Just as he had got in the last anchor, Wolfe, casting a glance in the direction of the schooner, observed the flag, though there was not now wind enough to flutter it, and exclaimed, “There it is, Breeze! the skipper’s giving us the recall, and he is not the man to do it until the last moment. You may count on the ice being close to her now, as well as on the fact that we’ve got a stiff pull ahead of us to get back in time.” And it was a stiff pull. The strong young backs straightened out splendidly with every stroke, the tough oars bent and rattled sharply against their confining thole-pins, and the white water sped away from the prow of the old dory, as though she were a racing boat. But they had been too heavily handicapped; the ice had been allowed too great a start, and they were still several hundred feet from the schooner when a shout from her deck caused them to look around. What they saw made them heart-sick, and for a moment their case seemed hopeless. They were already cut off from the vessel by several great cakes of ice that were grinding and crashing together angrily. Others were rapidly drifting into, and narrowing, the open space that still remained, and they could not see any chance of ever being able to pass this moving, treacherous barrier. All at once the loud cries and eager gestures of those on board the schooner directed their attention to a buoy lying on one of the cakes nearest to them. To their great joy they saw that to it was attached a line that was being paid out over the stern of the vessel. Somebody had been thoughtful enough to make this use of the cake as it drifted by. Altering their direction slightly, the boys had, in a minute more, snatched the buoy from its ice raft, and Wolfe was making the line it had brought them fast to the rope becket in the bow of the dory. At the same moment a shout was heard from another direction. Looking up they saw another dory still farther off than they were, and evidently about to be cut off, not only from the schooner but from them, by the cruel ice. [Illustration: IN A MINUTE MORE THEY HAD SNATCHED THE BUOY FROM THE ICE-RAFT.] As quick as thought, Breeze tossed one of their trawl buoys, with its line still attached, to the cake of ice that had brought help to them from the schooner, and which was still within reach. It fell so close to the edge that he had to pay out the line most carefully to prevent its being dragged off. In a few minutes he had the satisfaction of seeing the dory pulled alongside of the floating cake, and one of her crew step carefully out upon it, and walk towards the buoy. His weight bore the ice down so that water began to flow over its edge; and just as he stooped to pick up the buoy, it floated and eluded his grasp. He made a clutch and succeeded in seizing it; but at the same instant his feet slipped from under him, and he plunged headlong into the cold waters.