“Stay here all winter?” cried Jack—and he actually managed to scare up a laugh. “Not we! Why, Percy, where’s your American enterprise? Where’s your English bull-doggedness, Tom? Do you think we’ll give in at one failure? Not we, indeed! If we should be unable to get over this rock, why, then, we’ll just go up our ladder and walk home over the mountains. Give in! I should think not. We’re not babies; we’re men!”
That was a grand stroke of Jack’s: calling us men. I felt myself grow two inches immediately; and Percy, taking his hands from under his arms, and repressing his shivers as well as he could, straightened up and exclaimed:
“Go ahead, Jack! You lead; we’ll follow!”
“Come on, then!” cried our captain.
Back we went at once, up the waterway, through the pool, and down to the fort, where we picked up our blankets and carried them over to the cabin; after which Percy and I busied ourselves in transporting the rest of our baggage to the same haven, while Jack went off in search of a pole which should be at once sufficiently long and not too heavy.
The better part of an hour passed ere we were ready to set out again, by which time the snow had so increased in depth as to be up to our knees, making the task of carrying the heavy pole one of great labour. After innumerable pauses to rest and recover breath, and after a great deal of manœuvring to coax the awkward burden around the corners, we at length reached the pool. But there we encountered a new and unexpected obstacle. We were met in the face by a rush of wind, which was driving out of the mouth of the tunnel with force enough to make us stagger under our load. It had been perfectly calm down in the valley when we left it, and in the cleft in the rocks up which we had just come there was no air stirring, but judging from the blast which came out of the tunnel, we guessed that there must be a high wind sweeping over the hog-back above our heads.
“Stop!” cried Jack. “You fellows wait here, while I go through and see what it is like on the other side. From the look of things, I expect we have got to get back to the cabin at once.”
We “up-ended” the pole and leaned it against the rocks, so that it should not be buried in the snow, and then Jack, for the third time that day, waded into the pool. In a short time he came splashing back again, and reported, as we had expected, that there was a gale blowing on the other side of the valley-wall.
“It’s no use to think of going on at present,” said he; “the snow is drifting badly out there. We should only lose ourselves; and the result of that would probably be that we should freeze to death or die of exhaustion, tired as we are, and wet through as we have been all day. We must make our way down to the cabin again as fast as we can.”
We accordingly retraced our steps; and it was well we turned back when we did, or we might never have reached the little shanty at all. As we were about to enter, Jack stopped and held up his finger.