Chapter XVII

_In Which Rubber Ice is Encountered and Billy Topsail is Asked a
Pointed Question_

Dolly West's mother, with Dolly in her arms, resting against her soft, ample bosom, sat by the kitchen fire. It was long after dark. The wind was up--the cottage shook in the squalls. She had long ago washed Dolly's eyes and temporarily staunched the terrifying flow of blood; and now she waited--and had been waiting, with Dolly in her arms, a long, long time; rocking gently and sometimes crooning a plaintive song of the coast to the restless child.

Uncle Joe West came in.

"Hush!"

"Is she sleepin' still?"

"Off an' on. She've a deal o' pain. She cries out, poor lamb!"

Dolly stirred and whimpered.

"Any sign of un, Joe?"

"'Tis not time."

"He might----"

"'Twill be hours afore he comes. I'm jus' wonderin'----"

"Hush!"

Dolly moaned.

"Ay, Joe?"

"Tommy's but a wee feller. I'm wonderin' if he----"

The woman was confident. "He'll make it," she whispered.

"Ay; but if he's delayed----"

"He was there afore dusk. An' Doctor Luke got underway across the Bight----"

"He'll not come by the Bight!"

"He'll come by the Bight. I knows that man. He'll come by the Bight--an' he'll----"

"Pray not!"

"I pray so."

"If he comes by the Bight, he'll never get here at all. The Bight's breakin' up. There's rotten ice beyond the Spotted Horses. An' Tickle-my-Ribs is----"

"He'll come. He'll be here afore----"

"There's a gale o' snow comin' down. 'Twill cloud the moon. A man would lose hisself----"

"He'll come."

Uncle Joe West went out again. This was to plod once more down the narrows to the base of Blow-me-Down Dick and search the vague light of the coast towards Thank-the-Lord and Mad Harry for the first sight of Doctor Luke. It was not time. He knew that. There would be hours of waiting. It would be dawn before a man could come by Thank-the-Lord and Mad Harry if he left Our Harbour even so early as dusk. And as for crossing the Bight--no man could cross the Bight. It was blowing up, too--clouds rising and a threat of snow abroad. Uncle Joe West glanced apprehensively towards the northeast. It would snow before dawn. The moon was doomed. A dark night would fall.

And the Bight--Doctor Luke would never attempt to cross the Bight----

* * * * *

Doctor Luke, hanging between the hummock and the pan, the gaff shivering under his weight, slowly subsided towards the hummock. It was a slow, cautious approach. He had no faith in his foothold. A toe slipped. He paused. It was a grim business. The other foot held. The leg, too, was equal to the strain. He wriggled his toe back to its grip of the edge of the ice. It was an improved foothold. He turned then and began to lift and thrust himself backward. And a last thrust on the gaff set him on his haunches on the Arctic hummock.

He turned to Billy Topsail.

"Thank God!" said he. And then: "Come on, Billy!"

There was a better light now. Billy Topsail chose a narrower space to leap. And he leaped it safely. And they went on; and on--and on! There was a deal of slippery crawling to do--of slow, ticklish climbing. Doctor Luke and Billy Topsail rounded bergs, scaled perilous inclines, leaped crevices. Sometimes they were bewildered for a space. When the moon broke they could glimpse the Spotted Horses from the highest elevations of the floe. In the depressions of the floe they could not descry the way at all.

It was as cold as death now. Was it ten below? The gale bit like twenty below.

"_'Tis_ twenty below!" Billy Topsail insisted.

Doctor Luke ignored this.

"We're near past the rough ice," said he, gravely.

"Rubber ice ahead," said Billy.

Neither laughed.

"Ay," the Doctor observed; and that was all.

When the big northeast wind drove the ice back into Anxious Bight and heaped it inshore, the pressure had decreased as the mass of the floe diminished in the direction of the sea. The outermost areas had not felt the impact. They had not folded--had not "raftered." There had been no convulsion offshore as inshore when the rocks of Afternoon Coast interrupted the rush. The pans had come to a standstill and snuggled close.

When the wind failed they had subsided towards the open. As they say on the coast, the ice had "gone abroad." It was distributed. And after that the sea had fallen flat; and a vicious frost had caught the floe--wide-spread now--and frozen it fast. It was six miles from the edge of the raftered ice to the first island of the Spotted Horses. The flat pans were solid enough--safe and easy going; but this new, connecting ice--the lanes and reaches of it----

Doctor Luke's succinct characterization of the condition of Anxious Bight was also keen.

These six miles were perilous.

"Soft as cheese!"

All that day the sun had fallen hot on the young ice in which the scattered pans of the floe were frozen. Doctor Luke recalled that in the afternoon he had splashed through an occasional pool of shallow water on the floe between Tumble Tickle and the short-cut trail to Our Harbour. Certainly some of the wider patches of green ice had been weakened to the breaking point. Here and there they must have been eaten clear through. It occurred to Doctor Luke--contemplating an advance with distaste--that these holes were like open sores.

And by and by the first brief barrier of new ice confronted Doctor Luke and Billy Topsail. They must cross it. A black film--the colour of water in that light--bridged the way from one pan to another. Neither Doctor Luke nor Billy Topsail would touch it. They leaped it easily. A few fathoms forward a second space halted them. Must they put foot on it? With a running start a man could--well, they chose not to touch the second space, but to leap it.

Soon a third interval interrupted them. No man could leap it. Doctor Luke cast about for another way. There was none. He must run across. A flush of displeasure ran over him. He scowled. Disinclination increased.

"Green ice!" said he.

"Let me try it, sir!"

"No."

"Ay, sir! I'm lighter."

"No."

Billy Topsail crossed then like a cat before he could be stopped--on tiptoe and swiftly; and he came to the other side with his heart in a flutter.

"Whew!"

The ice had yielded without breaking. It had creaked, perhaps--nothing worse. Doctor Luke crossed the space without accident. It was what is called "rubber ice." There was more of it--there were miles of it. As yet the pans were close together. Always however the intervals increased. The nearer the open sea the more wide-spread was the floe. Beyond--hauling down the Spotted Horses, which lay in the open--the proportion of new ice would be vastly greater.

At a trot, for the time, over the pans, which were flat, and in delicate, mincing little spurts across the bending ice, Doctor Luke and Billy Topsail proceeded. In a confidence that was somewhat flushed--they had rested--Doctor Luke went forward. And presently, midway of a lane of green ice, he heard a gurgle, as the ice bent under his weight. Water washed his boots. He had been on the lookout for holes. This hole he heard--the spurt and gurgle of it. He had not seen it.

"Back!" he shouted, in warning.

Billy ran back.

"All right, sir?"

Safe across, Doctor Luke grinned. It was a reaction of relief.

"Whew! _Whew!_" he whistled. "Try below."

Billy crossed below.

"Don't you think, sir," said he, doubtfully, "that we'd best go back?"

"Do you think so?"

Billy reflected.

"No, sir," said he, flushing.

"Neither do I. Come on."