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.