“But we aren’t moving at all,” Dick shouted back.
Believing they might have been washed ashore on some island, the boys braved the full force of the storm and staggered out of their wind break to investigate. The snow and spray almost blinded them, but at last they made out a huge mass of ice upon which the floe had lodged. It rose up for nearly fifty feet and withstood every charge of the gigantic waves that crashed against it.
Yet, in the brief period when the wind cleared the air of flying snow, they could see the swell of waves beyond the ice which was holding them.
“It’s a grounded berg!” Dick shouted at last, and Sandy and he fought their way back to the welcome shelter of their wind break.
“We must be pretty close to land,” Sandy opined.
“Yes, but there’s no telling how deep the water is here. The berg we’ve lodged on may extend down into the water for a hundred feet. There’s always more of a berg under water than there is above. We’ve got to stick it out until this storm blows over.”
And so they renewed their struggle to fight off the gnawing cold, cheered somewhat by the probabilities that when the storm blew over they would see land.
It was two hours later when the wind slackened perceptibly and the snow ceased to fall. With shouts of joy the boys then saw, about a mile away, across the dashing waves, a line of black cliffs, streaked with snow.
“Now if we could only find some way to float in on those breakers. But I don’t see how we could take a chance on a cake of ice. We couldn’t stick to it a second before we got washed off into the sea.”
“We’ll have to wait till the waves die down,” Sandy said. “If I wasn’t so weak, maybe we could paddle a chunk of ice then.”