little ship, 'Duncan McDonald'; of the bravest, noblest commander, and the sweetest angel of a woman that ever breathed and lived and loved. I'll tell you of my escape and the hell I've been through. To-morrow"
He dozed off for a few moments again.
"But I've got enough in this pack to turn the world inside out with wonder—ah, what a sensation it will be, what an educational feature! It will send out a hundred harum-scarum expeditions to find Polaria—but there are few commanders like Captain Burrows; he could do it, the rest of 'em will die in the ice. But when I get to San Fran. Say, Captain, how long will it take to get there, and how long before you start?"
Enoch and I exchanged glances, and Enoch answered: "We wa'n't goin' to 'Frisco."
"Around the Horn, then?" inquired the stranger, sitting up. "But you will land me in 'Frisco, won't you? I can't wait, I must"
"We're goin' in," said Enoch; "goin' north, for a three-years' cruise."
"North!" shouted the stranger, wildly. "Three years in that hell of ice. Three years! My God! North! North!"
He was dancing around the deck like a maniac, trying to put his pack-loop over his head. Enoch went toward him, to tell him how he could go on the "Enchantress," but he looked wildly at him, ran forward and sprang out on the bowsprit, and from there to the jib. Enoch saw he was out of his mind, and ordered two sailors to bring him in. As they sprang on to the bow, he stood up and screamed:
"No! No! No! Three years! Three lives! Three hells! I never"
One of the men reached for him here, but he kicked at the sailor viciously, and turning side wise, sprang into the water below.
A boat, already in the water, was manned instantly; but the worn-out body of another North Pole explorer had gone to the sands of the bottom where so many others have gone before; evidently his heavy pack had held him down, there to guard the story it could tell—in death as he had in life.
"The worn-out body of another North Pole explorer had gone."
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Editor's Note.—"The Polar Zone" is the first of a number of short stories written by Mr. John A. Hill that are to appear in McClure's Magazine. This story is of the sea; but, as the story itself discloses, Mr. Hill is a railroad man, and the succeeding stories will treat of railroad life, which Mr. Hill has known in its most adventurous and romantic phases. The stories were published some years ago in a railroad journal; but they have perhaps more interest for the general public even than for railroad people, and their extraordinary quality fully warrants their republication.
