"I'm shivering cold from my wetting."
"It's lucky I hung to the ax," said Bobby, as he watched Jimmy
fashioning the paddles.
"There," said Jimmy at length, "they're pretty short paddles, but we'll
have to make 'em do. Let's get off of this."
But the tide was running out, and a very strong tide it proved, and the
breeze from the land was stiff enough, too, had there been no opposing
tide, to have made pulling against it with a good pair of oars no easy
task. All this they did not realize until they had paddled beyond the
shelter of the iceberg, for they had drawn the boat up upon its lee
side.
They put all the energy they could muster into their effort, but the
paddles were very short and very narrow, and work as they would they
presently discovered that tide and wind were mastering them, and instead
of progressing toward Itigailit Island they were drifting seaward.
"We can't make it!" said Jimmy at last.
"No," agreed Bobby. "We'll have to go back to the berg and wait for them
to come for us."
But even that they could not accomplish. Work as they would, the
paddles proved hopelessly inefficient, and after an hour's desperate
effort they realized that they were nearly as far to seaward from the
iceberg as the iceberg was from Itigailit Island.
"Well," said Bobby, at length, "we're in for it, and a fine fix it is."
"What are we going to do?" asked Jimmy. "We've _got_ to do something."
"I wish that I had some of that bear meat.
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