Profiting by past experience, they had procured and brought with them an Eskimo lamp with its moss wick, a small quantity of seal oil, and a supply of matches, so that, after a while, Cabot procured enough boiling water to furnish a small pot of tea.
When they had eaten their simple meal of tea, hard bread, and pemmican, White's ankle was bathed with water as hot as he could bear it, and then the weary lads turned in for such sleep as their cheerless quarters might yield.

About midnight the wind that had for many days blown steadily from the eastward changed to northwest, and, with the coming of daylight, it was blowing half a gale from that direction.
To Cabot this change meant little or nothing, and he was suggesting that they remain where they were until White's leg should be thoroughly rested, when the other interrupted him with: "But we can't stay here.

Don't you feel the change of wind ?" "What of it ?" asked Cabot.
"Oh, nothing at all, only that it will drive the ice out to sea, and, if we haven't reached land before it begins to move, we'll go with it." "You don't mean it!" cried Cabot, now thoroughly alarmed.

"In that case we'd best get a move on in a hurry.

Do you think your leg will stand the trip ?" "It will have to," rejoined White, grimly; and a few minutes later they had resumed the toilsome progress that was now a race for life.