ugh to the shore, now jumping
out on to larger pans and forcing them apart with the oars, now
hauling the boat out and dragging her over, when the jam of ice packed
tightly in by the rising wind was impossible to get through otherwise.

My first question, when at last we found our tongues, was, "How ever
did you happen to be out in the boat in this ice?" To my astonishment
they told me that the previous night four men had been away on a long
headland cutting out some dead harp seals that they had killed in the
fall and left to freeze up in a rough wooden store they had built
there, and that as they were leaving for home, my pan of ice had
drifted out clear of Hare Island, and one of them, with his keen
fisherman's eyes, had seen something unusual. They at once returned to
their village, saying there was something alive drifting out to sea on
the floe ice. But their report had been discredited, for the people
thought that it could be only the top of some tree.

All the time I had been driving along I knew that there was one man on
that coast who had a good spy-glass. He tells me he instantly got up
in the midst of his supper, on hearing the news, and hurried over the
cliffs to the lookout, carrying his trusty spy-glass with him.
Immediately, dark as it was, he saw that without any doubt there was a
man out on the ice. Indeed, he saw me wave my hands every now and
again towards the shore. By a very easy process of reasoning on so
uninhabited a shore, he at once knew who it was, though some of the
men argued that it must be some one else. Little had I thought, as
night was closing in, that away on that snowy hilltop lay a man with a
telescope patiently searching those miles of ice for _me_. Hastily
they rushed back to the village and at once went down to try to launch
a boat, but that proved to be impossible. Miles of ice lay between
them and me, the heavy sea was hurling great blocks on the landwash,
and night was already falling, the wind blowing hard on shore.

The whole village was aroused, and messengers were despatched at once
along the coast, and lookouts told off to all the favorable points,
so that while I considered myself a laughing-stock, bowing with my
flag to those unresponsive cliffs, there were really many eyes
watching me. One man told me that with his glass he distinctly saw me
waving the shirt flag. There was little slumber that night in the
villages, and even the men told me there were few dry eyes, a