"Muk!" echoed Punni Churah, running up alongside to look, and then back to the captain's sled, where he shouted something loudly in order to be heard above the storm.
An ice crack crossed their trail. There was no help for it. There it lay, dark and cold—the dreaded water.
In the blinding blizzard they could not see the width of the chasm. It was too wide for them to bridge; it was death to remain where they were—they must turn back, and they did so. The wind was not now in their faces as before, which made traveling some easier, but they had not gone far when: "Muk-a-muk!" from Punni this time, who was ahead.
Again the dogs stopped. Again Punni Churah came back, and reported.
They were adrift on a cake of ice. Wind from the northeast was blowing a hurricane, carrying them on their ice cake directly out to sea; but the snow was drifting in hummocks, and in one of them the natives began digging a hole for a hut. When this was of sufficient size, they pitched a sled cover of canvas over it, made the sleighs fast outside, and crawled underneath. Once inside their temporary igloo, they made a fire of white drilling and bacon, taken from the sled loads of merchandise; melted snow for water, and boiled coffee, being nearly famished. Then for hours they all slept heavily, the dogs being huddled together in the snow, as is their habit, but the blizzard raged frightfully, and drove the dogs nearer the men in the hut.
Crawling upon the canvas for more warmth, the poor, freezing creatures, struggling for shelter, with the weight of their bodies caused the hut to collapse, and all fell, in one writhing heap, upon the heads of the unfortunates below. Howling, barking, struggling to free themselves from the tangle, the pack of brutes added torment to the lot of the men; but the storm raged with such terrific force that all lay as they fell, until morning, under the snow.
None now disputed the storm king's sway. All were laid low before him. With the united fury of fiends of Hades, he laughed in demoniacal glee at the desperation of the Arctic travelers under his heel. The whole world was now his. Far from the icy and unknown wastes of the interior, around the great Circle and Rockies, riding above the heads of rivers and mountains, he came from the Koyuk and Koyukuk. Like a child at play, as if weary of so long holding them in his cold embrace, he drove the massive ice floes out into ocean, only, perhaps, in childish fitfulness, to bring them back directly, by gales quite contrary.
When morning dawned, the captain and his men crawled out of the crushed snow hut, and, with hard work, made a new cave in the snow drift, burying the sleighs in the old one. The dogs were starving, and, to appease their appetites, were purloining bacon from the sled's stores; but Providence, for once, was kind to them, and a large, fat seal of several hundred pounds weight was shot that day on the edge of the ice cake upon which they were camped, and this gave them food and fuel. Dogs and natives were then well fed on the fresh seal meat and blubber, their natural and favorite viands. From tin dishes upon the sleds, the natives made little stoves, or lamps, using drilling for wicks, seal oil for fuel, and their coffee was made. Among the stores on the sleds were canned goods, beans, sausages, flour and other things, and on these the captain subsisted.
Day after day passed. The storm gradually died away, and the sun came out. Then watches were set to keep a lookout, and the captain took his turn with his men. Walking about in the cold morning air, he could see the mainland to the northwest, many miles away, and his heart sank within him. Would he ever put his foot upon that shore again? How long could they live on the ice cake if they floated far out in the Behring Sea? To him the outlook was growing darker each day, though the natives seemed not to be troubled.
Nearly two weeks passed. One night the captain was awakened by a hand on his shoulder. It was Ung Kah Ah Ruk. The wind, he said, was blowing steadily from the southwest, and if it continued they might be able to reach the shore ice and the mainland. Anxiously together then they watched and waited for long, weary hours, getting the sleds loaded, and in readiness for a start; then, with bitterest disappointment, they found the wind again changed to the southwest, which would carry them out to sea as before.