But it must not be supposed that their life was all play; no, for independent of long hours spent in the forest in quest of game, Rory, Ralph, and Allan set themselves with a will to clean, dress, and arrange the many hundreds of beautiful and valuable skins they had possessed themselves of. This was a labour of love. These skins were part of the cargo with which they hoped to reach their native land once more in safety. Some of the smallest and prettiest of them Rory took extra pains with, and when he had got them as soft and pliable as silk, he perfumed them and stowed them in the big box Ap had made for him, and where his sketch-book—well-filled by this time—lay, and a host of curious nameless pebbles and crystals, polished horns, strange moths, butterflies and beetles, beautifully-stuffed birds and rare eggs. It was a splendid collection, and Rory’s eyes used to sparkle as he gazed upon them, and thought of the time when in the old castle he would show all these things to Helen McGregor and her mother.
“Just look at him,” Ralph would say at times like these; “he hasn’t got the pack-merchant idea out of his head yet.”
Winter wore away. It was nearly three months since they had all sat down together to their Christmas dinner in the hall. The mate of the Trefoil, and the men more immediately under his command, hadn’t been idle all this time. They had been busy refining the oil, and a grand lot they made of it, and it was now carefully stowed away in the Snowbird’s tanks. The mate had not been disappointed in the size of his fish, it had turned out even better than he expected, and would greatly add to the wealth of the cargo of the lucky yacht. The water had to be pumped from the tanks to make room for it, but that was no loss, for fresh-water ice was procurable in any quantity. It lay on the decks of the Snowbird abaft the foremast in gigantic pieces, and a very pretty sight it looked when the sun shone on it.
Fresh food and game of various kinds were now to be had in abundance. Ay, and fish as well. Old Seth still continued to act as fisherman. He caught them in that mysterious pool, which all the winter long had never shown a single sign of freezing.
When all was quiet of a night, probably in the moonlight or under the light from the splendid aurora, our heroes used to take a walk sometimes towards the strange pool. They took their guns with them, but only to protect themselves from prowling bears. Awful-looking heads used to appear over the surface of the pool. In daylight these creatures never showed—only when all was still at night. What they were they could not tell; nor can I. Probably they were merely gigantic specimens of bearded seals or sea-lions come up to breathe, and looked larger and more dreadful in the uncertain light of moon or aurora.
Many though our heroes’ adventures were, and thoroughly though they enjoyed themselves, when the days began to get longer, when the snow began to melt, and whistling winds blew softer through the forest trees, and everything told them spring was on ahead, the thoughts that ere long the Snowbird would burst her icy bounds, that they would be once more free, once more at sea, were very far from unpleasant to them.
On days now when there was but little frost in the air, and a breeze of wind with sunlight, the Snowbird’s sails would be unstowed, bent, and partially unfurled, to air them. Even this made the saucy yacht look quite coquettish again. “Ho! ho!” she seemed to say to herself, “so there is a possibility, is there, that some of these days I may once more sport my beauty in waters blue? Oh! then, blow, breezes, blow, and melt the ice and snow, for indeed I’m heartily tired of it.”
It would almost seem that the country around where the Snowbird lay was chosen as a winter residence par excellence for the great Polar bear. Perhaps the winter in the faraway and desolate regions around the Pole is too rigorous for even his constitution; be this as it may, here they were by the score, and all in all, well-nigh a hundred fleeces were bagged in little over two months.
These snow-bears got more chary at last, however, and when the March winds blew they entirely disappeared.
One day the beginning of the end of the ice came; a wind blew strong from the east, and by noon all the bay behind the yacht was one heaving mass of snow-clad pieces. It was well for the Snowbird she was sturdy and strong; the grinding bergs, small though they were, tried her stability to the utmost, but the wind went down and the swell ceased; yet fearing a repetition of the rough treatment, McBain determined to seek a less exposed position farther to the west. The ice was now loose, so as soon as there was enough wind to fill her sails progress was commenced. It was slow hard work, but by dint of great exertion and no little skill, a portus salutis was found at last fifty miles farther west, and here the captain determined to rest until the spring was more advanced, and there was a likelihood of getting safely out to sea: