"I'm fearin' you can't do it, Andy! 'Twill soon be too much for flesh and blood out on the Bay!" said Peter.
"'Tis in my scout oath to do my best," said Andy, adjusting the hood of his sealskin netsek. "I'm goin', now."
Andy closed the door behind him. It was pitchy dark. The snow was driving in blinding clouds, and he stood for a moment to catch his breath. Then he felt his way down across The Jug and out upon the Bay ice. Here the full force of the north-east blizzard met him. He staggered and choked with the first blast, then in a temporary lull forged ahead.
The storm, as Peter predicted, had not reached its height. Each smothering blast of fury was stronger and fiercer than the one before it. Andy took advantage of the lulls, and save when the heavier blasts came and nearly swept him from his feet, maintained a steady trot. In the swirl of snow-clouds he could see nothing a foot from his nose. Once he found himself floundering through pressure ridges formed by the tide near shore. This he calculated was the tip of a long point jutting out into the Bay, half-way between The Jug and the Post. Ten miles of the distance was behind him. He drew farther out upon the ice.
There were times when Andy had to throw himself prone upon the ice with his face down and sheltered by his arms to escape suffocation.
"'Tis gettin' wonderful nasty," he said, "but I'll have plenty o' grit, like Jamie says, and with the Lord's help I'll pull through."
Then he found himself repeating over and over again the prayer:
"Dear Lord, help me through! 'Tis to save a life, and the scout oath! Dear Lord, help me through!"
The gale had now risen to such terrific proportions that often he was compelled to crawl upon his hands and knees. With each momentary lull he would rise and stagger forward. His legs worked at these times without conscious effort. It was strange his legs should be like that. They had never felt like that before.
And so, crawling, staggering upright, crawling again, and lying for minutes at a time with his face in his arms that he might breathe when he was well-nigh overwhelmed and suffocated, Andy kept on.