"Yes, and lots of other people, for that matter. Why, only last winter one of 'em lit on the roof of a house out in the country where I was staying, and the old woman there began to rock back and forth, and whine out that some dreadful bad luck was coming. But that's all nonsense."
"I guess its cry has given it a witch-like reputation," said Aleck. "It sounded uncanny enough last night; didn't it, Jim? But what were they doing away out here?"
"Oh, I s'pose they were flying 'cross the lake, and had stopped to rest on our tent-ridge, till we startled them. I bet they were worse scared than you were. You see, their proper home is in the arctic regions. That's where they build their nests, putting them in trees and in holes in rocks. But when winter comes up there, and the snow gets so deep and the cold so severe that all the small animals he feeds on have retired to their holes or else left the country, Mr. Owl has to get up and flit too, or he will starve to death. So he works his way down here. They say these great white owls—why, they're bigger than the biggest cat-owl you ever saw—never go far south of this, and I know that we don't see many of 'em except when we have a very severe winter. But I've talked enough. Let's get out of this."
The sunshine by this time was interrupted by dark clouds that rose in the west, and puffs of damp, chilly air began to be felt by the skaters, who wrapped themselves a little closer in their overcoats as they measured their steady strokes. Still no land came in sight, but they thought this must be owing mainly to the thick air to the southward. Once they thought they saw it, but the dark line on the horizon proved to be a hummock, not so bad as the one lately passed, but still troublesome, and closely followed by a second. The lifting and tugging tired them all greatly, and after the second barrier had been climbed they found themselves on ice which was incrusted with frozen snow, and exceedingly unpleasant to skate upon. But a few rods farther on there appeared a narrow stream of open water, beyond which the ice looked hard and green.
"Let us cross, and camp on the other side," said Tug.
"Yes," Aleck answered, in a troubled voice. "Do you see that snow storm coming, over there? It'll be down upon us in a jiffy, and there's no telling what next. Yes, let's cross before it gets dark, if we can. There's a hummock over there that will shelter us a bit from the wind, I think."
The anxious tone of his voice alarmed his companions, and all set at work with a will. Yet the snow-flakes had come, and were thick about them, before the second ferriage had been made, and the wet and ice-clogged boat was lifted out of the water.
Nobody said as much, but it is safe to believe that each of our four friends thought, to himself, that if every day's work in advance was to be like this one, they had undertaken a prodigiously difficult and dangerous experiment in this skating expedition; and perhaps each one wondered whether the winter would be long enough to carry them to their destination at this rate of progress, even should they be able to surmount the fast-recurring obstacles in safety.