Then he lighted his pipe and sat silent, for a long while, forgetting to smoke.
With every hour the wind increased in force, and before midnight one of those awful blizzards, so characteristic of Labrador at this season, was at its height.

Once Skipper Ed removed the snow block at the entrance of the _igloo_, and partly crawled out with a view to looking about, but he was nearly smothered by drift, and quickly drew back again into the _igloo_ and replaced the snow block.
"The poor lads!" said he.

"God help and pity them, and" he added reverently, "if it be Thy will, O God, preserve their lives." Skipper Ed finally slipped into his sleeping bag and fell into a troubled sleep, to awake, as morning approached, with a great weight upon his heart, and with his waking moment came the realization of its cause.

He arose upon his elbow and listened.

The tempest had passed.
He sprang up, and drawing on his _netsek_ and moccasins, for these were the only garments he had removed upon lying down, he went out and looked about him.