“I believe we’re crazy! We’ll be lost in this snow.”
“Not much we won’t,” declared his brother. “I’ve got a compass.”
He showed it—a very delicately adjusted instrument which he kept in a case in his pocket. At the edge of the ice (there was not so much snow on this side of the island) he waited to hear the sound of the engine again. Then he took his bearings, and at once set forth into the storm.
This time Dan led, Billy hung to his coat-tail, and Dummy brought up the rear. Thus, keeping literally in touch with each other, they would not be likely to drift apart while battling with the elements. And battle they actually had to.
The moment they got from under the shelter of the island the snow and wind almost overwhelmed them. Never had the boys experienced such a gale. Sometimes they were beaten to their knees, and had they not clung together, one or the other surely would have been driven away and lost.
“No wonder those men have gotten no farther from the island!” yelled Dan, with his lips close to Billy’s ear.
“Right-O!” agreed the younger boy. “And can we catch up with ’em?”
“We don’t want to; we want to trail ’em,” returned Dan.
On they pressed, taking advantage of every flaw in the gale. Had it not been for Dan’s compass they would have become turned about and lost their way ere they had left the island behind them ten minutes.
The wind blew between the points of Island Number One and the next above it with such force that the boys made very slow progress. When at last they got in the lee of the second island, they stopped to breathe, and to listen.