Chapter 12

ADRIFT ON THE OPEN SEA

As the iceberg turned, great masses of ice, some of them weighing tons, loosened from the main body, and with loud rumbling and roar crashed into the sea. Bobby, when he realized what was happening, began with all his energy to scramble up the wall of ice as it rose from the water.

Fortunately it was a small iceberg, and fortunately, also, it turned slowly and with deliberation and but a short distance, when it again reached its equilibrium, and was still.

Bobby's life had been one of pretty constant peril and adventure, and after the manner of wilderness dwellers he had learned resourcefulness and self-possession. It is indeed a part of the daily training of every lad of the wilderness, that he acquire these attributes, until at last they become second nature to him, and instinctively he does the thing he should do when he comes suddenly face to face with unexpected dangers. And so it was with both Bobby and Jimmy, and thus it came about that Bobby did not lose his head when the iceberg began to turn, and when it was again at rest he found himself upon a high pinnacle, with the seething waters all around him. To be sure, his heart beat faster, and it was but natural that he should be excited, but his nerves were nevertheless under control, and his wits, too.

From his perch upon the iceberg Bobby looked eagerly for Jimmy and the skiff. He feared that some of the ponderous blocks of ice had fallen upon them and crushed them, and the thought made him heart-sick for an instant.

But presently he saw the skiff, filled with water and smothering in the swell, and a moment later he discovered Jimmy, also smothering in the swell, but swimming vigorously toward the iceberg. This brought him vast relief. Jimmy was alive and apparently uninjured, and the whole adventure became to Bobby at once an ordinary occurrence of their every-day life, for which he was mightily thankful. To be sure it was an unpleasant and annoying adventure, but they would escape from it, he had no doubt, none the worse for their experience. And in this frame of mind he clambered down the slippery sides of the ice hill to a level spot at the water's edge, shouting in the most matter-of-fact way, as he did so:

"This way, Jimmy! This way! You can climb aboard here!"

In a few strokes Jimmy came alongside, and Bobby, taking his hand, helped him to scramble, shivering, to the ice.

"My, Bobby, but I was glad to see you here!" Jimmy exclaimed through his chattering teeth. "I was afraid you were done for! I was afraid it carried you under when it turned."

"I was afraid you were done for, too!" and there was thanksgiving in Bobby's voice. "How did it happen you got into the water? Did the ice hit the skiff?"

"I don't know how it happened," said Jimmy. "I don't think the ice hit the skiff, but it all came so suddenly I don't know."

"Well, here we are, and out there's the boat, and we've got to get it," declared Bobby. "I'm going for it."

"No, let me go. I'm wet anyhow, and I'm all right for it," Jimmy protested. "I might have brought it in with me, but I didn't see it."

"I'm going," declared Bobby, with an accent that left no doubt he was, as he pulled off his clothes, and his sealskin boots. "You've had your dip, and I'm going to have one now--the first of the year."

"It's pretty cold," Jimmy cautioned. "I've been in, and I'm used to it, and don't mind it."

But Bobby was in, and swimming for the skiff. It was, fortunately, not above fifty or sixty feet away, for the whole occurrence had taken place within a very few minutes' time, and the boat had not yet had time to drift beyond reach.

A few strokes carried Bobby to the submerged skiff. He secured the painter, which was attached to the bow, and with some hard tugging reached the iceberg, and climbed up with Jimmy's assistance.

"You'd better take off your things and wring 'em out, while I dress," Bobby suggested, as he drew his clothes on.

"I guess I had," Jimmy agreed.

"Now," said Bobby, when he and Jimmy were dressed, after Jimmy had wrung as much of the water as possible from his clothes, "we're going to have a hard time of it getting the water out of her. How'll we do it?"

"Can't we get her alongside and turn her over?" Jimmy suggested. "We can pull her up empty."

With some mighty pulling and hauling, and many futile efforts, they at length succeeded, and presently the skiff was in the water again and floating as easily as though nothing had happened and it had never once been under the waves. And then a new problem confronted them.

