“You did perfectly right in your case,” said the young man, “and your words would seem to imply that there is some means that Providence offers us to get out of our present uncomfortable situation. If so I should be glad to hear you explain yourself.”
“Here goes, then,” replied Stump, smoothing his pigtail. “The land, you know, is not much more than a league to the east’ard of us, and we have a couple of oars. With them oars, it’s my honest opinion that we might contrive to work this block of ice that we are standing on, to the shore, which would be much better than to let the current carry us any further from the boats. As to Briggs and his party, there is no use waiting for them, for we couldn’t do ’em any good if they should come.”
“True enough!” exclaimed Harry. “I wonder that this plan did not occur to me. We had better go to work at once!”
And the two men were preparing themselves for the task, when the sound of a horn, blown from a distance which could not have been greater than a quarter of a mile from the spot they occupied, saluted their ears. The noise was repeated several times, and it drew the pretty Alice from her miniature ark.
“Surely, Harry, that is one of our boats,” she said, moving to the side of the young man. “Oh, I am so glad!”
“It is a pity that we have no horn,” said the harpooner, in a voice of regret, “otherwise we could now make our position known.”
“But the boat will come to us as things are, perhaps,” suggested Alice.
“It may, or it may not,” answered Harry. “I think it very likely that it will turn off in some other direction before it gets here, and for that reason, I think I shall try to go to it.”
“Oh no!” cried the young girl, anxiously. “Briggs and his party ought to serve as a warning to you. I would not do so, for the world. You will certainly lose yourself as the others have done.”
“You have not the least reason to be alarmed, Alice,” retorted the young man; “the boats were much further off when Briggs left me than this one is now, and besides I have only to go in a straight line to get to it.”