The wolves fought the foxes to keep them away from the carcase, and began to tear the mammoth to pieces.
Dozens, hundreds, thousands came from all points of the compass, and a frightful struggle went on amid snarls and yells, and the flesh was torn from the mammoth’s body rapidly.
“There’s no use remaining here any longer,” said Frank, “for it will take several days to finish devouring all that putrid meat. Let us leave. We can return and gather up the bones.”
“Where do you intend to go?”
“In search of the Red Eric.”
“Very well.”
Barney and Pomp had come out on deck, and it was decided to send the ice ship down over the Archangel Sea, there to wait and watch for the whaler, no objection being raised.
It was getting so uncomfortably cold out on deck that our friends were glad to go inside again.
The boat was steered away to the southward.
They spent a week in the frozen sky, searching for some trace of the whaler, but failed to see her.