254 ■ THE FUR COUNTRY. "I know vou will, dear comrades," said Hobson, "and if only- Heaven will help and not forsake us, we will lielp ourselves." The Lieutenant then related all that had happened since the time when the earthquake broke the isthmus, and converted the districts round Cape Bathurst into an island. He told how, when the sea became free from ice in the spring, the new island had been drifted more than two hundred miles away from the coast by an unknown current, how the hurricane had driven it back within sight of land, how it had again been carried away in the night of the 31st August, and, lastly, how Kulumah had bravely risked her life to come to the aid of her European friends. Then he enumerated the changes the island had undergone, explaining how the warmer waters had worn it away, and his fear that it might be carried to the Pacific, or seized by the Kamtchatka Current,' concluding his narrative by stating that the wandering island had finally stopped on the 27th of last September. The chart of the Arctic seas was then brought, and Hobson pointed out the position occupied by the island — six hundred miles from all land. He ended by saying that the situation was extremely dangerous, that the island would inevitably be crushed when the ice broke up, and that, before having recourse to the boat — which could not be used until the next summer — they must try to get back to the American continent by crossing the ice-field. " We shall have six hundred miles to go in the cold and darkness of the Polar night. It will be hard work, my friends, but you know as well as I do that there can be no shrinking from the task." " When you give the signal to start, Lieutenant, we will follow you," said Mac-Nab. AH being of one mind, the preparations for departure were from that date rapidly pushed forward. The men bravely faced the fact that they would have six hundred miles to travel under very trying circumstances. Sergeant Long superintended the works, whilst Hobson, the two hunters, and Mrs Barnett, often went to test the firm- ness of the ice-field. Kalumah frequently accompanied them, and her remarks, founded on experience, might possibly be of gi-eat use to the Lieutenant. Unless they were prevented they were to start on the 20th November, and there was not a moment to lose. As Hobson had foreseen, the wind having risen, the temperature fell slightly, and the column of mercury marked 24° Fahrenheit.