"The oars! The oars are gone!" exclaimed Jimmy in consternation.

And so they were. Nowhere could they discover the oars, though they clambered up the iceberg again and scanned the surrounding sea.

"Well," said Bobby, "that's hard luck! I wonder if we can't make father or some one hear. Let's get up on top and yell."

From the top of the iceberg they shouted and shouted, but Mrs. Abel was in one tent, busied with her household affairs, and Skipper Ed and Abel were in the other tent, making ready their fishing gear, and the breeze blew from the land, and altogether no one heard the shouting.

"No use," said Bobby at last, descending to the skiff. "I'll tell you what we'll do. We'll knock one of the seats out, split it, and make two paddles. They'll be short, but they'll do us to get ashore. It isn't far."

"It looks as though it's the only thing to do, unless we want to stay here for three or four hours," agreed Jimmy, taking the ax and knocking out the seat. "I'm shivering cold from my wetting."

"It's lucky I hung to the ax," said Bobby, as he watched Jimmy fashioning the paddles.

"There," said Jimmy at length, "they're pretty short paddles, but we'll have to make 'em do. Let's get off of this."

But the tide was running out, and a very strong tide it proved, and the breeze from the land was stiff enough, too, had there been no opposing tide, to have made pulling against it with a good pair of oars no easy task. All this they did not realize until they had paddled beyond the shelter of the iceberg, for they had drawn the boat up upon its lee side.

They put all the energy they could muster into their effort, but the paddles were very short and very narrow, and work as they would they presently discovered that tide and wind were mastering them, and instead of progressing toward Itigailit Island they were drifting seaward.

"We can't make it!" said Jimmy at last.

"No," agreed Bobby. "We'll have to go back to the berg and wait for them to come for us."

But even that they could not accomplish. Work as they would, the paddles proved hopelessly inefficient, and after an hour's desperate effort they realized that they were nearly as far to seaward from the iceberg as the iceberg was from Itigailit Island.

"Well," said Bobby, at length, "we're in for it, and a fine fix it is."

"What are we going to do?" asked Jimmy. "We've _got_ to do something."

"I wish that I had some of that bear meat. I'm as hungry as the old bear ever was," said Bobby, irrelevantly.

"Well, so am I, but we'll be hungrier than the bear ever was, I'm thinking, if we don't do something to get to land," broke in Jimmy with some irritation. "Why, Bobby, don't you realize what it means? We've got no water and nothing to eat! We'll perish of thirst and hunger if we don't get to land! Unless a sea rises and swamps us, and then we'll drown!"

"It does look as though we were drifting to the place I came from, but it won't do any good to worry," said Bobby. "Maybe when the tide turns we can do something. The wind goes down with the sun every evening, and then with the tide in our favor maybe we can make it."

"It'll be a good hour yet before the tide turns, and two or three hours before sundown, and where'll we be then?" argued Jimmy, dejectedly. "I wish I could be like you, Bobby, and not worry over things the way I do."

"Well, just remember that we did the best we could to get out of the mess after we got into it, and if we keep on doing our best that is all we can do, and worrying won't help us any. I just feel like being thankful that you weren't killed and we're both here safe and sound, with an even chance that we'll get back home all right."

And so, paddling, drifting, sometimes silent for a long while, sometimes talking, the time passed. The land faded upon the horizon and was lost. Icebergs lay about them. Once they were startled by the thunderous roar of a monster berg in the distance as it toppled and turned upon its side, and later they felt its swell. Not far away a whale spouted.

Finally the sun set, and the wind died, and for a little while the heavens and icebergs and sea were marvelously and gloriously painted with crimson and purple and orange.

Then came the long gray twilight of the North, and at last the stars, and night, and darkness, with the icebergs, white, spectral, and coldly majestic, rising in silhouette against the distant sky, and the throbbing, restless sea, somber and black, around them.