All hope of getting north that season now depended on the field-ice’s drifting away from the Great Bay before it got fairly frozen in.  So jammed and crammed with it did every part of the bay appear to be, however, that little could be expected from that source of relief.  This Daggett admitted in the conversation he held with Roswell, as soon as the latter joined him on the rocky terrace beneath the house.

“The wisest thing we can do, then,” replied our hero, “will be to make as early preparations as possible to meet the winter.  If we are to remain here, a day gained now will be worth a week a month hence.  If we should happily escape, the labour thus expended will not kill us.”

“Quite true—­very much as you say, certainly,” answered Daggett, musing.  “I was thinking as you came ashore, Gar’ner, if a lucky turn might not be made in this wise:—­have a good many skins in the wreck, you see, and you have a good deal of ile in your hold—­now, by starting some of that ile, and pumping it out, and shooking the casks, room might be made aboard of you for all my skins.  I think we could run all of the last over on them wheels in the course of a week.”

“Captain Daggett, it is by yielding so much to your skins that we have got into all this trouble.”

“Skins, measure for measure, in the way of tonnage, will bring a great deal more than ile.”

Roswell smiled, and muttered something to himself, a little bitterly.  He was thinking of the grievous disappointment and prolonged anxiety that it pained him to believe Mary would feel at his failure to return home at the appointed time; though it would probably have pained him more to believe she would not thus be disappointed and anxious.  Here his displeasure, or its manifestation, ceased; and the young man turned his thoughts on the present necessities of his situation.

Daggett appearing very earnest on the subject of removing his skins before the snows came to impede the path, Roswell could urge no objection that would be likely to prevail; but his acquiescence was obtained by means of a hint from Stimson, who by this time had gained his officer’s ear.

“Let him do it, Captain Gar’ner,” said the boat-steerer, in an aside, speaking respectfully, but earnestly.  “He’ll never stow ’em in our hold, this season at least; but they’ll make excellent filling-in for the sides of this hut.”

“You think then, Stephen, that we are likely to pass the winter here?”

“We are in the hands of Divine Providence, sir, which will do with us as seems the best in the eyes of never-failing wisdom.  At all events, Captain Gar’ner, I think ’twill be safest to act at once as if we had the winter afore us.  In my judgment, this house might be made a good deal more comfortable for us all, in such a case, than our craft; for we should not only have more room, but might have as many fires as we want, and more than we can find fuel for.”