Chapter X.
AN UGLY FERRIAGE.
The sun had been up an hour when Aleck woke again, and pulled Tug'sear, at which that young gentleman sat up and was going to fightsomebody right away. But Aleck pounced on him, and pinned him downbefore he could stir or strike.
"No time for fooling," he laughed in his chum's face; "but if therewere I'd like to take you out to the creek here and duck you for yourdisrespect to your superior officer. Will you touch your cap if I letyou up?"
"Ye-e-s," Tug replied, as he felt the strength of the Captain's grip;"but I'm not sure about your duckin' me!"
"Nor I," laughed Aleck, and he leaped away, to go and wake up theothers by kicking on the side of the boat.
The morning was beautiful, and by the time breakfast was ready thetent had been struck, and the big boys had come back from anexploration to say that they could go almost to the brink of the openwater.
"It must be a 'lead,'" exclaimed Katy. "That's the name arctictravellers give to a wide crack in the ice, by taking advantage ofwhich, whenever it leads in the right direction, vessels are able tomake their way through the 'packs' and 'fields.'"
"Probably their _leading_ vessels through is where they get the name,"Aleck remarked.
"Shouldn't wonder," said Tug; "but however well that plan may work inthe arctic regions, we must _cross_ this one."
Getting everything ready at the brink of the canal occupied fifteenminutes. Then, all the cargo easy to be moved having been taken out,the boat (sledge and all, as an experiment for this short trip) waslaunched without mishap. The sledge bobs hanging on her bottomweighted her down, and canted her so much, though the water wasperfectly smooth, that it was necessary to make the trip verycarefully. The young voyagers were thus taught that for any realnavigation the boat must always be removed from the sledge. By noon,however, the last ferriage was successfully made, and they hadrepacked and were ready to go on again as soon as they had eaten a"bite." While despatching this, Katy suddenly exclaimed:
"Oh, I have never once thought about our visitors last night. I'llconfess I was dreadfully frightened. How did you know they were owls?"
"Saw 'em," Tug replied, shortly, with his mouth full of dried beef."Couldn't be anything else this time o' year."
"Where do they come from?"
"From 'way up north. Don't your arctic book say anything about 'em?Maybe it calls 'em the 'great white' or 'snowy' or 'Eskimo' owls."
"I think I remember something about them. The Eskimos have asuperstitious fear of them, haven't they?"
"Yes, and lots of other people, for that matter. Why, only last winterone of 'em lit on the roof of a house out in the country where I wasstaying, and the old woman there began to rock back and forth, andwhine out that some dreadful bad luck was coming. But that's allnonsense."
"I guess its cry has given it a witch-like reputation," said Aleck."It sounded uncanny enough last night; didn't it, Jim? But what werethey doing away out here?"
"Oh, I s'pose they were flying 'cross the lake, and had stopped torest on our tent-ridge, till we startled them. I bet they were worsescared than you were. You see, their proper home is in the arcticregions. That's where they build their nests, putting them in treesand in holes in rocks. But when winter comes up there, and the snowgets so deep and the cold so severe that all the small animals hefeeds on have retired to their holes or else left the country, Mr. Owlhas to get up and flit too, or he will starve to death. So he workshis way down here. They say these great white owls--why, they'rebigger than the biggest cat-owl you ever saw--never go far south ofthis, and I know that we don't see many of 'em except when we have avery severe winter. But I've talked enough. Let's get out of this."
The sunshine by this time was interrupted by dark clouds that rose inthe west, and puffs of damp, chilly air began to be felt by theskaters, who wrapped themselves a little closer in their overcoats asthey measured their steady strokes. Still no land came in sight, butthey thought this must be owing mainly to the thick air to thesouthward. Once they thought they saw it, but the dark line on thehorizon proved to be a hummock, not so bad as the one lately passed,but still troublesome, and closely followed by a second. The liftingand tugging tired them all greatly, and after the second barrier hadbeen climbed they found themselves on ice which was incrusted withfrozen snow, and exceedingly unpleasant to skate upon. But a few rodsfarther on there appeared a narrow stream of open water, beyond whichthe ice looked hard and green.
"Let us cross, and camp on the other side," said Tug.
"Yes," Aleck answered, in a troubled voice. "Do you see that snowstorm coming, over there? It'll be down upon us in a jiffy, andthere's no telling what next. Yes, let's cross before it gets dark, ifwe can. There's a hummock over there that will shelter us a bit fromthe wind, I think."
The anxious tone of his voice alarmed his companions, and all set atwork with a will. Yet the snow-flakes had come, and were thick aboutthem, before the second ferriage had been made, and the wet andice-clogged boat was lifted out of the water.
Nobody _said_ as much, but it is safe to believe that each of our fourfriends _thought_, to himself, that if every day's work in advance wasto be like this one, they had undertaken a prodigiously difficult anddangerous experiment in this skating expedition; and perhaps each onewondered whether the winter would be long enough to carry them totheir destination at this rate of progress, even should they be ableto surmount the fast-recurring obstacles in safety.