"What'll we do if it has?" asked Charley with a sinking heart.
"'Twill be a bad fix. 'Twill be a wonderful bad fix. I'm not knowin' how we'd be gettin' out of a fix like that. I'd be wishin' Dad was here to get us out of un. He's always findin' a way out of fixes. We won't be thinkin' about un till we finds out. Dad says folk worry more about things that don't happen than about things that do."
On they went in silence, tense with uncertainty, for another half hour. Charley was thinking about what Skipper Zeb had said about worry when they were in the camp at the Duck's Head, and Skipper Zeb's philosophy helped him to keep his courage.
"Ah!" Toby suddenly shouted to the dogs, and they came to a stop at the command. "She's gone abroad from the shore!" and he pointed at a long, black streak of water between the ice and the shore ahead.
"What'll we do?" asked Charley in a frightened voice. "Can't we get to land?"
"We'll try un to the west'ard," suggested Toby. "The ice'll hold the shore longer there. 'Tis only half as far from here as we've come from the p'int this side of Deer Harbour. There's a narrow place in the bay where I'm thinkin' the ice may clog and hold."
With this he shouted "Ooisht!" to the dogs, and breaking the komatik loose, "Ouk! Ouk! Ouk!" until they were pointing toward the opposite shore of the bay, and farther inland.
"And you runs ahead of the dogs now," suggested Toby, "'twill help un to work faster. I'll push un with the whip. Make toward the Capstan. That's that round hill you sees over there," and Toby pointed to a lonely mountain to the westward.
Charley set forth at a trot. His example, aided by Toby's threatening whip, accelerated the speed of the dogs perceptibly, and the shore began to loom up. But the sky had clouded, and presently a fine mist of snow shut out the Capstan, which was Charley's guide, and at last the entire shore line was clouded from view.
For some time the dogs had persisted in edging toward the right, which was seaward, though Toby held them to their course with the whip. After a little while he called to Charley to come back.