make a dash for the harbour you English call Desolation Inlet, hoping against hope to find a chance whaler anchoring there. For days we have eaten nothing but seals' flesh and pieces of rotten biscuit. Our comrades are in a worse plight, I fear."

"How many of you are there altogether?" asked Ranworth.

"Ten."

The Russian stretched out his hand for more soup. Ranworth was silent. He was thinking deeply. The obligations of the relief party were increased twofold. In the name of humanity he must proceed to the rescue of the luckless crew of the destroyed airship. At the most the _Bird of Freedom_ could accommodate sixteen persons only, including her original complement.

"It will mean two trips," he soliloquised. "The question is: whose necessity is greater--my brother's or this man's comrades? Dash it! Of all the intricate problems, this is the stiffest I have had to face."

Finally Ranworth resolved to defer his decision until the _Bird of Freedom_ arrived at Observation Camp. It would obviously be a kind of wild-goose chase to penetrate fifteen or twenty miles farther inland, until the two rescued Russians could give clear and concise directions as to how to reach the spot where they had left their unfortunate comrades.

His thoughts were interrupted by a gradually increasing grinding noise. The snow had been freezing rapidly, and the decapod wheels, instead of noiselessly gripping the powdery ground, were now encountering ice strong enough to support the runners.

Accordingly the weight of the sleigh was transferred from the wheels to the steel runners, the air-propellers were brought into action, and once more the _Bird of Freedom_ settled down to a steady pace of forty miles an hour.

"I'll take her, Guy," said Ranworth, relieving the lad at the steering-wheel. "We ought not to be far off now."

Ten minutes later Leslie received the order to switch off, and the sleigh, gradually losing way, came to a standstill within ten feet of the nearest of a cluster of snow huts.

The rescue party had arrived at Observation Camp.