On a smooth side of these they wrote: "Help! We are stranded on the coast." "I wish we could write it in Eskimo and Indian," said Cabot, "for English doesn't seem to be the popular language of this country." "The flags and arrows will be a plain enough language for any natives who may run across them," responded White, "and I only hope they'll see them; but it is a slim chance, and we'll probably be frozen stiff long before any one finds us." "Oh, I don't know," said Cabot, cheerfully.

"There's firewood enough in the schooner itself to last quite a while." "Burn the 'Sea Bee'!" cried White, aghast at the suggestion.

"I couldn't do it." "Neither could I at present; but I expect both of us could and would, long before our blood reached the freezing point." "But if we destroyed the schooner, how would we get out of here next summer ?" "I'm sure I don't know, and don't care to try and think yet a while.
Just now I am much more interested in the nearby winter than in a very distant summer." The next day, and for a number of days thereafter, our lads worked at the establishment of their signal line.

They erected stone cairns at such distances apart that every one was visible from those on either side, and on the summit of each they planted a flag with its accompanying pointer.

In this way they ran an unbroken range of signals for ten miles, and would have carried it further had they dared expend any more of their precious firewood.
While they were engaged upon this task the weather became noticeably colder, the mercury falling below the freezing point each night, and the whole country was wrapped in the first folds of the snow blanket under which it would sleep for months.