“The boy will hear that!” cried another. “If he isn’t an idiot, he’ll follow the sound of the chapel bell.”
“Ya-as,” said the cook, “if the ice ain’t opened up ’twixt him an’ the shore.”
There was a movement out in the cove. One field of ice crashed against another. Mr. Stagg stifled a moan and was one of the first to climb down to the level of the ice.
“Have a care, Joe,” somebody warned him. “This snow on the ice will mask the holes and fissures something scandalous.”
But Joseph Stagg was reckless of his own safety. He started out into the snow, shouting again:
“Prince! Prince! Here, boy! Here, boy!”
There was no answering bark. The ice cracked and shuddered and the gale slapped the snow against the searchers more fiercely than before. Had they been facing the wind, the snow would fairly have blinded them.
“And that’s what’s happened to the boy,” declared one of the men. “Don’t you see? He’s got to face it to get back to town.”
“Then he is drifted with it,” said Mr. Stagg hopelessly.
“Say, he’ll know which is the right way! Hear that bell?” rejoined another. “You can hear the chapel bell when you’re beating into the cove with the wind dead against you. I know, for I’ve been there.”