At first everything went well. There were channels of water between the floes, wide enough for the boats to pass through. But soon the ice began to pack, and the boats had to be pulled up upon the floes and dragged across to open water. It was hard to keep the light craft from being crushed between the ice masses. Then the current became so strong that the men were obliged to draw the boats up on a floe, in order to escape from it. The ice which had collected around them threw the smaller floes upon the larger ones, making the ice uneven and difficult to traverse. After working all night, the men crawled into their sleeping bags, and were soon asleep. For several days little progress was made toward land. Then a heavy swell arose and the breakers dashing over the floe where the tent had been pitched threatened to wash it away. [Illustration: NANSEN’S CAMP ON THE DRIFT ICE.] Suddenly the floe split through the middle, and the travelers were obliged to remove to a larger one and camp again. The tent stood now on a piece of drifting ice, about ten miles from land, with every prospect of being carried out to sea, where small boats could not live in the heavy waves. The outlook was certainly gloomy. One morning Nansen missed Balto and Ravna. In searching for them he lifted the canvas covering of one of the boats, and saw the two Lapps lying in the bottom of the boat, side by side. Balto was reading to Ravna from his Lappish New Testament, for both had made up their minds that they must drown, and were preparing for death. That day the ice tilted and rolled like a raft on the angry waves, so that it was almost impossible to cook the soup for their dinner. The poor frightened Lapps did not speak a word, but the rest of the men knew no fear, and laughed and joked as usual. When night came, all the men, except Balto and Sverdrup, went to bed in the tent; Balto preferred to sleep in a boat, and Sverdrup was to keep watch. Slowly and calmly, brave Otto Sverdrup paced up and down the ice. The floe rocked like a ship at sea, and the heavy waves dashed over it, threatening to wash away the entire camp. Several times Sverdrup was obliged to hold the boat in which Balto was sleeping, to keep it from being swept off the ice. Once it seemed that the tent must be washed off also, and Sverdrup stepped up to it and unfastened one of the hooks. He meant to call the men, so that they might get into the boats, and, if possible, escape with their lives. But Sverdrup paused a moment. The sea seemed to grow quieter, and a current arose which quieted the breakers and changed the course of the drifting ice, which, instead of sailing out to sea, now floated in the opposite direction.