UNDER THE DRIFTING SNOW
Bobby and Jimmy heard the ominous booming that accompanied the parting
of the floe from the land ice, and they whipped the dogs to the utmost
exertion of which the animals were capable, but they had dallied too
long, and when they reached the rapidly widening chasm it was plain that
retreat was hopelessly cut off.
"We can swim it! We can swim!" shouted Jimmy, and but for the
restraining hand of Bobby he would have plunged into the water and made
the mad attempt, so soon forgetful was he of his recent experience.
"You'd freeze! You'd freeze! We couldn't swim in this cold!" Bobby
protested.
"I think we could have made it!" declared Jimmy, when Bobby let go his
arm.
"You know how the water treated us the other day, Jimmy," said Bobby
quietly. "We never could swim it. The cold would paralyze us before we
got half way across."
"But now we're sure to perish!" Jimmy exclaimed. "We'll be carried to
sea, 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 is
gone!"
"There wouldn't have been a chance if we'd tried to swim," Bobby
protested. "Here there is some sort of a chance. The ice may not break
up, and it may drift back so that we can get ashore, and if it holds
together long enough some vessel may pick us up. Anyhow we're here, and
we'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 did
not hear them, and at last he faded away, and the land ice faded away in
the cloud of drifting snow.
"There's going to be a hard blow, and we'll have to find a place to
build 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," added
Bobby. "I'm famishing. We'll have to get back among the hummocks to find
a drift for the _igloo_. Our old _igloo_, I suppose, has been washed
away 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 other
side, that's big enough for an _igloo_" suggested Jimmy disconsolately,
"and I think you're right about it being too near open water out there
to be safe, for if the ice breaks it'll break there first."
"Yes, but we may find something toward the center," agreed Bobby, as he
took up the whip and turned the dogs about. "We've got to make some kind
of 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 search
for a suitable snow drift upon which to build an _igloo_.
The fury of the storm increased with every moment. It drifted past and
around them in dense and stifling clouds and at times nearly choked
them. The wind shrieked and moaned among the hummocks. In the distance
they could hear the boom of the seas hammering upon the floe and
threatening it with destruction, and now with growing frequency rising
above the sound of shrieking wind and booming seas they were startled by
the cannon-like report of smashing ice.
At last the flying snow become so dense there was danger they would lose
the _komatik_ and lose each other, and they came together again, groping
their way blindly to the _komatik_, which was nearly hidden under the
drift, and the sleeping dogs, which by this time were wholly invisible.
"The snow is too soft," Bobby announced. "I've tried it everywhere, and
every block that I cut falls to pieces."
"I couldn't find any, either," said Jimmy, "but we've got to do
something. We'll perish without shelter."
"I'm afraid there's no use trying to build an _igloo_," acknowledged
Bobby, "though we needn't perish if we can't make one. But I don't want
to give up yet. Let's try just a little longer, but we must keep as
close to the _komatik_ as we can, or we'll get separated."
"We can't live through the night without an _igloo_!" Jimmy again
declared, adding wistfully: "I wonder if our old _igloo_ isn't all right
yet, 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, it
will soon in this blow, for the sea is eating away the ice floe on all
sides. Don't worry, Jimmy. We'll make out, _igloo_ or no _igloo_. Look
at 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 it
extracted some sea biscuits, and each cut for himself a thick piece of
the boiled fat pork, frozen as hard as pork will freeze, but
nevertheless very palatable to the famished young castaways. And
crouching close together under the lee of the _komatik_ they munched in
silence.
"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 it
sweeps over the level ice out there. The dogs are wise to get under the
drift 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 see
of 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 die
till I have to. It's the last thing I expect to do. I'm thinking about
getting a shelter made before it gets dark, and then keeping alive on
here, and as comfortable as we can, until we get ashore."
"I don't see how we're ever going to get ashore," Jimmy solemnly
insisted. "Not that I feel scared, though I'd rather live than die. But
it's an awful thing to feel that our bodies will be lost in the sea, and
no one will know how we die."
