“The poor lads!” said he.  “God help and pity them, and” he added reverently, “if it be Thy will, O God, preserve their lives.”

Skipper Ed finally slipped into his sleeping bag and fell into a troubled sleep, to awake, as morning approached, with a great weight upon his heart, and with his waking moment came the realization of its cause.  He arose upon his elbow and listened.  The tempest had passed.

He sprang up, and drawing on his netsek and moccasins, for these were the only garments he had removed upon lying down, he went out and looked about him.  The stars were shining brilliantly, and an occasional gust of wind was the only reminder of the storm.  Mounds of snow marked the place where the dogs were sleeping, covered by the drift.  The morning was bitterly cold.

He ran down to the ice edge, and gazed eagerly seaward, but nowhere could he see the ice pack.  It had vanished utterly.

A sense of awful loneliness fell upon Skipper Ed. Reluctantly he returned to the igloo and prepared his breakfast, which he ate sparingly.  Then until day broke he sat pondering the situation.  There was nothing he could do, and he decided at length to return at once to Abel Zachariah’s, and report the calamity.

When he emerged again from the igloo the last breath of the storm had ceased to blow and a dead calm prevailed.  He loaded the komatik, and calling the dogs from beneath their coverlets of snow, harnessed them, and without delay set out for the head of Abel’s Bay.

It was long after dark when the dogs, straining at their traces and yelping, rushed in through the ice hummocks below Abel’s cabin.  The cabin was dark, but a light flashed in the window as the sledge ascended the incline.  Abel and Mrs. Abel had heard the approach, and when the sledge came to a stop before the door they were there to give welcome and greetings.

“Where is Bobby?  And where is Jimmy?” asked Abel.  “Are they coming?”

“They will never come,” answered Skipper Ed.

Abel and Mrs. Abel understood, for tragedies, in that stern land, are common, and always the people seem steeled to meet them.  And so in silence they led the way into the cabin, and in silence they sat, uttering no word, while Skipper Ed related what had happened.  And though still there was no crying and no wailing from the stricken couple, Skipper Ed knew that they felt no less keenly their loss, and he knew that they had lost what was dearer to them than their own life.

“And now,” said Skipper Ed, when he was through, “I will unharness the dogs and take care of the things on the komatik.”

“Yes,” said Abel, “we will look after the dogs.  You will stop with us tonight, for your igloosuak (cabin) is cold.”