“If you can’t row, take the rudder!  Damnation!  Take that rudder!  Quick, or we’ll kill you!” And he half rose up, never dropping his oar.

Blindly, Potts obeyed.

The Tulare was free now from the clinging mass at the bow, but they knew they had struck their first floe.

Farther on they could see other white-caps bringing other ice masses down.  But there was no time for terrors ahead.  The gale was steadily driving them in shore again.  Boat and oars alike were growing unwieldy with their coating of ever-increasing ice, and human strength was no match for the storm that was sweeping down from the Pole.

Lord, how it blew!

“There’s a cove!” called out the Kentuckian.  “Throw her in!” he shouted to Potts.  Sullenly the new steersman obeyed.

Rolling in on a great surge, the boat suddenly turned in a boiling eddy, and the first thing anybody knew was that the Tulare was on her side and her crew in the water.  Potts was hanging on to the gunwale and damning the others for not helping him to save the boat.

She wasn’t much of a boat when finally they got her into quiet water; but the main thing was they had escaped with their lives and rescued a good proportion of their winter provisions.  All the while they were doing this last, the Kentuckian kept turning to look anxiously for any sign of the others, in his heart bitterly blaming himself for having agreed to Potts’ coming into the Tulare that day in place of the Kentuckian’s own “pardner.”  When they had piled the rescued provisions up on the bank, and just as they were covering the heap of bacon, flour, and bean-bags, boxes, tools, and utensils with a tarpaulin, up went a shout, and the two missing men appeared tramping along the ice-encrusted shore.

Where was the Mary C.?  Well, she was at the bottom of the Yukon, and her crew would like some supper.

They set up a tent, and went to bed that first night extremely well pleased at being alive on any terms.

But people get over being glad about almost anything, unless misfortune again puts an edge on the circumstance.  The next day, not being in any immediate danger, the boon of mere life seemed less satisfying.

In detachments they went up the river several miles, and down about as far.  They looked in vain for any sign of the Mary C..  They prospected the hills.  From the heights behind the camp they got a pretty fair idea of the surrounding country.  It was not reassuring.

“As to products, there seems to be plenty of undersized timber, plenty of snow and plenty of river, and, as far as I can see, just nothing else.”

“Well, there’s oodles o’ blueberries,” said the Boy, his inky-looking mouth bearing witness to veracity; “and there are black and red currants in the snow, and rose-apples—­”

“Oh, yes,” returned the other, “it’s a sort of garden of Eden!”