Far out beyond the pressure ridges Bobby could see a
dark line which marked the edge of the sea ice and the place where open
water began. That was the _sena_ for which they were bound.
"Don't you think we'd better build our _igloo_ here?" Bobby suggested as
the others came up. "It's getting late and we can't do any hunting
tonight, anyway, and perhaps there won't be any good drifts out there."
"Yes, by all means," agreed Skipper Ed. "We'll have plenty of time in
the morning to go out, and if the hunting proves good, and we prefer to
stay there, we can build an _igloo_ at our leisure. If we get plenty of
seals we will want to haul them in here to land to cache them, and then
if the ice breaks up before we get them all hauled home, we can take
them in the boat. And while we are hauling them in here from the _sena_
we'll have a snug _igloo_ at each end of the trail, where we can make
hot tea, if we wish, and drink it in comfort."
They found an excellent drift in a spot well sheltered from the wind,
and because he was taller and stronger than Bobby and a better builder
than Jimmy, Skipper Ed, with a snow knife which looked very much like a
sword but had a wider blade, which was straight instead of curved,
marked a circle about ten feet in diameter upon the drift.
Then he cut a wedge out of the snow in the center, and with this as a
beginning he carved from each side of the hole blocks of the hard-packed
snow, each block about two feet long and a foot and a half wide and ten
inches thick.
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