At this announcement Larry gave a shout that brought the dogs to their feet in surprise. The idea of returning to their comfortable quarters on the coast instead of struggling on through the wilderness seemed a vision of perfect happiness to the boy.
Martin outlined his plan completely while they ate their breakfast. They would take the two sleeping bags, the tent, and a supply of food, harness the two dogs to one of the sleds and “hit the back trail for ‘home,’” as he called the wreck. He would sit on the toboggan in one of the sleeping bags and direct the dogs while Larry would trudge behind helping to steady the sled and prevent it overturning in the rough places. In this way they could make the return trip in four days easily unless a storm came up. If a storm came they would simply “hole up” and wait until it blew over. When the wounded leg had healed, as it would very shortly in their comfortable camp, they would make another start for civilization.
It took Larry the greater part of the day to make the necessary preparations for this trip. Under Martin’s direction he rigged one of the toboggans with handles at the back, so arranged that he could use them for steadying the sled or helping the dogs in the hard places as he walked behind. He also made a back-piece of twisted branches for Martin to lean against as he sat on the sled, strengthening this rough framework with cord and strips of canvas. When finished Martin declared that it looked like a movable brush heap; but he admitted that it was strong and serviceable, and made a comfortable support for his back.
The second toboggan and the extra provisions were suspended from limbs high above the ground where they would be out of the reach of animal prowlers, and available for future use should they ever need them.
They broke camp the next day before dawn and headed the dogs out into the open expanse of glistening crust. There was no need to direct their course, nor stimulate them to top speed. A trained sledge dog remembers directions better than a man, and is as keen for the return trip toward home as his human companions. Indeed Jack and Kim showed such enthusiasm and found that their load ran so easily on the hard crust that Larry had difficulty in keeping up with them at times except by clinging to the handles. Crossing the plain, which consumed so much time on the outward trip, required only three hours for the return; and even in the woods that lay beyond their progress was almost twice as fast as before.
Despite Larry’s efforts, however, the sled received severe bumps at times, that made Martin groan with pain. But the old hunter would not allow any stops or slackening of speed for so trivial a matter as his personal discomfort. His dominant idea was to get back “home” as quickly as possible, and his attitude spurred Larry on to exert himself to the limit of endurance. By sundown they had covered a quarter of the distance to the coast; and in the afternoon of the fourth day they came tearing into the home camp, the dogs barking frantically and Martin and Larry shouting their delight.
Here they found everything practically as they had left it, so that they had only to open the tent flaps, light a fire in front, and sit down to rest and enjoy themselves.
But it was no part of Martin’s plan to let Larry sit idle during the long weeks that lay ahead of them, or to remain inactive himself one hour longer than his injured leg compelled him to. He knew that idleness and lack of diversions were bad things for the boy, who would very soon feel the strain of their solitary surroundings if not kept so fully occupied that the time would pass quickly. He could offer few diversions, but he had planned plenty of active work.
His first move next day, therefore, was to have Larry haul him to a point where he could inspect the wreck. He found it frozen in where they had left it, and wedged into a huge mass of ice that would hold it fast until the warm spring weather. So he transferred their living quarters temporarily to the after cabin, which Larry made snug with a little tinkering. Here, warmed by the galley stove, he could give his wound more effective treatment than in the open tent. Meanwhile he set Larry to work building a hut made from the wood of the forward cabin.
The task of tearing this cabin to pieces was even greater than that of actually putting it together again, but Larry set about it with saw, axe, and crow-bar. At first he worked alone; but after a few days Martin was able to crawl up on deck and superintend things from his seat in a sleeping bag, while the dogs acted as interested spectators. The days were very short now in this far northern latitude, and every hour of daylight was devoted to the wrecking work, leaving the “housekeeping” work to be done by lamplight. In this way the boy was kept so completely occupied, doing and accomplishing, that there was little time left to dwell upon the loneliness of their situation. So that, on the whole, the time passed quickly and pleasantly. This was what Martin had hoped to accomplish.