One fellow was so loud in his protestations of innocence that Petersen suspected him. The Dane approached him with a flash of anger in his eye, which told its own story. The Esquimo stepped back, stooped, picked up the hatchet, on which he had been standing, and gave it to Petersen with one hand, and with the other presented him a pair of mittens as a peace-offering.
We pushed off, and they stood shouting upon the beach until their voices died away in the distance as we pulled across the bay.
CHAPTER XIII.
THE HUT.
WE now made for Cape Parry with all speed, though this was slow speed. The young ice which covered the bay was too old for us, or, at any rate, it was too strong for easy progress. It was sunset when we reached the cape. Beyond this there had been open water seen by us for many days past, from the elevated points of observation which we had sought. From this point, therefore, we expected free sailing southward, and rapid progress toward safety and our homes. But here we were at last at Cape Parry against a pack which extended far southward. In our desperation we tried to force the boats through. The "Ironsides" was badly battered, and the "Hope" made sadly leaky by the operation, and no progress was made. We then pushed slowly down the shore through a lead, and having gone about seven miles, darkness and the ice brought us to a stand, and we drew up for the night.
In the morning we observed a lead going south from the shore at a point twelve miles distant. For six days, bringing us to the twenty-seventh of September, we fought hard to reach the lead, but failed. We could now neither retreat nor go forward. Ice and snow were every-where. The sun was running low in the heavens, seeming to rise only to set; and soon the night, which was to have no sunrise morning until February, would be upon us. Our food was sufficient for not more than two weeks, and our fuel of blubber for the lamp only was but enough for eight or ten days. Our condition seemed almost without hope, but it had entered into our calculations as a possible contingency, and we girded ourselves for the struggle for life, trusting in the Great Deliverer.
We were about sixteen miles below Cape Parry, and about midway between Whale Sound and Wolstenholme Sound. We pitched our tent thirty yards from the sea on a rocky upland. After securing in a safe place the boats and equipments, we began to look about us for a place to build a hut. It was, indeed, a dreary, death-threatening region. Time was too pressing for us to think of building an Esquimo hut, if, indeed, our strength and skill was sufficient.
While we were looking round and debating what to build and where, one of our party found a crevice in a rock. This crevice ran parallel with the coast, and was opposite to, and near, the landing. It was eight feet in width, and level on the bottom. The rock on the east side was six feet high, its face smooth and perpendicular, except breaks in two places, making at each a shelf. On the other—the ocean side—the wall was scarcely four feet high, round and sloping; but a cleft through it made an opening to the crevice from the west.