"Well," Aleck replied, "I've been studying over that. We don't know just when we started nor exactly when we stopped—if we have stopped—nor whether we have gone steadily on. I have seen something of drifting ice, and I should say we had gone probably between twenty and twenty-five miles, all right out into the middle of the lake."
"Then you have some idea of where we are?"
"Oh, yes; that's quite easily calculated by 'dead-reckoning,' as sailors say."
The west wind now began to subside, and before long the air became still and the mists thicker, with dense, low clouds massing close overhead. On land it must have been a warm, thawing day. Out here it was always chilly, but the four persons were not uncomfortable, even when their overcoats were unbuttoned, partly, however, because they had become accustomed to constant exposure.
Before the sun went down the air grew much cooler, and the fog thinned out, while the wind freshened and worked around until it blew briskly and very cold from the north. This soon swept away the mists, but not the clouds; yet light enough remained just before dusk to give Aleck a brief look to the northward. He could see a great field of rough ice, apparently made up of broken pieces crushed and jammed together, stretching in that direction to the horizon. This horizon was broken in one place, however, by a darker patch, that looked as though it might be land; but before he could examine it more carefully it had become lost in the darkness.
Returning to the house, the Captain ordered every preparation to be made for a possible removal. While Katy cooked their evening meal, the boys worked with axe and shovel until they had freed the runners under the boat, so that she could be dragged away quickly. Then the wall was taken down, and the boxes stowed carefully. Several of them had been emptied during the long halt, and it made the lads feel very grave to notice how low their stock of provisions and lamp-oil had run. Jimmy refused to see the use of all this hard work when everything seemed as safe as ever it was, and Aleck confessed that he had no better reason for his precautions than that the weather had changed, and it was best to be on the safe side—in which he showed himself a good commander.
"We won't take the tent down, Jim, nor throw in the mess kit, nor roll away our good beds, till we find we have to; but, if the ice should drop from under our feet at this moment, we could scramble into the boat, and have our necessary property with us."
Katy, meanwhile, had set half a ham boiling—they had only one more left after this—and was only waiting for it to be done before going to bed, for it was late in the evening, and much colder than usual, since the hummock no longer sheltered them from this new wind, which blew in under the boat where the snow had been shovelled away, and threatened to tear the frail hut to pieces. Finally the ham was done, and the girl crept shivering to Jim's side amid the straw and quilts, thoroughly frightened and weary.
She had not been there five minutes when there came a quick series of crashing reports, such as she had heard before. The ice was breaking up again. Tug was quickest to jump out, calling to all to stay in the boat till he came back. They could feel the ice shake and tip under them—or, at any rate, imagined they could—while the wind was blowing snow-flakes in their scared faces. It seemed an age, though really it was hardly a minute, before Tug came back and said they were afloat upon a small piece—a piece only a few yards square.