"No, as Dad says, 'twill do no good to worry, because worry unsets the insides of our heads and then that upsets our other insides and we gets sick," commented Toby. "We're about as well off without the boat as we would be with un. 'Tis lookin' to me like the start of winter, and if 'tis, I'm thinkin' the bay'll fasten over by the time the storm's over and before we could be gettin' away with the boat if we had un, and we'd be havin' to walk whatever."
"Do you mean walk on the ice when it comes?" asked Charley anxiously. "Won't that take a good while? We won't starve before then, will we?"
"We may be havin' some hungry days, but we'll not be starvin'," suggested Toby. "Indians has hungry spells when they don't get deer sometimes, and if Indians can stand un we can."
"Yes," Charley boasted, "if the Indians can stand it we can."
It was long after dark, and the evening well advanced, when they ate a most satisfying supper of boiled goose. After they had eaten Toby cut a supply of dry shavings and kindling wood from the hearts of dead sticks, which he split, and stowed the shavings and kindling wood behind their sleeping bags where the snow could not reach them to wet them, and they would be ready for instant use in the morning. Then he piled an extra supply of dry wood upon the fire, and upon this placed two of the green logs, remarking:
"The green wood'll not be goin' out so quick when she gets goin', and the coals are like to keep the fireplace free o' snow longer if she drifts in whilst we sleeps."
Never had Charley experienced such a storm. The weather had suddenly grown intensely cold, as he discovered when he stepped beyond the fire's glow. Now, snuggling down into his sleeping bag, it seemed to him that all the forces of nature had broken loose in their wildest fury. Above the shriek of wind was heard the dull thud of pounding seas upon the rocks, and the hiss of driving snow, combining to fill the air with a tumult little less than terrifying.
Once, in concern, he spoke to Toby, but there was no response, and he knew that Toby was asleep. For a time he lay awake and listened to the roar of the storm and the thunder of the seas, and then, wearied with the day's labours and adventures, the shriek of wind and hiss of snow and roar of pounding seas blended into blissful unconsciousness, and he slept as peacefully as he would have slept in his bed at Double Up Cove.
When the young adventurers awoke the next morning, there was no abatement in the storm. A huge drift covered the boulder and the place where their fire had been, and nearly enclosed the front of the lean-to; and before they could lay a fire, a half hour's hard work was necessary to clear the snow away, each using a snowshoe in lieu of a shovel.
Then Toby lighted a fire, and soon the lean-to was warm again, and the kettle boiling merrily, and they ate a light breakfast of goose, a little of the remaining bread, and one cup each of weak tea sweetened with molasses.