Beyond the Big Rock the country was all new to the twins and Koko. They
looked into narrow bays and inlets as the boat moved along, and saw
green moss carpeting the sunny slopes in sheltered places.
They could even see bright flowers growing in the warm spots which
faced the sun. The sky was blue overhead. The water was blue below.
Beyond the green slopes they could see the bare hillsides crowned with
the white ice cap which never melts, and streams of water dashing down
the hillsides and pouring themselves into the waters of the bay.
When they had gone a good many miles up the coast, Kesshoo waved his
hand and pointed to a strange sight on the shore.
There was a great river of ice! They could see where it came out of a
hollow place between two hills. It looked just like a river, only it
was frozen solid, and the end of it, where it came into the sea, was
broken off like a great wall of ice, and there were cakes of ice
floating about in the water.
Suddenly there was a cracking sound. Menie had heard that sound before.
It was the same sound that he had heard when he went seal-hole hunting
and got carried away on the ice raft. Menie didn't like the sound
anymore. It scared him!
Right after the cracking noise Kesshoo's voice shouted, "Row farther
out! Follow me!"
He turned his kyak straight out to sea. All the other boats followed.
They had gone only about half a mile when suddenly there was a loud
crick-crick-CRACK as if a piece of the world had broken off, and then
there was a splash that could be heard for miles, if there had been any
one to hear it.
The end of the glacier, or ice river, had broken off and fallen down
into the water! It had made an iceberg!
The splash was so great that in a moment the waves it made reached the
boats. The boats rocked up and down on the water and bounced about like
corks.
The twins and Koko thought this was great fun, but the Angakok didn't
like it a bit. One wave splashed over him, and some of the water went
down his neck.
All the grown people knew that if they hadn't rowed quickly away from
shore when Kesshoo called they might have been upset and drowned.