There was half a day of anxiety for all. But suddenly, at about two o'clock, these words were shouted from aloft,—
"Head to the west, and put on all steam."
The brig obeyed at once, turning to the point directed; the screw churned the water, and the Forward plunged under a full head of steam between two swiftly running ice-streams.
The path was found; Hatteras came down to the quarter-deck, and the ice-master went aloft.
"Well, Captain," said the doctor, "we have entered this famous sound at last!"
"Yes," answered Hatteras; "but entering is not all, we have got to get out of it too."
And with these words he went to his cabin.
"He is right," thought the doctor; "we are in a sort of trap, without much space to turn about in, and if we had to winter here!—well, we shouldn't be the first to do it, and where others lived through it, there is no reason why we should not!"
The doctor was right. It was at this very place, in a little sheltered harbor called Port Kennedy by MacClintock himself, that the Fox wintered in 1858. At that moment it was easy to recognize the lofty granite chains, and the steep beaches on each side.