"Don't know as we oughtn't to go back a bit," he said. "This ice ain't none too safe."
The Russians were evidently of the same opinion, for they had already turned the sleigh round in the opposite direction.
"Good!" exclaimed the seaman. "'Tis back it is. This is no place for Mike O'Donovan."
Right into the eye of the wind, the four well-nigh exhausted men struggled. Their former pace was a rapid one compared with that battle with the elements. The very force of the driving flakes produced a sensation of suffocation.
Blinded by the drifting snow, buffeted by the wind, and with hardly the strength to draw their feet, from the half-frozen slush, they struggled on literally inch by inch.
"Enough!" shouted O'Donovan.
The meaning of the word was plain even to the Russians. Like a flock of sheep the men crowded together to regain their breath.
At the end of a brief respite, all hands set to work to build a shelter, consisting of two snow walls barely a yard apart, and a third wall joining one end of each to the other. Over this the sleigh was placed, its contents having previously been stowed away in safety.
For the next half-hour the men took turns in holding down the frail roof, until the drift accumulated sufficiently to protect it from the force of the blizzard.
A slender meal was then served out, and, having eaten, the men proposed to rest, one of their number having to be on guard in order to give the alarm in the event of the ice breaking in the vicinity of the snow hut.