"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."