On the port side lay a large ice-floe of many acres extent.
The schooner gradually drifted up to it.

Raed and Kit had gone on deck.
"I think we may as well make fast to it," I heard the captain say; and, a moment later, the order was given to get out the ice-anchors.
Wade and I then went up.

"The Curlew" lay broadside against the floe.
The wind, with a current caused perhaps by the tide, held us up to it so forcibly, that the vessel careened slightly.

Weymouth and Hobbs were getting down on to the ice with the ice-chisels in their hands, and, going off twenty or thirty yards, began to cut holes.

The ice-anchors were then thrown over on to the floe.