After breakfast the two larger lads crawled over the wall, sinking up to their waists in the snow as they stepped off. Struggling out, they climbed up a little way upon the crest of the hummock, where it had been swept clear of snow by the wind, which had now subsided; but nothing could be seen through the veil of thick-flying flakes except the dirty gray of their canvas roof and the thin wisps of smoke that curled upward from beneath it. All else was pure white, sinking on every side into a circle of foggy storm. Around the outer side of the boat and the end of the house drifts had been heaped up even on to the edge of the canvas, so that their house had become a cave between the ice and the snow-bank.
"It's snug enough," said Tug.
"Yes, but I should hate to starve to death or freeze there, all the same," Aleck replied.
"But it ain't very cold—and—and—say! we've lots of food, haven't we?"
"Enough for about ten days, if we put ourselves on precious short rations; but most of it—the flour and bacon and so on—must be cooked, and this takes fire, and fire needs fuel, which is just what we haven't got. If we should use every bit of wood there is except the boat and sledge, there wouldn't be enough to cook our food for ten days. Besides, though it isn't cold now, it's likely to turn mighty cold after this snow-storm, and then we must have a fire, or freeze."
"But we could get ashore back at the Point in a day's travel. Or, for that matter, the south shore can't be far off, though we can't see it through this fearful storm."
"If we had clear ice it would be all right, but how can we travel in this snow? It can't be less than two feet deep everywhere for miles and miles. You and I might go a little way, but Katy and The Youngster couldn't budge twenty steps. It's really a serious scrape we have brought ourselves into; and we ought to have thought about this before we started. Talk about Dr. Kane! He never was worse off in the arctic regions than we're likely to be right here in a day or two, unless something happens."
Aleck certainly was very down-hearted, and his companion did not seem much disposed to "brace him up," as he would have expressed it. He could only reply, in an equally discouraged voice,
"I don't see what can happen out here—for good."
"Nor I. Let's go in; it's no use standing here in the storm. But, mind you, no word of all this to the others yet."