the sun had been up an hour when aleck woke again, and pulled tug's ear, at which that young gentleman sat up and was going to fight somebody right away. but aleck pounced on him, and pinned him down before he could stir or strike.
"no time for fooling," he laughed in his chum's face; "but if there were i'd like to take you out to the creek here and duck you for your disrespect to your superior officer. will you touch your cap if i let you 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 the others by kicking on the side of the boat.
the morning was beautiful, and by the time breakfast was ready the tent had been struck, and the big boys had come back from an exploration to say that they could go almost to the brink of the open water.
"it must be a 'lead,'" exclaimed katy. "that's the name arctic travellers give to a wide crack in the ice, by taking advantage of which, whenever it leads in the right direction, vessels are able to make 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 in the arctic regions, we must cross this one."
getting everything ready at the brink of the canal occupied fifteen minutes. then, all the cargo easy to be moved having been taken out, the boat (sledge and all, as an experiment for this short trip) was launched without mishap. the sledge bobs hanging on her bottom weighted her down, and canted her so much, though the water was perfectly smooth, that it was necessary to make the trip very carefully. the young voyagers were thus taught that for any real navigation the boat must always be removed from the sledge. by noon, however, the last ferriage was successfully made, and they had repacked 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'll confess 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 a superstitious fear of them, haven't they?"
"yes, and lots of other people, for that matter. why, only last winter one of 'em lit on the roof of a house out in the country where i was staying, and the old woman there began to rock back and forth, and whine out that some dreadful bad luck was coming. but that's all nonsense."
"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 were they doing away out here?"
"oh, i s'pose they were flying 'cross the lake, and had stopped to rest on our tent-ridge, till we startled them. i bet they were worse scared than you were. you see, their proper home is in the arctic regions. that's where they build their nests, putting them in trees and in holes in rocks. but when winter comes up there, and the snow gets so deep and the cold so severe that all the small animals he feeds on have retired to their holes or else left the country, mr. owl has to get up and flit too, or he will starve to death. so he works his way down here. they say these great white owls—why, they're bigger than the biggest cat-owl you ever saw—never go far south of this, and i know that we don't see many of 'em except when we have a very 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 in the west, and puffs of damp, chilly air began to be felt by the skaters, who wrapped themselves a little closer in their overcoats as they measured their steady strokes. still no land came in sight, but they thought this must be owing mainly to the thick air to the southward. once they thought they saw it, but the dark line on the horizon proved to be a hummock, not so bad as the one lately passed, but still troublesome, and closely followed by a second. the lifting and tugging tired them all greatly, and after the second barrier had been climbed they found themselves on ice which was incrusted with frozen snow, and exceedingly unpleasant to skate upon. but a few rods farther on there appeared a narrow stream of open water, beyond which the 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 snow storm coming, over there? it'll be down upon us in a jiffy, and there's no telling what next. yes, let's cross before it gets dark, if we can. there's a hummock over there that will shelter us a bit from the wind, i think."
the anxious tone of his voice alarmed his companions, and all set at work with a will. yet the snow-flakes had come, and were thick about them, before the second ferriage had been made, and the wet and ice-clogged boat was lifted out of the water.
nobody said as much, but it is safe to believe that each of our four friends thought, to himself, that if every day's work in advance was to be like this one, they had undertaken a prodigiously difficult and dangerous experiment in this skating expedition; and perhaps each one wondered whether the winter would be long enough to carry them to their destination at this rate of progress, even should they be able to surmount the fast-recurring obstacles in safety.
