A squad of men were first requisitioned from the ships to do some work in the glen.
Not navy work, but navvy work. They were set to form a better road up to the tableland by levering the big blocks out of the way, and sledgehammering the smaller. It was by no means a difficult task, and was completed in a day and a half, with the exception of one great fellow of a berg, which they didn’t know how to tackle; but MacDonald, captain of explosives, came to the rescue, and in less than an hour he had literally blown it to smithereens.
The roar of that explosion reverberated from the hills here and there for many seconds after.
The seals on the ice raised themselves to listen, and the penguins looked up in the air as ducks do in a thunderstorm.
The road was complete.
Ingomar and Slap-dash wondered if the bears had forgotten their cunning.
They came to whistle as the dogs did. The dogs were told go about their business and not hustle. Their time would come next.
Gruff and his wife seemed puzzled at first. But soon they remembered things, and when they were put to the very heaviest sledge of all and harnessed, Gruff yawned and gaped, and finally knocked Slap-dash down. But it was done merely as a matter of form; a blow, in Pickwickian sense, meant for a caress. Slap-dash only laughed, and put a handful of snow on Gruff’s nose.
Then he mounted. No whip, only his voice. The bears went away as easily with their load as you or I could with an empty barrow.
The boys rode behind, then came Ingomar and Curtis in furs, with poles in their hands, with their snow-shoes over their shoulders; and half a dozen Yak-Yaks brought up the rear.