This remark proved that he shared the hope of Rob, who was now acting the part of pioneer, and it did not a little to encourage the boy to push on with the utmost vigor at his command.
The sailor was somewhat winded from his unusual exertions, and, believing there was no immediate need of his help, sat down for a few minutes to regain his breath.
"He'll yell the moment he catches sight of anything, and he can do that so well that he don't need any help from me—by the great horned spoon! what's the meaning of that?"
Rob Carrol, who had been out of sight but a few seconds, now burst to view again, the picture of terror. He was plunging toward the sailor with such desperate haste that he continually stumbled and bruised himself. But he instantly scrambled up again, glancing in mortal fright over his shoulder, and barely able to gasp as he dashed toward the sailor:
"O Jack! we're lost! we're lost! Heaven help us!"
CHAPTER X
AN UGLY CUSTOMER
Rob Carrol had good cause for his panic. Full of high hope, he hurried along the ice between crags which shut him out of sight, for the time, from Jack Cosgrove, who was resting himself after his hard climb. The youth was thinking of no one and nothing else, except his friend Fred Warburton, who had vanished so mysteriously the night before.
The signs in the icy track he was following convinced him that he was close upon the heels of his chum, who could not have wandered much farther in advance. His hope was tinged with the deepest anxiety, for it was impossible to account for Fred's long absence and silence, except upon the theory that some grievous injury had befallen him.
The searcher's nerves were strung to the highest point, and he was pushing forward with unabated vigor, when his heart almost stood still, as he caught a peculiar sound among the masses of ice.
"That's Fred," he concluded; "he's alive, thank God!" and then he called to his friend: