They gazed at her with somewhat 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 grey seas splashed unpleasantly close about her gunwale. She was running before them, rising sharply, and dropping down out of sight of all but the schooner's canvas into the hollows, and though this made rowing easier he was apprehensive of difficulties when he reached the ice.
His misgivings proved warranted as they closed with it, for it presented an almost unbroken wall against the face of which the sea spouted and fell in frothy wisps. 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 she 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," he said.
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," said Charly. "There's more wind not far away."
Wyllard dipped his oar again, and they pulled along the edge of the ice for an hour cautiously, 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 further hampered by their furs, and the stores among their feet, and 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 commenced 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 just make out the schooner, which had apparently followed them, a blurr 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.