by Oliver Optic
CHAPTER XXIV
UNDER THE DRIFTING SNOW
Bobby and Jimmy heard the ominous booming that accompanied the partingof the floe from the land ice, and they whipped the dogs to the utmostexertion of which the animals were capable, but they had dallied toolong, and when they reached the rapidly widening chasm it was plain thatretreat was hopelessly cut off.
"We can swim it! We can swim!" shouted Jimmy, and but for therestraining hand of Bobby he would have plunged into the water and madethe mad attempt, so soon forgetful was he of his recent experience.
"You'd freeze! You'd freeze! We couldn't swim in this cold!" Bobbyprotested.
"I think we could have made it!" declared Jimmy, when Bobby let go hisarm.
"You know how the water treated us the other day, Jimmy," said Bobbyquietly. "We never could swim it. The cold would paralyze us before wegot half way across."
"But now we're sure to perish!" Jimmy exclaimed. "We'll be carried tosea, and the ice will break up, and there'll be no chance for us at all.We'd have had at least a chance if we'd tried! Now our last chance isgone!"
"There wouldn't have been a chance if we'd tried to swim," Bobbyprotested. "Here there is some sort of a chance. The ice may not breakup, and it may drift back so that we can get ashore, and if it holdstogether long enough some vessel may pick us up. Anyhow we're here, andwe've got to make the best of it."
"There's Partner!" broke in Jimmy. "Poor old Partner! See him out there?I wonder what he'll do."
And then they shouted to Skipper Ed, and again and again they shouted,but the wind blew their shouts back into their teeth and Skipper Ed didnot hear them, and at last he faded away, and the land ice faded away inthe cloud of drifting snow.
"There's going to be a hard blow, and we'll have to find a place tobuild our _igloo_," Bobby at length suggested.
"Yes," agreed Jimmy. "I'm glad we've got the snow knives and the lamp.If it comes to blow hard we'd perish in the open."
"And I'm glad we've got these seals, and some tea and biscuits," addedBobby. "I'm famishing. We'll have to get back among the hummocks to finda drift for the _igloo_. Our old _igloo_, I suppose, has been washedaway before this. Anyway, it's too near the surf to be safe."
"I'm afraid there's no drift, except among the big hummocks on the otherside, that's big enough for an _igloo_" suggested Jimmy disconsolately,"and I think you're right about it being too near open water out thereto be safe, for if the ice breaks it'll break there first."
"Yes, but we may find something toward the center," agreed Bobby, as hetook up the whip and turned the dogs about. "We've got to make some kindof shelter."
And so they made their way back among the pressure hummocks, and,compelling the dogs to lie down, each with a snow knife began his searchfor a suitable snow drift upon which to build an _igloo_.
The fury of the storm increased with every moment. It drifted past andaround them in dense and stifling clouds and at times nearly chokedthem. The wind shrieked and moaned among the hummocks. In the distancethey could hear the boom of the seas hammering upon the floe andthreatening it with destruction, and now with growing frequency risingabove the sound of shrieking wind and booming seas they were startled bythe cannon-like report of smashing ice.
At last the flying snow become so dense there was danger they would losethe _komatik_ and lose each other, and they came together again, gropingtheir way blindly to the _komatik_, which was nearly hidden under thedrift, and the sleeping dogs, which by this time were wholly invisible.
"The snow is too soft," Bobby announced. "I've tried it everywhere, andevery block that I cut falls to pieces."
"I couldn't find any, either," said Jimmy, "but we've got to dosomething. We'll perish without shelter."
"I'm afraid there's no use trying to build an _igloo_," acknowledgedBobby, "though we needn't perish if we can't make one. But I don't wantto give up yet. Let's try just a little longer, but we must keep asclose to the _komatik_ as we can, or we'll get separated."
"We can't live through the night without an _igloo_!" Jimmy againdeclared, adding wistfully: "I wonder if our old _igloo_ isn't all rightyet, after all? It sat a little back, you know, from the water."
"It wouldn't be safe," Bobby protested. "If it hasn't gone already, itwill soon in this blow, for the sea is eating away the ice floe on allsides. Don't worry, Jimmy. We'll make out, _igloo_ or no _igloo_. Lookat the dogs. They don't have _igloos_ ever. But I'm weak with hunger.I've got to eat a biscuit before I do another thing."
Together they dug away the snow and found the food bag, and from itextracted some sea biscuits, and each cut for himself a thick piece ofthe boiled fat pork, frozen as hard as pork will freeze, butnevertheless very palatable to the famished young castaways. Andcrouching close together under the lee of the _komatik_ they munched insilence.
"If it wasn't for these big hummocks we'd be blown clear off the ice,"said Bobby, finally. "We've no idea how strong the wind is and how itsweeps over the level ice out there. The dogs are wise to get under thedrift so soon."
They again fell into silence for a little while, when Jimmy remarked,sadly:
"We'll never see home again, I suppose! There's no hope that I can seeof getting off this floe. I wonder what it will be like to die."
"I'm not thinking about dying," said Bobby, "and I'm not going to dietill I have to. It's the last thing I expect to do. I'm thinking aboutgetting a shelter made before it gets dark, and then keeping alive onhere, and as comfortable as we can, until we get ashore."
"I don't see how we're ever going to get ashore," Jimmy solemnlyinsisted. "Not that I feel scared, though I'd rather live than die. Butit's an awful thing to feel that our bodies will be lost in the sea, andno one will know how we die."
