"All right—we go—foller me—come on!" and he led the way out, and they turned their backs on the cavern forever.
CHAPTER XXVIII
A HOPELESS TASK
A fearful task confronted the little party. Thirty miles of snow, several feet deep, lay between them and their only haven of refuge, and they were without sled or snow-shoe. If they succeeded in their prodigious task, it must be done by sheer strength and the power of continued desperation.
But, with compressed lips and the resolution to do or die, they bent to the work without faltering.
The Esquimau naturally took the lead to break the way so far as he could; Jack Cosgrove came next, then Rob Carrol, while Fred Warburton brought up the rear.
The first move that the native made proved he was a veteran. He plunged in, following the decline down to the plateau, which was the scene of their adventures two days before. He walked like one who had only an ordinary tramp before him. In truth, he could have gone faster and done better, but he accommodated himself to his friends, to whom the labor was new and trying to a degree.
None spoke for a long time. It requires strength to do even so slight a thing as that, and no one had an ounce to spare. The question that was uppermost in the minds of the three was whether they would be able to hold out to the end.
"I don't see why we can't," reflected Fred, who, being at the rear, had an easier task than any of the others; "it would be well enough if we had snow-shoes, but neither Jack nor Rob nor I can use them, and we would flounder around a good deal worse than we are doing now and likely enough wouldn't get ahead at all."
The meditations of Rob Carrol were of a similar strain.
"I've seen better fun than this, but it beats staying in the cavern and freezing to death on wolf steak. I believe I'm strong enough to see the business through; I hope Fred won't give out, for he isn't as strong as Jack and I. I believe Docak enjoys it. Gracious! if I ever live to get out of this outlandish country, I'll never set foot in it again. I haven't lost any North Pole, and those that think they have can do their own hunting for it."