“Arrah! what’s to be done now?” inquired O’Riley.

“Indeed I don’t know,” replied Fred, looking toward Meetuck for advice.

“Hup, cut-up ice, mush, hurroo!” said that fat individual.  Fortunately he followed his advice with a practical illustration of its meaning.  Seizing an axe, he ran to the nearest hummock, and chopping it down, rolled the heaviest pieces he could move into the chasm.  The others followed his example, and in the course of an hour the place was bridged across, and the sledge passed over.  But the dogs required a good deal of coaxing to get them to trust to this rude bridge, which their sagacity taught them was not to be depended on like the works of nature.

A quarter of an hour’s drive brought them to a place where there was another crack of little more than two feet across.  Meetuck stretched his neck and took a steady look at this as they approached it at full gallop.  Being apparently satisfied with his scrutiny, he resumed his look of self-satisfied placidity.

“Look out, Meetuck—­pull up!” cried Fred in some alarm; but the Esquimau paid no attention.

“O morther! we’re gone now for iver,” exclaimed O’Riley, shutting his eyes and clenching his teeth as he laid fast hold of the sides of the sledge.

The feet of the dogs went faster and faster until they pattered on the hard surface of the snow like rain.  Round came the long whip, as O’Riley said, “like the shot of a young cannon,” and the next moment they were across, skimming over the ice on the other side like the wind.

It happened that there had been a break in the ice at this point on the previous night, and the floes had been cemented by a sheet of ice only an inch thick.  Upon this, to the consternation even of Meetuck himself, they now passed, and in a moment, ere they were aware, they were passing over a smooth, black surface that undulated beneath them like the waves of the sea, and crackled fearfully.  There was nothing for it but to go on.  A moment’s halt would have allowed the sledge to break through, and leave them struggling in the water.  There was no time for remark.  Each man held his breath.  Meetuck sent the heavy lash with a tremendous crack over the backs of the whole team; but just as they neared the solid floe the left runner broke through.  In a moment the men flung themselves horizontally upon their breasts, and scrambled over the smooth surface until they gained the white ice, while the sledge and the dogs nearest to it were sinking.  One vigorous pull, however, by dogs and men together, dragged the sledge upon the solid floe, even before the things in it had got wet.

“Safe!” cried Fred, as he hauled on the sledge rope to drag it farther out of danger.

“So we are,” replied O’Riley, breathing very hard; “and it’s meself thought to have had a wet skin at this minute.—­Come, West, lind a hand to fix the dogs, will ye?”

A few minutes sufficed to put all to rights and enable them to start afresh.  Being now in the neighbourhood of dangerous ice, they advanced with a little more caution; the possibility of seals being in the neighbourhood also rendered them more circumspect.  It was well that they were on the alert, for a band of seals were soon after descried in a pool of open water not far ahead, and one of them was lying on the ice.