“You’ll head north?”
“That’s my intention.”
“Then,” said Dampier, pointing to the chart before them, “as you should make the beach in the next day or two I’ll head for the inlet here. As it’s not very far you won’t have to pack so many provisions along, and I’ll give you, say, three weeks to turn up in. If you don’t, I’ll figure that there’s something wrong, and do what seems advisable.”
They agreed to that, and when next morning a little breeze came out of the creeping haze, they sailed the Selache slowly shorewards among the drifting ice until, at nightfall, an apparently impenetrable barrier stretched gleaming faintly ahead of them. Wyllard turned in soon afterwards and slept soundly. All his preparations had been made during the winter and there was no occasion for new plans. When morning broke he breakfasted before he went out on deck. The boat was already packed with provisions, sleeping-bags, a tent, and two light sled frames, on one of which it seemed possible that they might haul her a few miles. She was very light and small, and had been built for such a purpose as they had in view.
The schooner lay to with backed fore-staysail tumbling wildly on a dim, gray sea. Half a mile away the ice ran back into a dingy haze, and there was a low, gray sky to weather. Now and then a fine sprinkle of snow slid across the water before a nipping breeze. As Wyllard glanced to windward Dampier strode up to him.
“I guess you’d better put it off,” he said. “I don’t like the weather; we’ll have wind before long.”
Wyllard smiled, and Dampier made a forceful gesture.
“Then,” he advised, “I’d get on to the ice just as soon as possible. You’re still quite a way off the beach.”
Wyllard shook hands with him. “We should make the inlet in about nine days, and if I don’t turn up in three weeks you’ll know there’s something wrong,” he said. “If there’s no sign of me in another week you can take her home again.”
Dampier, who made no further comment, bade them swing the boat over, and when she lay heaving beneath the rail Wyllard and Charly and one Indian dropped into her. It was only a preliminary search they were about to engage in, for they had decided that if they found nothing they would afterwards push further north or inland when they had supplied themselves with fresh stores from the schooner.