The ice among the inlets on the American side of the North Pacific broke up unusually early when spring came round again, and several weeks before Wyllard had expected it the Selache floated clear. The crew had suffered little during the bitter winter, for Dampier had kept the men busy splicing gear and patching sails, and they had fitted the schooner with a new mainmast hewn out of a small cedar. None of the sailors had been trained as carpenters, but men who keep the sea for months in small vessels are necessarily handy at repairs, and they had all used ax and saw to some purpose in their time.

Wyllard was satisfied when they thrashed the Selache out of the inlet under whole mainsail in a fresh breeze, and when evening came he sat smoking near the wheel. He was in a contemplative mood as the climbing forests and snow-clad heights dropped back astern. He wondered what his friends were doing upon the prairie, and whether Agatha had married Gregory yet. It seemed to him that it was, at least, possible that Agatha was married, for she was one to keep a promise, and it was difficult to believe that Gregory would fail to press his claim. Wyllard’s face grew grim as he thought of it, though this was a thing he had done more or less constantly during the winter. He fancied that he might have ousted Gregory if he had remained at the Range, for perhaps unconsciously Agatha had shown him that she was not quite indifferent to him; but that would have been to involve her in a breach of faith which she would probably always have looked back on with regret. In any case he could not have stayed to press his suit. He knew that he would never forget her, but it was not impossible that she might forget him. He realized also, though this was not by comparison a matter of great consequence, that the Range was scarcely likely to prosper under Gregory’s management, but that could not be helped, and after all he owed Gregory something. It never occurred to him that he was doing an extravagant thing in setting out upon the search that he had undertaken. He felt that the obligation was laid upon him, and, being what he was, he could not shrink from it.

A puff of spray that blew into his face disturbed his meditations, and when a little tumbling sea splashed in over the weather bow, he helped the others to haul down a reef in the mainsail. That accomplished, he went below and brought out a well-worn chart. The Selache drove away to the westwards over a white-flecked sea. This time she carried fresh southerly breezes with her most of the way across the Pacific, and plunged along hove down under the last piece of canvas they dared to set upon her until at last they ran into the fog close in to the Kamtchatkan beaches. Then the wind dropped, and they were baffled by light and fitful breezes, while it became evident that there was ice about.

The day they saw the first big mass of ice gleaming broad across their course on a raw green sea, Dampier got an observation, and they held a brief council in the little cabin that evening. The schooner was hove to then, and lay rolling with banging blocks and thrashing canvas on a sluggish heave of sea.

“Thirty miles off shore,” announced Dampier. “If it had been clear enough we’d have seen the top of the big range quite a way further out to sea. Now, it’s drift ice ahead of us, but it’s quite likely there’s a solid block along the beach. Winter holds on a long while in this country. I guess you’re for pushing on as fast as you can?”

Wyllard nodded. “Of course,” he said, “you’ll look for an opening, and work her in as far as possible. Then, if it’s necessary, Charly and I and another man will take the sled and head for the beach across the ice. If there’s a lane anywhere I would, however, probably take the smallest boat. We might haul her a league or two, anyway, on the sled if the ice wasn’t very rough.”

He looked at Charly, who acquiesced.

“Well,” Charly observed simply, “I guess I’ll have to see you through. Now we’ve made a sled for her I’d take the boat, anyway. We’re quite likely to strike a big streak of water when the ice is breaking up.”

“There’s one other course,” declared Dampier; “the sensible one, and that’s to wait until it has gone altogether. Seems to me I ought to mention it, though it’s not likely to appeal to you.”

Wyllard laughed. “From all appearances we might wait a month. I don’t want to stay up here any longer than is strictly necessary.”

“You’ll head north?”

“That’s my intention.”

“Then,” said Dampier, pointing to the chart before them, “as you should make the beach in the next day or two I’ll head for the inlet here. As it’s not very far you won’t have to pack so many provisions along, and I’ll give you, say, three weeks to turn up in. If you don’t, I’ll figure that there’s something wrong, and do what seems advisable.”

They agreed to that, and when next morning a little breeze came out of the creeping haze, they sailed the Selache slowly shorewards among the drifting ice until, at nightfall, an apparently impenetrable barrier stretched gleaming faintly ahead of them. Wyllard turned in soon afterwards and slept soundly. All his preparations had been made during the winter and there was no occasion for new plans. When morning broke he breakfasted before he went out on deck. The boat was already packed with provisions, sleeping-bags, a tent, and two light sled frames, on one of which it seemed possible that they might haul her a few miles. She was very light and small, and had been built for such a purpose as they had in view.

The schooner lay to with backed fore-staysail tumbling wildly on a dim, gray sea. Half a mile away the ice ran back into a dingy haze, and there was a low, gray sky to weather. Now and then a fine sprinkle of snow slid across the water before a nipping breeze. As Wyllard glanced to windward Dampier strode up to him.

“I guess you’d better put it off,” he said. “I don’t like the weather; we’ll have wind before long.”

Wyllard smiled, and Dampier made a forceful gesture.

