"I the same as killed him! I led him into it! Oh, if I hadn't gone back for the whip! Oh, if I'd only hurried when Skipper Ed told me to!" But Bobby was young and healthy and active, and had an appetite, and the air was excessively cold.

The appetite began to call for food and drink, and the cold drove him to exercise.

And so, rising at last and drying his eyes, he very wisely resolved: "There's no good to come from crying or mourning about Jimmy, I suppose, or what's past.

I've got to do something for myself now.

There's a chance the ice may drive back with a shift of wind, and I've got to try to keep alive as long as I can." He had nothing to eat, no cup into which to melt ice for water, and no lamp or seal oil with which to make a fire over which to melt the ice had he possessed a cup, but he set out at a rapid pace to explore the ice field, clinging as he walked to his snow knife, the only weapon he possessed, for his rifle had been left upon the _komatik_, and in a little while he discovered that the pack was not so large as he had supposed it to be, for the heavy seas of the night before had eaten away its edges.