"At last we got through the mush. All the way through it, with the load
o' floatin' ice 'n' muck, the sea wa'n't tossin' much. But jest the very
minute we got clear of it an' started out, the sea hit us fair. I was
pullin' stroke an' it didn't git me so hard, but the cox'n, who was
facin' bow, got it full. The wind was dead ahead an' the sea was
a-tumblin' in as if there wa'n't no land between us an' the North Pole.

"The blades o' the oars got covered with ice, makin' 'em round, like
poles, instead of oars, an' we couldn't get no purchase. I hit up the
stroke a bit, exhaustin' though it was, 'n' maybe we made about twenty
feet further. She was self-bailin' or we'd ha' been swamped right away.
Every sea that come aboard left a layer of ice, makin' her heavier to
handle. Then, suddenly, along comes a sea, bigger'n any before, an' it
takes that lifeboat 'n' chucks us back on the mush-ice, bang! The shock
smashes the rudder 'n' puts us out o' business. I forces the boat ashore
for repairs.

"'Too bad,' says the railroad superintendent, to me; 'for a minute,
there, I thought you were going to make it.'

"'We jest are goin' to make it,' says I, 'if we have to swim!'

"Then one o' those fisher chaps had a good idee. While we was a-fixin'
up the rudder an' gittin' ready for another trip, the rest o' the crowd
chops the ice off'n the boat, 'n' off'n the oars. Then this fisher chap
I was a tellin' about, he comes back with a can of tallow an' smears
that thick all over the boat an' the oars an' our slickers an' near
everything that he c'd find to put a bit o' tallow on."

"What was that for?" queried Eric.

"So as the water'd run off, o' course," the old man answered. "It
worked, too. In about twenty minutes we was off again, in the mush-ice,
jest as afore. We hadn't had no chance to get warm, an' our clothes was
wet an' friz. I thought sure some o' the men would be frost-bit. But I
guess we was all too tough.

"The second trip started jest the same. As soon as we got out o' the ice
a breaker come along 'n' hove that boat 'way up, 'n' then chucked it
back on the ice, smashin' the new rudder same's the old one.

"I wa'n't goin' to have no monkey-business with rudders any more, 'n' I
yelled to Brown, he was the cox'n,

"'Take 'n oar, Bill!'

"He grabs a spare oar 'n' does all he knows how to steer with that.
Again we druv our oars into it an' got out o' the ice, 'n' again it
threw us back. We did that five times 'n' th