“Then,” he advised, “I’d get on to the ice just as soon as possible. You’re still quite a way off the beach.”

Wyllard shook hands with him. “We should make the inlet in about nine days, and if I don’t turn up in three weeks you’ll know there’s something wrong,” he said. “If there’s no sign of me in another week you can take her home again.”

Dampier, who made no further comment, bade them swing the boat over, and when she lay heaving beneath the rail Wyllard and Charly and one Indian dropped into her. It was only a preliminary search they were about to engage in, for they had decided that if they found nothing they would afterwards push further north or inland when they had supplied themselves with fresh stores from the schooner.

They gazed at the Selache with grim faces as they pulled away, and Wyllard, who loosed his oar a moment to wave his fur cap when Dampier stood upon her rail, was glad when a fresher rush of the bitter breeze forced him to fix his attention on his task. The boat was heavily loaded, and the tops of the gray seas splashed unpleasantly close about her gunwale. She was running before them, rising sharply, and dropping down into the hollows, out of sight of all but the schooner’s canvas, and though this made rowing easier, Wyllard was apprehensive of difficulties when he reached the ice.

His misgivings proved warranted, for the ice presented an almost unbroken wall against the face of which the sea spouted. There was no doubt as to what would happen if the frail craft was hurled upon that frozen mass, and Wyllard, who was sculling, fancied that before the boat could even reach it, there was a probability of her being swamped in the upheaval where the backwash met the oncoming sea. Charly looked at him dubiously.

“It’s a sure thing we can’t get out there,” Charly observed.

Wyllard nodded. “Then,” he said, “we’ll pull along the edge of it until we find an opening or something to make a lee. The sea’s higher than it seemed to be from the schooner.”

“We’ve got to do it soon,” Charly declared. “There’s more wind not far away.”

Wyllard dipped his oar again, and for an hour they pulled along the edge of the ice, for there were now little frothing white tops on the seas.

It was evident that the wind was freshening, and at times a deluge of icy water slopped in over the gunwale. The men were hampered by their furs, and the stores lying about their feet.

The perspiration dripped from Wyllard when they approached a ragged, jutting point. It did not seem advisable to attempt a landing on that side of it, and when a little snow began to fall he looked at his companions.

“I guess we’ve got to pull her out,” said Charly. “Dampier’s heaving a reef down; he sees what’s working up to windward.”

Wyllard could barely make out the schooner, which had apparently followed them, a blur of dusky canvas against a bank of haze, and then as the boat slid down into a hollow there was nothing but the low-hung, lowering sky. It was evident to him that if they were to make a landing it must be done promptly.

“We’ll pull around the point first, anyway,” he decided.

A shower of fine snow that blotted out the schooner broke upon them, and the work was arduous. They were pulling to windward now, and it was necessary to watch the seas that ranged up ahead and to handle the boat circumspectly while the freshening breeze blew the spray over them. They had to fight for every fathom, and once or twice the little craft nearly rolled over with them. It became apparent by degrees that, as they could not have reached the schooner had they attempted it, they were pulling for their lives, and that the one way of escape open to them was to find an egress of some kind around the point, the ragged tongue of which was horribly close to lee of them. When the snow cleared for a minute or two, they saw that Dampier had driven the Selache further off the ice. The schooner was hove to now, and there was a black figure high up in her shrouds.

A bitter rush of wind hurled the spray about them, and the boat fell off almost beam-on to the sea, in spite of all that they could do. The icy brine washed into the boat, and it seemed almost certain that she would swamp or roll over before they could get way on her. Still, pulling desperately, they drove her around the point. Gasping and dripping they made their last effort. A sea rolled up ahead, and as the boat swung up with it Wyllard had a momentary glimpse of an opening not far away. He shouted to his companions, but could not tell whether they heard and understood him, for after that he was conscious only of rowing savagely until another sea broke into the boat and she struck. There was a crash, and she swung clear with the backwash, with all one side smashed in. Then she swung in again just beyond a tongue of ice over which the froth was pouring tumultuously, and the Indian jumped from the bow. He had the painter with him, and for half a minute, standing in the foam, he held the boat somehow, while they hurled a few of the carefully made-up packages that composed her important freight as far on to the ice as possible.

As Wyllard, who seized one sled frame, jumped, the disabled boat rolled over. He landed on his hands and knees, but in another moment he was on his feet, and he and the Indian clutched at Charly, who drove towards them amid a long wash of foam. They dragged him clear, and as he stood up dripping without his cap a sudden haze of snow whirled about them. There was no sign of the schooner, and they could scarcely see the broken ice some sixty yards away. They had made the landing, wet through, with about half their stores, and it was evident that their boat would not carry them across the narrowest lane of water, even if they could have recovered her. The sea rumbled along the edge of the ice, and they could not tell whether the frozen wall extended as far as the beach. They looked at one another until Wyllard spoke.

“We have got the hand-sled, and some, at least, of the things,” he said. “The sooner we start for the beach the sooner we’ll get there.”

