e it proved, and the
breeze from the land was stiff enough, too, had there been no opposing
tide, to have made pulling against it with a good pair of oars no easy
task. All this they did not realize until they had paddled beyond the
shelter of the iceberg, for they had drawn the boat up upon its lee
side.

They put all the energy they could muster into their effort, but the
paddles were very short and very narrow, and work as they would they
presently discovered that tide and wind were mastering them, and instead
of progressing toward Itigailit Island they were drifting seaward.

"We can't make it!" said Jimmy at last.

"No," agreed Bobby. "We'll have to go back to the berg and wait for them
to come for us."

But even that they could not accomplish. Work as they would, the
paddles proved hopelessly inefficient, and after an hour's desperate
effort they realized that they were nearly as far to seaward from the
iceberg as the iceberg was from Itigailit Island.

"Well," said Bobby, at length, "we're in for it, and a fine fix it is."

"What are we going to do?" asked Jimmy. "We've _got_ to do something."

"I wish that I had some of that bear meat. I'm as hungry as the old bear
ever was," said Bobby, irrelevantly.

"Well, so am I, but we'll be hungrier than the bear ever was, I'm
thinking, if we don't do something to get to land," broke in Jimmy with
some irritation. "Why, Bobby, don't you realize what it means? We've got
no water and nothing to eat! We'll perish of thirst and hunger if we
don't get to land! Unless a sea rises and swamps us, and then we'll
drown!"

"It does look as though we were drifting to the place I came from, but
it won't do any good to worry," said Bobby. "Maybe when the tide turns
we can do something. The wind goes down with the sun every evening, and
then with the tide in our favor maybe we can make it."

"It'll be a good hour yet before the tide turns, and two or three hours
before sundown, and where'll we be then?" argued Jimmy, dejectedly. "I
wish I could be like you, Bobby, and not worry over things the way I
do."

"Well, just remember that we did the best we could to get out of the
mess after we got into it, and if we keep on doing our best that is all
we can do, and worrying won't help us any. I just feel like being
thankful that you weren't killed and we're both here safe and sound,
with an even chance that we'll get back home all right."

And so, paddling, drifting, sometimes s