resh alarm.

They had finished eating all their salt pork, but had never once opened
the cask of beef since Eric abstracted the piece he roasted the year
before "for a treat"; and, now, on going to get out a good boiling
piece, in order to cook it in a more legitimate fashion, they found to
their grief that, whether through damp, or exposure to the air, or from
some other cause, the cask of beef was completely putrid and unfit for
human food!

This was very serious!

They had kept this beef as a last resource, trusting to it as a "stand-
by" to last them through the winter months; but now it had to be thrown
away, reducing them to dry potatoes for their diet--for, the penguins,
which they might have eaten "on a pinch," had departed and would not
return to the island until August, and there was no other bird or animal
to be seen in the valley!

Their plight was made all the more aggravating from the knowledge of the
fact that, if they could only manage to ascend the plateau, they might
live in clover on the wild pigs and goats there; so, here they were
suffering from semi-starvation almost in sight of plenty!

Fritz and Eric, however, were not the sort of fellows to allow
themselves to be conquered by circumstances. Both, therefore, put their
thinking caps on, and, after much cogitation, they at last hit upon a
plan for relieving their necessities.

CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE.

A LONG SWIM.

This plan was nothing else than their attempting the feat of swimming
round the headland, in order to reach the western shore, from whence, of
course, they knew from past experience they could easily ascend to the
tableland above--the happy hunting-ground for goats and pigs, their
legitimate prey.

"Nonsense," exclaimed Fritz, when Eric mooted the project; "the thing
can never be done!"

"Never is a long day," rejoined the sailor lad. "I'm sure I have
covered over twice that distance in the water before now."

"Ah, that might have been in a calm sea," said Fritz; "but, just
recollect the terrible rough breakers we had to contend with that time
in December when the whale-boat got smashed! Why, we might never get
out of the reach of that current which you know runs like a mill-race
under the eastern cliff."

"We won't go that way," persisted Eric. "Besides, the sea is not always
rough; for, on some days the water, especially now since the frost has
set in, is as calm as a lake."

"And terribly cold, too," cried his b