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So Dot shoved the pole against a mass of ice and moved the raft over toward Don's floe. As soon as he could jump, he came on the raft and the two felt better for being together. "I'm hungry, aren't you?" said Don, taking the lunch from his pockets. "Yes; let's have lunch now, and play river-men after," returned Dot.
So silent was its sweep, one might imagine oneself to be upon land; yet, as she crept quickly out of her sleeping-bag, she saw at once that the motion of the floe was arrested and off to the right she read the reason. A narrow stretch of rocky shore there cast back the first rays of the morning sun. "Marian! Marian!" she called excitedly. "Land! Land! An island!"
I became more convinced that she carried Northmour and his friends, and that they would probably come ashore after dark; not only because that was of a piece with the secrecy of the preparations, but because the tide would not have flowed sufficiently before eleven to cover Graden Floe and the other sea quags that fortified the shore against invaders.
Wind at Cape Crozier seemed a possibility. Our people have been far out on the floe. It is cheerful to see the twinkling light of some worker at a water hole or hear the ring of distant voices or swish of ski. Tuesday, July 4. A day of blizzard and adventure.
The ice is 9 inches thick, not much for eight or nine days' freezing; but it is very solid the surface wet but very slippery. I suppose Meares waits for 12 inches in thickness, or fears the floe is too slippery for the ponies. Yet I wish he would come.
We only did three courses of blocks when tea-time arrived, and light was not good enough to proceed after tea. Sunday afternoon for the men means a 'stretch of the land. I went over the floe on ski. The best possible surface after the late winds as far as Inaccessible Island.
Were it not for these cumbrous boats we should get along at a great rate, but we dare not abandon them on any account. As it is we left one boat, the 'Stancomb Wills', behind at Ocean Camp, and the remaining two will barely accommodate the whole party when we leave the floe.
Then, heigho, and away for the open sea out on to which he marched with his head erect and his old heart dauntless, like the peaceful Minute-Men of 1776. Meanwhile an ever-increasing crowd of men, women, and even children were pouring from apparently nowhere out on to the floe.
Near the fires for the cooking, the melting of water and the forge, that were kept glowing all night, the tools were stacked, to help preserve their temper. The aurora quivered in varying incandescence as Rainey watched Lund prodding at the floe ice with a steel bar.
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