All the way over the ice they looked for seal-holes. It takes sharp eyes to find them, for seal-holes are very small.
You see, the mother seals try to find the safest place they can to hide their babies, and this is the way they do it:
As soon as the ice begins to freeze in the autumn, the seals gnaw holes in it to reach the air, and they keep these holes open all winter. It freezes so fast in that cold country that they have to be busy almost every minute all through the winter breaking away the ice there. They get their sleep in snatches of a minute or so at a time, and between their naps they clear the ice from their breathing holes.
There is usually a deep layer of snow over the ice. Each mother seal hollows out a little igloo under the snow, around her breathing hole, and leaves a tiny hole in the top of it, so her baby can have plenty of fresh air and be hidden from sight at the same time.
The mother seal leaves the baby in the snow house, and she herself dives through the hole and swims away. Every few minutes she comes back to breathe, and to see that her baby is safe.
It was the tiny hole in the top of the seal's snow house that Menie and Koko hoped to find.
The days had grown quite long by this time and there was fog in the air. Once in a while there would be a loud crackling noise.
"The ice is beginning to break," Koko said. "Don't you hear it pop? My father says he thinks the warm weather will begin early this year."
They had gone some distance out on the ice, when suddenly Menie said, "Look! Look there!" He pointed toward the north. There not far from shore was a flock of sea-birds, resting on the ice.
"Just let me get a shot at them!" cried Koko. "You stay here and hold on to the dogs! Nip and Tup haven't any sense at all about game! They'll only scare them."