“Awake!” cried Bryan, answering the question; “we awoke at laste a dozen times. I suppose it must have bin the time for brikfust; for, ye see, although we could ha’ slept on long enough; our intariors couldn’t, be no manes, forgit their needcessities.”
“We shall have to work a bit yet ere these necessities are attended to, I fear,” said Stanley. “Go, François, and one or two of you, and open up the dog-kennel. The rest of you get all the shovels you can lay hands on, and clear out the houses as fast as you can.”
“Clear out de chimbleys fust, mes garçons,” cried La Roche, looking up from the tunnel. “Den ve vill git dejeuner ready toute suite.”
“That will we, lad,” said Bryan, shouldering a spade and proceeding towards the chimney of the hall; while the rest of the party, breaking up into several groups, set to work, with spades, shovels, and such implements as were suitable, to cut passages through the square of the fort towards the doors of the several buildings. As Massan had said, it proved to be no light work. The north-west gale had launched the snow upon the exposed buildings of Fort Chimo until the drift was fifteen or sixteen feet deep, so that the mere cutting of passages was a matter of considerable time and severe labour.
Meanwhile, Maximus awoke, and sought to raise himself from his lair at the foot of the rock. But his first effort failed. The drift above him was too heavy. Abandoning, therefore, the idea of freeing himself by main force, he turned round on his side and began to scrape away the snow that was directly above his head. The masses that accumulated in the course of this process he forced down past his chest; and, as his motions tended to compress and crush the drift around him in all directions, he soon made room enough to work with ease. In ten minutes he approached so near to the surface as to be able, with a powerful effort, to burst it upwards, and step out of his strange dormitory into the sunshine.
This method of spending the night has been resorted to more than once by arctic travellers who had lost their way; and it is sad to think that many who have perished might have saved their lives had they known that burrowing could be practised with safety. The Esquimaux frequently spend the night in this manner, but they prefer building a snow-house to burrowing, if circumstances will permit.
Cutting a slice of seal-meat, and eating as he went, Maximus resumed his journey, and soon afterwards arrived at the fort, where he found the men busied in excavating their buried dwellings.
Here he stated the case of the old woman, and received such medicines as Stanley, in his amateur medical wisdom, saw fit to bestow. With these he started immediately to retrace his steps, having been directed to proceed, after administering them, to the lake where Frank meant to try the fishing under the ice. A family of Esquimaux had been established on another lake not so far distant from the fort; and having been taught by the fur-traders how to set nets under the ice, they succeeded in procuring more than enough for their subsistence. It was hoped, therefore, that the larger lake would afford a good supply; and, the weather having become decidedly fine, Frank prepared to set out on the following day.