“Yes, father,” said the boy, dropping the head of his pick-axe on the ice, resting his hands on the haft, and looking up with a flushed countenance.
“You should rest a bit now and then, Benjy. You’ll knock yourself up if you don’t.”
“Rest a bit, father! Why, I’ve just had a rest, and I’m not tired—that is, not very. Ain’t it fun, father? And the ice cuts up so easily, and flies about so splendidly—see here.”
With flashing eyes our little hero raised his pick and drove it into the ice at which he had been working, with all his force, so that a great rent was made, and a mass the size of a dressing-table sprang from the side of a berg, and, falling down, burst into a shower of sparkling gems. But this was not all. To Benjy’s intense delight, a mass of many tons in weight was loosened by the fall of the smaller lump, and rolled down with a thunderous roar, causing Butterface, who was too near it, to jump out of the way with an amount of agility that threw the whole party into fits of laughter.
“What d’ye think o’ that, father?”
“I think it’s somewhat dangerous,” answered the Captain, recovering his gravity and re-shouldering his axe. “However, as long as you enjoy the work, it can’t hurt you, so go ahead, my boy; it’ll be a long time before you cut away too much o’ the Polar ice!”
Reaching a slightly open space beyond this point, the dogs were harnessed, and the party advanced for a mile or so, when they came to another obstruction worse than that which they had previously passed.
“There’s a deal of ice-rubbish in these regions,” remarked Benjy, eyeing the wildly heaped masses with a grave face, and heaving a deep sigh.
“Yes, Massa Benjy, bery too much altogidder,” said Butterface, echoing the sigh.
“Come, we won’t cut through this,” cried Captain Vane in a cheery voice; “we’ll try to go over it. There is a considerable drift of old snow that seems to offer a sort of track. What says Chingatok?”