Claude himself went in charge of the boat to visit the Kittywake stores. There would be, he reasoned with himself, about three hundred miles of water to row or sail over. The tide, however, that swept up and down the long creek which joined the ocean to the inland sea, had all the force of a mill-stream. He determined, therefore, to take advantage of that, and on his voyage out to anchor alongside the banks during the flow, and rush onward when the tide was ebbing.
He returned to the camp far sooner than he had expected.
He returned empty.
A bridge of ice and snow had been encountered which, no doubt, extended all the way to the sea.
“And so, even if my poor vessel had not been doomed to destruction, it would have been impossible to get clear this year.” So spoke Claude.
“True, true,” said Dr Barrett, “and now we must depend upon the sledges to bring us supplies from the stores. But,” he added, “it is only right I should tell you what I think, Captain Alwyn—”
“And that is?”
“That they, too, will return empty.”
This melancholy surmise of Dr Barrett turned out far too true.