But Bobby was too intently trying to think how they would meet this new and appalling difficulty even to hear the question. As for Mouser and Billy, they seemed stunned into silence.
“I tell you what we’ll have to do,” said Bobby at last. “We know now that we’re heading in the right direction, and we’ll have to keep that course as nearly as we can—and have to leave the rest to luck.”
“Luck’s been with us, so far,” said Fred, stoutly. “Maybe she’ll go with us the rest of the way.”
“We might have had a chance,” said Billy, as though thinking aloud, “if this storm hadn’t happened along. Say, how I love the sight of that snow!”
“Cheer up,” said Mouser. “The Eskimos like the snow, you know. Say it’s nice and w-warm. Maybe it’s a blessing in disguise.”
“Pretty good disguise, I call it,” grumbled Fred, and the boys tried to laugh and couldn’t. Their faces seemed frozen into expressionless masks.
They kept on without very much hope in their hearts, while the sea became more agitated, the wind rose higher and grew more menacing, while the snow, falling heavily, seemed to enclose them in a heavy white blanket. They felt cut off from all the world and utterly lost.
At last they came to the point where they knew if they did not have help soon, it would not be very long before they would have no need of it.
“Let’s try shouting,” said Bobby, in desperation. “There’s probably nobody within several hundred miles to hear us, but it’s about our last chance, I guess.”
He let out a yell that jerked the other boys from the lassitude that held them in its grip. Mechanically they shouted, too, with all the strength that was left them.