Bob's experience at Kangeva made him hesitate for a moment, but his impatience to reach home quickly got the better of his judgment; and, especially as the Eskimos seemed inclined to prefer the outside route, he joined them in their preference and answered,
"We'll be goin' outside."
And the outside route they took.
All went well for a time, but hourly the wind increased. The dogs were urged on, but the wind kept blowing them to leeward and they began to show signs of giving out. Finally a veritable gale was blowing and the Eskimos' faces grew serious.
They were now opposite that part of the shore where it rose a perpendicular wall of rock towering a hundred feet above the sea, and offered no place of refuge. So they hurried on as best they could in the hope of rounding the walls and making land before the inevitable break came. Presently Aluktook shouted,
"Emuk! Emuk!"—the water! the water!
Bob and Netseksoak looked, and a ribbon of black water lay between them and the shore.
They lashed the dogs and shouted at them until they were hoarse, in a vain effort to urge them on. The poor brutes lay to the ice and did their best, but it was quite hopeless. In an incredibly short time the ribbon had widened into a gulf a quarter of a mile wide. Then it grew to a mile, and presently the shore became a thin black line that was soon lost to view entirely. They were adrift on the wide Atlantic!
They stopped the dogs when they realized that further effort was useless and sat down on the komatik in impotent dismay.
The weather had grown intensely cold and the perspiration that the excitement and exertion had brought out upon their faces was freezing. Snow squalls were already beginning and before nightfall a blizzard was raging in all its awful fury and at any moment the ice pack was liable to go to pieces.