"Poor Rex!" said Katy, with a sigh. "Travellers get so badly off they have to kill and eat their dogs sometimes"--Rex stopped crunching, and looked up with a glance of alarm at this--"and if we should--"
"What a grand time Rex would have at his own bones!" interrupted Tug--a joke the utter absurdity of which wrinkled the faces that had become straight into hearty laughter. Towards evening a fire was built, which used the last of the sticks and one of the box-covers before the biscuits could be baked in the skillet, the ham fried, and tea made.
"I'm 'fraid it won't be long before I shall have to try the little stove," said Katy.
"I had no idea we were so near the end," Aleck muttered, under his breath.
The meal that evening was a very dull one, and if they did not go to sleep at once after they had gone to bed, certainly there was little fun-making among the weather-bound prisoners. Aleck said afterwards he thought he slept about an hour that night, and Katy was sure she didn't really get soundly asleep at all; but it is difficult to lie awake _all_ night, though your rest may be so broken that you think in the morning you have never once lost your knowledge of what was going on.
When they arose next morning the air was much lighter, for it was no longer snowing. Breaking their way out after breakfast, Aleck and Tug climbed to the crest of the hummock above the house, where pretty soon they were joined by Katy and Jim, anxious to get a look abroad. There was not much satisfaction in this, though. On all sides stretched an unbroken area of white--a spotless expanse of new snow such as you never can see on land, for there was nothing to break the colorless monotony, except where the hummock stretched away right and left, half buried, and as white as the rest, save at a few points where crests of upturned ice-blocks stood above the drifts.
"There is a higher point a little way over there," said Aleck to Tug; "let's go across, and see if it will show us anything new."
"No, Youngster, stay with Katy. It would be a useless journey for you, and we'll soon be back."
And off they went, floundering up to their waists much of the time.
"Jim," says Katy, "I see, just beyond the hut"--pointing in the direction opposite to that in which the lads had gone--"a space under the edge of the hummock where the ice seems pretty clear. Understand? And look! don't you see that long, dark line there? I wonder what it can be? Let us go and find out. We can get along easily enough after a few steps."