"If we have to die the sea is as good a place as any to die in, and what
difference does it make about our bodies? But," added Bobby, "we won't
die if I can help it, and I don't believe we're going to. If we do, why
that'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't
have 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 you
to hurry, so I'm most to blame. And I can't help worrying about Partner
and 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, and
there's never been a time yet when it didn't turn out in the end that
there never was anything to really worry about, after all. If you keep
on you'll get yourself scared. Now quit it. I was more at fault for
getting us into the scrape than you were, and you know that too, and if
you 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's
silence suggested, as they rose to continue their efforts to make a
shelter: "Bobby--let's ask God to take care of us."
"Yes," agreed Bobby enthusiastically, "let's do; and then let's do our
best to take care of ourselves, and help Him."
They sank on their knees in the snow, and each in silence offered his
own fervent prayer, while the wind drove the thick snow about them and
shrieked and moaned weirdly through the hummocks, and the distant
booming of the seas, and thunderous smashing of the ice on the outer
edge 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 rose
presently. "You better keep close to the _komatik_, Jimmy, so we won't
lose 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, while
the minutes stretched out, and at last dusk began to steal upon his
stormswept world.
Many times Jimmy shouted, but no answering shout from Bobby came to him,
and now he shouted and listened, and shouted and listened, but only the
shrieking and moaning of the wind, and booming and thundering of
breaking seas and pounding ice gave answer.
A sickening dread came into Jimmy's heart as vainly he peered through
the gathering darkness into ever thickening snow clouds, and called and
shouted 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 somewhere
ahead in the gloom. Jimmy, though he had wrapped a caribou skin around
his shoulders, was becoming numb with cold.
Growing desperate at last, he set out to search for Bobby, but did not
go far when he realized that it would be a hopeless search, and that it
was after all his duty to remain with the sledge. Then he turned back to
find the sledge and stumbled and groped around in the snow for a long
while before he fell upon it by sheer accident.
With darkness the velocity of the storm increased, constantly gathering
force. The bitter cold cut through Jimmy's sealskin clothing and through
the caribou skin which he had again wrapped around him, and his flesh
felt numb, and a heavy drowsiness was stealing upon him which it was
hard to resist. He knew that to surrender to this in his exposed
position would be fatal, and he rose to his feet and jumped up and down
to restore circulation.
Any further attempt to find Bobby, he realized, would be foolhardy if
not suicidal. His previous effort had proved this, and now he felt quite
helpless. He was also very certain that Bobby could not by any
possibility, if he still survived, find his way back to the _komatik_
until the storm abated. He would have lost the _komatik_ himself now
had he wandered even a dozen feet from it.
And then he comforted himself with the thought that Bobby had learned
many things from Abel concerning the manner in which the Eskimos on the
open barrens and ice fields protect themselves when suddenly overtaken
by storms such as the one that now raged. In these matters, indeed, he
looked upon Bobby as an Eskimo, and had great confidence in Bobby's
ability to overcome conditions that to himself would seem unconquerable.
He knew, too, that Bobby, when hunting with Abel upon the barrens, had
weathered some terrific storms. These were experiences which he himself
had never encountered, for he and Skipper Ed during their winter months
on the trapping trails clung more closely to the forests, where they
were protected from sweeping gales and could always find firewood in
abundance, and could build a temporary shelter.
And pondering these things as he sat huddled upon the sledge, his hope
that Bobby might after all be safe grew, and he felt a sense of vast
relief steal over him. He was not so cold now, his brain was heavy with
sleep and he began to doze.
Suddenly he again realized his own danger were he to submit to the sleep
which the cold was urging upon him, and he sprang to his feet and jumped
and jumped and shouted and swung his arms, until he could feel the blood
tingling through his veins, and his brain awake.
"I must do something!" said he. "I must do something! Bobby is lost out
there and I can't help him, and I can't stand this much longer. I must
do something for myself or I'll perish before morning."
Then he remembered the dogs, lying deep and snug under the drifts, and
what Bobby had said about them, and with feverish haste he drew his snow
knife and cut away the drift which now all but covered the _komatik_.
Then he took his sleeping bag from the load, and, digging deeper down
and 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 he
like the dogs lay buried beneath the drift.