The descent to the sea ice on the opposite side was much more abrupt. Immediately it was begun, the komatik began to coast, and Toby threw a ring of braided walrus hide over the front end of one of the runners. This "drag," as he called it, was three feet in diameter and as thick as his wrist. The lower side of the ring, dragging back under the runner, was forced into the hard snow, and thus served to retard the komatik, but even then it gathered such speed that the dogs were forced to turn aside, lest it should run them down, and to race with it as fast as they could run. Toby threw himself upon his side upon the komatik, clinging to it with both hands, and sticking his heels into the snow at the side and in front of him, and running with the komatik at the same time, put forth all his strength to hold it back.
This is exceedingly dangerous work, as Charley realized. A single misstep might result in a broken leg, and even worse injury, and Charley held his breath in expectation that some such catastrophe would surely happen before they reached the bottom.
Once a dog's trace caught over a rock. The dog was sent sprawling, and Charley expected that the speeding komatik would strike and crush the helpless animal. But fortunately the trace slipped over the top of the rock just in time for the dog to escape, and in a moment it was on its feet again, racing with its companions.
They had covered two-thirds of the descent, when to their horror the boys saw a ribbon of black water, several yards in width, separating the shore from the sea ice. They were dashing directly toward it at tremendous speed, and Charley was sure that they could not avoid a plunge into its cold depths.
"Roll off!" Toby shouted.
Charley rolled clear of the speeding komatik, pitching over and over, and finally sliding to a stop, dazed and bewildered, but in time to see the komatik, bottom up, at the very brink of the chasm. Toby was sprawling just above it. The dogs, with traces taut, stood above him bracing themselves to hold the sledge from slipping farther.
"Oh!" cried Charley running down to Toby, who was up and righting the komatik before he could reach him, "I was sure we were going over!"
"We were wonderful close to un!" said Toby. "When you drops off, I jerks the front of the komatik and that makes she turn over and roll, and when I does un the dogs stops and holds fast. If 'tweren't for that we'd sure gone into the water and liker'n not been drowned."
"What'll we do now?" asked Charley. "We can't reach the sea ice."
"Follow the ballicaders," said Toby, indicating a narrow strip of ice hanging to the shore above the water. "'Twere careless of me not to think of the open water. This early in winter 'tis always like this above and below the tickle."