"If we have to die the sea is as good a place as any to die in, and whatdifference does it make about our bodies? But," added Bobby, "we won'tdie if I can help it, and I don't believe we're going to. If we do, whythat's the way the Almighty planned it for us, and we shouldn't mind,for what the Almighty plans is right. He knows what is best for us."
"I can't believe just that," said Jimmy. "If we'd hurried we wouldn'thave been caught in this trap. It was our fault. I'm not blaming you,Bobby. I'm older than you and should have thought further and told youto hurry, so I'm most to blame. And I can't help worrying about Partnerand Abel and Mrs. Zachariah, and how they'll feel and what they'll do."
"What's the use of worry? You always get worrying and stewing, Jimmy,and you know it doesn't help things any and makes you miserable, andthere's never been a time yet when it didn't turn out in the end thatthere never was anything to really worry about, after all. If you keepon you'll get yourself scared. Now quit it. I was more at fault forgetting us into the scrape than you were, and you know that too, and ifyou keep up this sort of talk I'll feel you're trying to rub it in."
"Well, perhaps you're right," Jimmy admitted, and after a moment'ssilence suggested, as they rose to continue their efforts to make ashelter: "Bobby--let's ask God to take care of us."
"Yes," agreed Bobby enthusiastically, "let's do; and then let's do ourbest to take care of ourselves, and help Him."
They sank on their knees in the snow, and each in silence offered hisown fervent prayer, while the wind drove the thick snow about them andshrieked and moaned weirdly through the hummocks, and the distantbooming of the seas, and thunderous smashing of the ice on the outeredge of the floe, fell upon their ears with solemn, ominous foreboding.
"Now I'm going to look again for hard snow," said Bobby, when they rosepresently. "You better keep close to the _komatik_, Jimmy, so we won'tlose it. I won't go far, and if I find snow that will cut I'll holler,and if I lose the direction I'll holler, and then you answer."
And taking his snow knife Bobby was swallowed up by the swirling snow,and Jimmy waited and waited, in dreadful loneliness and suspense, whilethe minutes stretched out, and at last dusk began to steal upon hisstormswept world.
Many times Jimmy shouted, but no ans
wering shout from Bobby came to him,and now he shouted and listened, and shouted and listened, but only theshrieking and moaning of the wind, and booming and thundering ofbreaking seas and pounding ice gave answer.
A sickening dread came into Jimmy's heart as vainly he peered throughthe gathering darkness into ever thickening snow clouds, and called andshouted until he was hoarse.
He could not see the dogs now--he could hardly see the length of the_komatik_. The dogs lay quiet under their blanket of snow somewhereahead in the gloom. Jimmy, though he had wrapped a caribou skin aroundhis shoulders, was becoming numb with cold.
Growing desperate at last, he set out to search for Bobby, but did notgo far when he realized that it would be a hopeless search, and that itwas after all his duty to remain with the sledge. Then he turned back tofind the sledge and stumbled and groped around in the snow for a longwhile before he fell upon it by sheer accident.
With darkness the velocity of the storm increased, constantly gatheringforce. The bitter cold cut through Jimmy's sealskin clothing and throughthe caribou skin which he had again wrapped around him, and his fleshfelt numb, and a heavy drowsiness was stealing upon him which it washard to resist. He knew that to surrender to this in his exposedposition would be fatal, and he rose to his feet and jumped up and downto restore circulation.
Any further attempt to find Bobby, he realized, would be foolhardy ifnot suicidal. His previous effort had proved this, and now he felt quitehelpless. He was also very certain that Bobby could not by anypossibility, if he still survived, find his way back to the _komatik_until the storm abated. He would have lost the _komatik_ himself nowhad he wandered even a dozen feet from it.
And then he comforted himself with the thought that Bobby had learnedmany things from Abel concerning the manner in which the Eskimos on theopen barrens and ice fields protect themselves when suddenly overtakenby storms such as the one that now raged. In these matters, indeed, helooked upon Bobby as an Eskimo, and had great confidence in Bobby'sability to overcome conditions that to himself would seem unconquerable.
He knew, too, that Bobby, when hunting with Abel upon the barrens, hadweathered some terrific storms. These were experiences which he himselfhad never encountered, for he and Skipper Ed during their winter monthson the trapping trails clung more closely to the forests, where theywere protected from sweeping gales and could always find firewood inabundance, and could build a temporary shelter.
And pondering these things as he sat huddled upon the sledge, his hopethat Bobby might after all be safe grew, and he felt a sense of vastrelief steal over him. He was not so cold now, his brain was heavy withsleep and he began to doze.
Suddenly he again realized his own danger were he to submit to the sleepwhich the cold was urging upon him, and he sprang to his feet and jumpedand jumped and shouted and swung his arms, until he could feel the bloodtingling through his veins, and his brain awake.
"I must do something!" said he. "I must do something! Bobby is lost outthere and I can't help him, and I can't stand this much longer. I mustdo something for myself or I'll perish before morning."
Then he remembered the dogs, lying deep and snug under the drifts, andwhat Bobby had said about them, and with feverish haste he drew his snowknife and cut away the drift which now all but covered the _komatik_.Then he took his sleeping bag from the load, and, digging deeper downand down into the drift, stretched the bag into the hole he had made,and slid into it, and in a little while the snow covered him, and helike the dogs lay buried beneath the drift.