"Can we climb there?" said he.
"I should think so," answered La Salle; and taking an axe and the end of the rope, he began to ascend the cliff along the shelving pathway. As he ascended, he heard behind him the blows of an axe, and, turning, saw Regnar cut a narrow cleft from the entrance of the cove to the level of the way to the top of the berg. "Are you mad," asked La Salle, "that you scatter your chips about the berg like that, and into the very pathway?"
Regnar gave a finishing stroke to his work, and came lightly up the path.
"I shall finish my work above," said he; and in a moment more they stood upon the summit.
The brink of the pool lay near the edge of the cliff, and without stopping to look around him, Regnar commenced cutting a deep, narrow gutter from the pathway to the huge reservoir. As he struck the blows which shattered the thin wall of ice between the pool and its new outlet, the water poured in a stream a foot deep through the little canal, and down the slanting ledge into the cavern below.
"I understand it now," said La Salle, "and I now know why you lashed the body to its support."
"Yes," answered the boy, coolly, "should any try to break into yonder tomb to-morrow, they would do so at the risk of their lives; but if we have a week of frost, the cove will be full to its outlet of solid ice."
"But, Regnar, let us think of something else. Where are the islands we saw last evening? We ought now to be near the southern shore of the group."
"We have been wedged off to sea by stranded ice, I should judge; for there, about fifteen miles to the northward, lies Amherst Island."
