“Humph, and take us with it, like as not,” responded the skipper. “Never did see such a lot of ice ’long here this time o’ year. And time’s flyin’. If she don’t open up mighty quick, we’ll have to put about and make for the Straits or we won’t be a-gettin’ into the Bay this season.”
“Can’t you run in with the motor?” asked Tom. “Seems to me that’s easier to handle than sails.”
“By glory! I must be gettin’ old,” cried the captain. “Say, Pem, what sort of a’ ice pilot are you that you didn’t think of that?”
“How in tarnation’d I think o’ thet there contraption?” demanded the old whaleman. “Fust time I ever wuz shipmates long o’ one.”
In a few minutes the motor’s exhaust was ringing loudly across the ice pack, and under half speed, the schooner was cautiously feeling her way through the zigzagging, winding lanes of water; bumping into floating cakes, grating against the solid masses on either side, but each moment getting farther and farther into the vast field and nearer to the gray rocky coast. Presently, from the lookout came the shout of “Open water ahead!” An hour later the Narwhal was resting at anchor in a broad expanse of open sea with only isolated grounded bergs and drifting floes upon the surface. Seaward, the white barrier through which she had passed stretched to the horizon to north and south.
Hardly had the schooner come to rest before the Eskimos were launching their kayaks, and in a few minutes were darting away in various directions.
“Where are they going?” asked Tom as he and Jim watched the skin boats leave the vessel’s side.
“Lookin’ for walrus,” replied the captain. “When they sight a herd they’ll come back and report and like as not get a few to bring along as samples.”
“I’d love to be with them,” declared Jim. “I’m going to ask Unavik to take us in a kayak some day.”
“Better start with a real boat,” advised the captain. “If you see a big bull walrus rearin’ up his head and glarin’ at you with them red eyes of his, and roarin’ and bellowin’ and heavin’ his tusks up and down, and rushin’ at you like he’s gone crazy, you’ll be mighty glad you’re in a whaleboat ’stead of a skin kayak.”