It stated that an easterly gale and snowstorm raged about the Newfoundland coast and the thermometer was very low.

The gale would drive the drift ice up the Gulf and pack the floes.

Things looked bad.

Cartwright felt he ought to get about and make some plans to meet the threatened blow, but he did not see what he could do.
He sat still.

The other customers had gone, and all was quiet but for the faint rumble of traffic and soothing throb of an electric fan.
Cartwright mused about _Oreana_ and pictured Davies sheltering behind the wind-screens on his bridge and trying to pierce the snow, and the look-out man half frozen in the spray that leaped about the forecastle.
_Oreana_ was a wet boat when she was loaded deep.