Even as he spoke the boys were thrown headlong on to the ripped deck and with a terrific lurch the schooner’s stern reared high in air. She careened terribly, and a moment later was lying almost on her beam ends on the top of the floe which had forced its way beneath her keel. Captain Edwards, old Pem and Mr. Kemp were shouting and yelling orders while the Eskimos who had seen their plight from the shore came hurrying over the ice to help. Soon every one was laboring like mad, unloading the cargo, getting out stores and supplies and preparing to desert the schooner, for all knew, that should the wind shift and the ice go out, the Narwhal would plunge to the bottom like a lump of lead.
Rapidly the casks of oil, the bales of whalebone, the bundles of skins, and the sacks of walrus ivory were lowered over the schooner’s sides. In a constant stream the Eskimos’ sledges went back and forth between the stove schooner and the shore, carrying the salvaged goods which were piled in a great mound well back from the beach.
At last everything movable had been saved. The spars and sails, the chains and cables, the blocks and tackle and the running rigging were stripped from the Narwhal and with lumber hastily torn from the long deck house a shed was built over the pile of valuables and supplies.
“Gee, we’re marooned here now,” cried Jim when the last sledge had come from the schooner and her sorrowing crew had tramped over the hummocky ice and stood gazing at the pitiful-looking ship which had served them so well.
“Reckon we won’t have to stay here long,” said Captain Edwards. “The Ruby’s up to Nepic Inlet and, if we can make her, we’ll be all right.”
“The Ruby?” queried Tom. “What’s she?”
“Little brigantine out o’ Nova Scotia,” replied the skipper. “Bluenose sealer. Guess her skipper’ll be willin’ to come in here an’ pick up this stuff of ourn an’ give us a lift to port.”
“But how can we get to her?” asked Jim.
“Sleds,” replied the captain. “’Tain’t over a hundred miles by land to the inlet an’ we can make it all right. Snow’s still good enough for sleddin’.”
Since another warm spell and a thaw might arrive at any moment, and make it impossible to travel over the slushy snow, no time was to be lost. Within two hours from the time the crew had come ashore, all were on their way across the snow-covered land toward Nepic Inlet and the Ruby.