Page:Across the sub-Arctics of Canada (1897).djvu/261

 it to drift down past the lower end would mean that we would be carried with the current out to sea and be irrevocably lost.

After carefully considering the situation, we concluded to portage across the island of ice and launch on the other side. Accordingly the boat was unloaded and piece by piece everything was carried safely across, but when we attempted to portage the boat it and we continually broke through the surface. We were therefore obliged to cut a channel right through the island, the full width of the boat. After much labor this was accomplished, the boat hauled through, reloaded, and again pushed out into the flowing pack, which carried us, in spite of all our endeavors, far down toward the mouth of the river.

At length we had succeeded in getting within thirty feet of the solid south-shore ice, but even then, when the shore seemed almost within reach, we were nipped in the floe and again carried helplessly downward, until it seemed as if, after all, we were going to be carried out to sea.

We used every effort to free the boat, but all of no avail. At last, however, civil war among the floes caused a split and brought deliverance. A few rapid strokes and our old craft bumped against the solid ice.

The bowman, François, quick as a flash, sprang out with the end of the tow-line, while the rushing ice again caught the boat and bore it downward. François held on to the tow-line with all his might, but the tug-of-war was going against him; he yielded, fell, and for a short distance was dragged over the broken hummocks of ice, but bracing his feet against one of these, he