It was a relief to load the sled, and when that was done they put themselves into the hide traces and set off across the ice. Their traveling was arduous work apart from the hauling of the load, for the ice was rough and broken, and covered for the most part with softening snow. They had only gum-boots with soft hide moccasins under them, for snow-shoes are used only in Eastern Canada, and it takes one a long while to learn to walk on them.

Sometimes the three men sank almost knee-deep, sometimes they slipped and scrambled on uncovered ledges, but they pushed on with the sled bouncing and sliding unevenly behind them, until the afternoon had almost gone.

They set up the wet tent behind a hummock, and crouched inside it upon a ground-sheet, while Charly boiled a kettle on the little oil blast stove. The wind hurled the snow upon the straining canvas, which stood the buffeting. When they had eaten a simple meal Charly put the stove out and the darkness was not broken except when one of them struck a match to light his pipe. They had but one strip of rubber sheeting between them and the snow, for the water had gotten into the sleeping bags. Their clothes dried upon them with the heat of their bodies. They said nothing for a while, and Wyllard was half asleep when Charly spoke.

“I’ve been thinking about that boat,” he remarked. “Though I don’t know that we could have done it, we ought to have tried to pull her out.”

“Why?” asked Wyllard. “She’d have been all to pieces, anyway.

“I’m figuring it out like this. If Dampier wasn’t up in the shrouds when we made the landing he’d sent somebody. We could see him up against the sky, but we’d be much less clear to him low down with the ice and the surf about us. Besides, it was snowing quite fast then. Well, I don’t know what Dampier saw, but I guess he’d have made out that we hadn’t hauled the boat up, anyway. The trouble is that with the wind freshening and it getting thick he’d have to thrash the schooner out and lie to until it cleared. When he runs in again it’s quite likely that he’ll find the boat and an oar or two. Seems to me that’s going to worry him considerable.”

Wyllard, drowsy as he was, agreed with this view of the matter. He realized that it would have been quite impossible for Dampier to send them any assistance, and it was merely a question whether they should retrace their steps to the edge of the ice next morning and make him some signal. Against this there was the strong probability that he would not run in, if the gale and snow continued, and the fact that it was desirable to make the beach as soon as possible in case the ice broke up before they reached it. What was rather more to the purpose, Wyllard was quietly determined on pushing on.

“It can’t be helped,” he said simply. “We’ll start for the beach as soon as it’s daylight.”

Charly made no answer, and the brawny, dark-skinned Siwash, who spoke English reasonably well, merely grunted. Unless it seemed necessary, he seldom said anything at all. Bred to the sea, and living on the seal and salmon, an additional hazard or two or an extra strain on his tough body did not count for much with him. He had been accustomed to sleep wet through with icy water, and to crouch for hours with numbed hands clenched on the steering-paddle while the long sea canoe scudded furiously over the big combers before bitter gale or driving snow. Wyllard, who rolled over, pulled a wet sleeping-bag across him, and after that there was silence in the little rocking tent.

Charly’s deductions had been proved correct, for when the breeze freshened Dampier climbed into the shrouds. He had noticed the ominous blackness to windward, and he knew what it meant. That was why he had hauled down a reef in the schooner’s mainsail, and now kept the vessel out a little from the ice. As the light faded he found it very difficult to see the boat against the white wash of the seas that recoiled from the ice, but when the snow was whirling about him he decided that she was in some peril unless her crew could pull her around the point. It was evident that this would be a difficult matter, though he had only an occasional glimpse of her now. He waved an arm to the helmsman, who understood that he was to run the schooner in. There was a rattle of blocks as the booms swung out, and as the Selache sped away before the rapidly freshening breeze it seemed to Dampier that he saw the boat hurled upon the ice. A blinding haze of snow suddenly shut out everything, and the skipper hastened down to the deck. He stood beside the wheel for several minutes. Gazing forward, he could see nothing except the filmy whiteness and the tops of the seas that had steadily been getting steeper. The schooner was driving furiously down upon the ice, but it was evident that to send Wyllard any assistance was utterly beyond his power. He could have hove to the schooner while he got the bigger boat over, and two men might have pulled towards the ice with the breeze astern of them, but it was perfectly clear that they could have neither made a landing nor have pulled her back again. It was also uncertain whether he and the other man could have brought the schooner round or have gotten more sail off her. He stood still until they heard the wash of the sea upon the ice close to lee of them, and then it was a hard-clenched hand he raised in sign to the helmsman.

“On the wind! Haul lee sheets!” he commanded.

The Selache came round a little, heading off the ice, and when she drove away with the foam seething white beneath one depressed rail and the spray whirling high about her plunging bows, there was a tense look in the white men’s faces as they gazed into the thickening white haze to lee of her. They thrashed her out until Dampier decided that there was sufficient water between him and the ice, and then stripped most of the sail off her, and she lay to until next morning, when they once more got sail on her and ran in again. The breeze had fallen a little, it was rather clearer, and they picked up the point, though it had somewhat changed its shape. They got a boat over, and the two men who went off in her found a few broken planks, a couple of oars, and Charly’s cap washing up and down in the surf. They had very little doubt as to what that meant.