Now to again behold Cabot alive and well filled poor White with such
joyful amazement that for some minutes he could not frame an
intelligent sentence. He flew down to where the new arrival still
struggled with his hauling gear, and flung himself so impulsively upon
him that both rolled over in the snow. There, with gasping
exclamations of delight, they wrestled themselves into a mood of
comparative calmness that enabled them to regain their feet and begin
to ask questions.
For some time White had been sufficiently recovered to resume his
journey, had an opportunity offered for so doing, but, as none had come
to him, he had earned his board by acting as nurse in the hospital. If
he had been anxious to depart before, he was doubly so now that he had
regained his comrade, and Cabot fully shared his impatience of further
delay. But how they were to reach the coast of Newfoundland they could
not imagine. It would still be many weeks before vessels of any kind
could be expected at Battle Harbour, and they had no money with which
to undertake the expensive journey by way of Quebec.
"If only the ocean would freeze over, we could walk home!" exclaimed
Cabot one day, as the two friends sat gloomily discussing their
prospects. And then that very thing came to pass.
A dog sledge arrived from Forteau, that same evening, bringing a
wounded man to the hospital for treatment, and its driver reported the
Strait of Belle Isle as being so solidly packed with ice that several
persons had traversed it from shore to shore.
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