The drift had covered his den to a great depth while he slept, and the wind had packed the snow so hard that the air could no longer circulate through it.

It was necessary that an opening be made quickly or he would smother, and this he set about to do with all his might.  He removed some of the sticks with which he had closed the doorway, and using one of them as a tool dug away the snow, until light at last began to filter through, and he knew it was day, and presently he broke the outer crust of the drift.  A flood of pure but bitterly cold air poured in upon him, and he breathed deeply and felt refreshed.

He had dug his opening straight out from the place which he had arranged for a door, and he now made it large enough to permit the passage of his body as he crawled upon hands and knees.

The storm had in no degree abated.  The velocity of the wind was so terrific that had Bobby not stood in the shelter of the drift-covered bowlder he could not have kept upon his feet.  The air was so filled with driving snow as to be suffocating.  A tremendous sea was running and great waves were pounding and breaking upon the rocks with terrific roar, though no glimpse of them could he get through the snow clouds that enveloped him.

There was nothing to be done but to return to his burrow and make himself as comfortable as circumstances would permit.  His first care was to clear away the snow which he had thrown back under the boat as he dug his way out, and which partially filled his cave.  And when this was done he selected a sharp stick and with it made three or four air holes in the roof of the drift above his door, to furnish ventilation, for it was not long before the entrance of the passageway was again closed.

Bobby was very hungry, as every healthy boy the world over is sure to be when he rises in the morning, and when he had completed the ventilation of his cave to his satisfaction he proceeded to make a small fire over which to grill one of his birds, never doubting the smoke would pass out of the ventilating holes that he had made through the top of the drift.  But to his chagrin the smoke did not rise and was presently so thick as to blind and choke him, and he found it necessary to put the fire out.  And so it came about that in the end he had to content himself with eating his sea pigeon uncooked, which after all was no great hardship.

All that day and all the next day the storm continued and Bobby was held prisoner in his cave, and he was thankful enough that he had the cave to shelter him.

When he awoke, however, on the morning of the third day of his captivity, and forced his way out of doors, he was met by sunshine and his heart bounded with joy.  It was only behind bowlders and the clumps of bushes scattered here and there, and in sheltered corners where drifts had formed, that snow remained upon the island.  Elsewhere the wind had swept the rocks clean.