“Yes,” she said, “Yes, in an hour. There is no reason why we should linger here now.”
They started before the hour was out; and travelled hard until the edge of dark, avoiding fissures which were ever increasing, and pitched camp several miles away from their last resting-place. In the night the corporal was awakened by a crash somewhere on the river in front, and in the morning he knew that sled-travelling was over till the Northland winter should once more bind the rivers. A stream of water was flowing on the surface of the ice. There were fissures everywhere, and a distant rumble told him that somewhere the ice was breaking up, Sibou came and joined him, and together they looked across the river. Something caught the Indian’s keener eyes, something moving. He pointed it out to Bracknell.
“There is a man there. He is coming this way!” The corporal looked intently for a moment, then he agreed. “Yes, it is a man. He is alone. He has no dogs.”’
“Maybe they are lost,” said the Indian.
“He will never get across,” commented Bracknell, “and we cannot warn him. He will have to return.”
The Indian shaded his eyes against the rising sun and watched, then he said, “He walks strangely.”
Bracknell himself thought so. The man, whoever he was, seemed to be making an erratic course, and more than once just skirted a fissure. Twenty minutes passed and then the two were joined by Joy and her foster-sister. “What are you watching?” asked Joy.
The corporal pointed to the man, now little more than a hundred yards away. Joy looked and cried out, and just at that moment Sibou started.
“The man is blind,” he said. “See how he walks, hands in front groping for the way. Behold! He did not see the ice.”
The stranger, whoever he was, had stumbled over a cake of ice thrown out on the surface, and as he picked himself up, he took his next step into a stream running fast over the yielding surface. He withdrew the foot instantly and half turned to try another course.