Instantly this was done I reproached myself for having been so hasty, fearing lest he, like the log, might fall, failing to find support on the sides of the hut, and thus an alarm be given. Alec Perry was not a lad to be guilty of a blunder, even though his comrade did his best toward forcing him into one; and in some way, I know not how, he contrived to drop from the top of the timbers as lightly as a cat. Listening intently, I began to clamber up the wall, gripping my fingers into the crevices between the logs until the blood came from under my nails, and when I was nearly at the top, the thought flashed upon me that we had left our skates behind. They lay in one corner of the pen, and so great was our excitement, when the way of escape had been opened, that neither of us so much as thought of them. Without skates we might as well remain where we were, for it would not be possible to walk across the lake in eight-and-forty hours. I lowered myself down, losing the advantage I had gained at the expense of so much suffering, and thrust a pair of skates into each coat-pocket, after which the painful task of scrambling up the side of the pen was begun again. It seemed to me of a verity that a full hour had been spent before I looked down from the top of the wall to see Alec making an effort to clamber back. The time had dragged heavily with him also, and fearing lest some mishap had befallen me, he was returning, forgetful of the promises made to push forward at all hazards. I heard plainly the sigh of relief which escaped his lips when he saw me, and in another instant I was lowering myself down on the outside. Free, so far as concerned the walls of the pen! Now the storm was little less than a blessing to us, for the wind, howling and shrieking as it dashed the frosty particles against the walls of the huts, must have drowned any sound which we made while floundering through the snow. A start of five minutes was all I had asked for, and this we surely would gain, unless it so chanced that a sentinel was stationed on the shore, in which case we stood every chance of being recaptured. “It is necessary to go forward slowly, and by a devious way,” Alec whispered. “It seems most likely some of the men are on guard, and it would be a sad blow to our hopes if we ran across them now.” “We must take the chances,” I said, bolder grown since we were free from the pen. “To leave this path would be to flounder about in the snow or the bushes, where we must necessarily make so much noise that any sentinel, however dull, could not fail to hear us. There is no other course than to push ahead and trust to chances, Alec, lad. Besides, the danger in advance is less than that behind, and if we come upon a soldier near-by the edge of the ice, surely the two of us ought to be more than a match for him, half stupefied by the cold as any man must be who has remained long outside on this night.”