comrade, and Cabot fully shared his impatience of further
delay. But how they were to reach the coast of Newfoundland they could
not imagine. It would still be many weeks before vessels of any kind
could be expected at Battle Harbour, and they had no money with which
to undertake the expensive journey by way of Quebec.

"If only the ocean would freeze over, we could walk home!" exclaimed
Cabot one day, as the two friends sat gloomily discussing their
prospects. And then that very thing came to pass.

A dog sledge arrived from Forteau, that same evening, bringing a
wounded man to the hospital for treatment, and its driver reported the
Strait of Belle Isle as being so solidly packed with ice that several
persons had traversed it from shore to shore.

"If others have made the trip, why can't we?" cried Cabot.

"I am willing to try it, if you are," replied White, and by daylight of
the following morning the impatient lads were on their way up the coast
in search of the ice bridge to Newfoundland. Cabot had traded his
electric flashlight for a supply of provisions sufficient to load his
sled, which they took turns at hauling, and four days after leaving
Battle Harbour they reached L'Anse au Loup. At that point the strait
is only a dozen miles wide, and there, if anywhere, they could cross
it. It was midday when they came to the winter huts of L'Anse au Loup,
and they had intended remaining in one of them over night, but a short
conversation with its owner caused them to change their plans.

"Yas, there be solid pack clear to ither side all right," he said, "but
happen it 'll go out any time. Fust change o' wind 'll loose it, and
one's to be looked for. Ah wouldn't resk it on no account mahself, but
if Ah had it to do, Ah'd go in a hurry 'ithout wasting no time."

"It is a case of necessity with us," said Cabot.

"Yes," agreed White, "we simply must go, and the quicker we set about
it the better. If we make haste I believe we can get across by dark."

Thus determined, and disregarding a further expostulation from the
fisherman, our lads set their faces resolutely towards the confusion of
hummocks, "pans," floes tilted on edge, and up-reared masses of blue
ice forming the "strait's pack" of that season. Five minutes later
they were lost to sight amid the frozen chaos.

"Wal," soliloquized the man left standing on shore, "Ah 'opes they'll
make it, but it's a fearsome resk, an' Gawd 'elp 'em if come a shift o'