"Not a bit, but pretty well scared. I thought you fellows were never coming. I've been in here two hours."
"Two hours! Oho, that's good! Twenty minutes would about fill the bill. You ain't tired so quick of a warm, snug place like that, are you?"
"Just you try it, and see how you like its snugness. Drop me an end of that rope, will you?"
"Give him the rope's end, Tug; he deserves it in another way, but we haven't time to-day. Now, then—yo-heave-o!" and up came the lost member, not much the worse for his adventure.
Then began the difficult work of crossing the hummock. In front of the boat lay a steep slope of glassy ice, and beyond and above that a series of steps and jagged points, forming about such a plateau as a big heap of building-stone would make, only here the fragments were larger.
All four, going to the top of the first slope, pulled the boat upward until the forward runners were just balanced on the crest. Then a hook on one of the ropes came loose; four young people fell sprawling; and the boat dropped backward with a rush to the very bottom of the ridge, where it upset.
"Now," said Aleck, when they had set the boat upright again, and found nothing broken; "now let us take out all the loose stuff, and so lighten her as much as we can."
This was done.
"We three fellows," was the Captain's next order, "will drag her up again, and Katy must go behind with the boat-hook, and stick it into the ice behind the boat, to hold it, like a chock-block under a wagon wheel, whenever it shows any signs of slipping back. Now, everybody be careful."
The steady pulling, with Katy's pushing and guiding, got the front runners safely over the edge of the sloping side, and gave them a chance to rest. But when they tried to move it forward enough to bring the stern up, the boat couldn't be budged, because the ice in front was so full of ruts and ridges.