They cuddled together for warmth, and in spite of the obviously great danger of their situation, two at least, Joe and the Eskimo, soon slept soundly. Harry did not sleep so readily. He was fairly warm and comfortable lying between his two friends in the narrow cubby-hole, now wrapped deep in the sheltering snow, but he could hear the howl of the storm without, and a sense of the weird and supernatural was strong upon him. It seemed as if the wild powers of the unknown ice world laughed and gibbered in the gale. He thought he heard low wails, hideous laughter, and a sort of insane babbling that sounded now far, now near at hand, and he did not blame the Eskimos for thinking the world of unknown ice and desolation to the north to be peopled by strange spirits. Once it seemed as if the Innuit at his side was awake and listening too, and he poked him gently and asked, “What’s that?” as a sound of ghostly footsteps and something like deep breathing came to him in a lull of the gale.
The other lifted his head and was silent. “Hush,” he replied, after a moment. “Nunatak mute (ghost people) come. Perhaps no hear, no see, bimeby go away.”
He lay down again and was soon asleep, and at last tired nature soothed Harry to slumber, and he slipped away into the world of dreams where was no ice or gale, no strange ghosts of the frigid night, but the pleasant warmth of his own fireside at home, his father and mother sitting by the evening lamp, and he himself propped among cushions, slipping gently into dreamland in the comfort of his own home.
Hours afterward he was wakened by a familiar scratching sound. It was pitch dark, and he was warm and comfortable though the air was oppressive. By and by there was a spurt of flame, and he saw that Joe was lighting a match. He touched it to the wick of the oil stove, put the teapot on, then looked at his watch.
“It ought to be light by this time,” he said. “It’s five o’clock. What do you suppose is the matter?” The Innuit was awake at this, and sat up also in his cramped quarters.
“Plenty snow,” he said. “Eat first, bimeby look out. Much cold.”
They made a hasty breakfast from the scanty stock of food, and the Innuit pushed his arm through the drift that had snowed them completely under, safe and warm from the tempest. Light came in through the hole which his arm had made, and a whiff of fresh but very keen air. He enlarged the hole carefully, making it a sort of burrow out of which each crawled. The snow had ceased, but the wind still blew hard, and the air was full of a black fog, which gave no sight of the sun. It was bitter cold, and the short distance which they could see about them showed only a rugged mass of snow-covered ice. During the night their floating cake had joined with larger ones, how large they could not tell, and they were now on what seemed an ice-field.
“Shall we try to make the ship?” asked Harry dubiously, his teeth chattering in the keen air. Joe shook his head.
“I’m afraid we’re in a bad scrape,” he said. “We can’t be sure of the direction, and even if we could, we might pass within a short distance of the ship and not see her. Seems to me there is nothing to do but to wait for the weather to clear up. Then we can tell what we are doing.”