"You better keep close to the _komatik_, Jimmy, so we won't lose it.

I won't go far, and if I find snow that will cut I'll holler, and if I lose the direction I'll holler, and then you answer." And taking his snow knife Bobby was swallowed up by the swirling snow, and Jimmy waited and waited, in dreadful loneliness and suspense, while the minutes stretched out, and at last dusk began to steal upon his stormswept world.
Many times Jimmy shouted, but no answering shout from Bobby came to him, and now he shouted and listened, and shouted and listened, but only the shrieking and moaning of the wind, and booming and thundering of breaking seas and pounding ice gave answer.
A sickening dread came into Jimmy's heart as vainly he peered through the gathering darkness into ever thickening snow clouds, and called and shouted until he was hoarse.
He could not see the dogs now--he could hardly see the length of the _komatik_.

The dogs lay quiet under their blanket of snow somewhere ahead in the gloom.

Jimmy, though he had wrapped a caribou skin around his shoulders, was becoming numb with cold.
Growing desperate at last, he set out to search for Bobby, but did not go far when he realized that it would be a hopeless search, and that it was after all his duty to remain with the sledge.

Then he turned back to find the sledge and stumbled and groped around in the snow for a long while before he fell upon it by sheer accident.
With darkness the velocity of the storm increased, constantly gathering force.