And then he prayed the good Lord to preserve Bobby's life and his own, and to guide them back to safety, as only He could, for they were in His care.
Even under the snowdrift that had quickly covered him Jimmy could hear the shrieking wind and thunderous pounding of ice and seas, and there was little wonder that at last he fancied the floe rising and falling beneath him, and he lay in momentary expectation of being cast into the water and crushed beneath mighty ice pans.
But Jimmy was young, and nature's demands were strong upon him, and presently, snug under his accumulating blanket of snow, a drowsy warmth stole over him, and he slept.
How long he had been sleeping Jimmy did not know, when he awoke from a dream that he and Skipper Ed and Bobby were in a snow _Igloo_ and the top had fallen in and was suffocating him with its weight.

For a moment, until he marshaled his wandering wits, he believed it no dream at all, but a reality, and then as the happenings of the previous afternoon and night were remembered, he realized his position, and Bobby's going, and he began wildly digging away the snow with his hands.
It was a hard task, but at last he made an opening through the drift, and was astonished as he forced his way out to find that it was broad day and the sun shone brightly and a dead calm prevailed.
But a wild terror came upon him as he looked about.

Less than fifty feet from the place where he had lain waves were breaking over the edge of the ice.

On the opposite side and very close to him lay the land, and the ice upon which he stood was jammed against the land ice, offering him a clear road to safety.
But safety now meant nothing to Jimmy.

The main ice pack from which his little section had broken, lay glimmering in the sunlight a full two miles to the southeast and well out to sea, and Bobby was either on that pack or had been lost in the sea.