Dick and Sandy pointed their rifles into the air and emptied the magazines. But the shots brought no figure tumbling out of one of the far away igloos.
“He’s inside and can’t hear us. If he does he’ll probably think we’re shooting seals.”
“Let’s fire more shots,” Sandy suggested.
They reloaded and repeated their first salvo, with no better results. Slowly the igloos grew smaller and smaller as they floated farther out to sea, and at last they sat down and gave up.
“Well, Toma couldn’t have helped us anyway,” Dick said, trying to make the best of their misfortune.
“No, but it would make me feel a lot better if I knew someone knew what had happened to us.”
Dick agreed and fell silent, wracking his brain for a way out. But the more he thought it over, the more certain he became that they were in the hands of fate. Nothing but a miracle could save them.
They had not been at sea an hour until a new peril presented itself. The ice floe upon which they had been marooned was breaking up. Large segments began cracking away from the main body and floating off by themselves.
“We must stay together, Sandy,” Dick said, “Suppose one of those cracks came between us.”
Sandy shivered at the thought and eyed the ice under his feet. Holding hands, the boys walked to the center of the floe where the ice seemed the thickest.