About midday
I 'll have a load Saturday . Good by . '' `` Good by , '' said Hughie and Ben , once more ; and then they bent to their task , churning into foam the rippleless surface , which bore them on its swift but unnoticeable tide towards home , leaving behind their comrade , his savage companion , and their boyish associates , to experience adventures without parallel in all the strange hunting-lore of those northern seas . About midday , Captain Lund drove down on the ice to draw up the boat owned by his sons ; after which he was to return a second time for the decoys and shooting-box of the homeward-bound sportsmen . The floe was fast wasting under the April sun , and his horses ' iron-shod hoofs sank deep into the snow-ice , which the night-frosts had left at morn as hard as flint . He drove with his habitual caution , sounding more than one suspicious place with the axe , and at last came to a long tide-crack , through which the open water showed clear , and which seemed to divide the floe as far as the eye could reach . `` I come none too soon , '' said the deliberate pilot ; `` and I must warn La Salle not to trust his boat here another night . ''