"There," said Jimmy at length, "they're pretty short paddles, but we'll have to make 'em do. Let's get off of this."
But the tide was running out, and a very strong tide it proved, and the breeze from the land was stiff enough, too, had there been no opposing tide, to have made pulling against it with a good pair of oars no easy task. All this they did not realize until they had paddled beyond the shelter of the iceberg, for they had drawn the boat up upon its lee side.
They put all the energy they could muster into their effort, but the paddles were very short and very narrow, and work as they would they presently discovered that tide and wind were mastering them, and instead of progressing toward Itigailit Island they were drifting seaward.
"We can't make it!" said Jimmy at last.
"No," agreed Bobby. "We'll have to go back to the berg and wait for them to come for us."
But even that they could not accomplish. Work as they would, the paddles proved hopelessly inefficient, and after an hour's desperate effort they realized that they were nearly as far to seaward from the iceberg as the iceberg was from Itigailit Island.
"Well," said Bobby, at length, "we're in for it, and a fine fix it is."
"What are we going to do?" asked Jimmy. "We've got to do something."
"I wish that I had some of that bear meat. I'm as hungry as the old bear ever was," said Bobby, irrelevantly.
"Well, so am I, but we'll be hungrier than the bear ever was, I'm thinking, if we don't do something to get to land," broke in Jimmy with some irritation. "Why, Bobby, don't you realize what it means? We've got no water and nothing to eat! We'll perish of thirst and hunger if we don't get to land! Unless a sea rises and swamps us, and then we'll drown!"