There was no call now to watch the countenances of the youths to protect them against freezing. The weather was so moderate that they would have felt more comfortable with their outer covering removed. If the blizzard had come back, it was in such a mild form that it could lay no claim to the name. It was simply snowing hard, and there was only a breath of air at intervals. Had there been anything approaching the hurricane of two days before, they could not have fought their way for a single rod.
When the guide, after another long interval, proposed a brief rest, it was acquiesced in by all. They had kept at it longer than before, and the pause must have been grateful to Docak himself.
"We are not going fast," remarked Rob, "but I am sure we have covered a good deal of ground since starting, and when we go into camp to-night there ought not to be many miles between us and the sea."
"Remember the mistake we made in our calculations," said Fred, warningly, "and don't count too much."
"How far have we come?" asked Jack, putting the question directly to the Esquimau.
"Dunno," he answered, turning about and resuming his labor.
"That's the last time I will ask him anything," growled the sailor, displeased at the curt treatment.
A sad story awaits our pen. The poor hunters toiled on, on, on, slower and still more slowly, with the snow falling thicker and still more thickly, and the uncertainty growing more intensified as the day wore away. With short intervals of rest they kept at it with heroic courage, until at last the shades of night began closing once more around them. Then, all of a sudden, the Esquimau uttered a despairing cry and threw himself down in the snow.
THE ESQUIMAU UTTERED A DESPAIRING CRY AND THREW HIMSELF IN THE SNOW
(See page 277)