nts, and then
Steve placed his lips to the doctor's ear.

"Come on!" he said; and leading the way once more he crossed to the end
of the galley in a blind struggle against the wind, which seemed to
pounce upon him and try to tear him away. But he crept on, with the
doctor close to him, and became aware that he was touching something
cold, which moved and then seized him with a hoarse:

"Wha's this?"

"I, Hamish!" shouted the boy. "We want to get into the galley."

"Gang below, laddie. Ta fire's oot, and there's naebody there."

"Come back," said the doctor in Steve's ear; and the boy followed, too
much stunned and confused by the wind and driving ice powder to propose
any other plan. But as he turned to follow the doctor he became aware
that several men were huddled together there in the slight shelter
afforded by the cook-house, and this confused him more, for the men were
at the wrong end, and not where he knew they had taken refuge before.

And now he recalled the sudden change which had taken place, and grasped
the fact that they were head to wind, or nearly so, while a vibration
beneath his feet told him that the engine was hard at work.

The next minute--how he did not know--they were by the way down into the
engine-room, the doctor's snowy figure being visible in a misty light
which struck upward as he descended, Steve following breathless and
panting, to find in the glow shed by the fires the cook on one side and
Watty Links on the other, while even here the snow-dust was whirling
down and melting at once into a rain, which ascended as a thick steam.

"Hadn't you better have kept in the cabin, sir?" said the engineer to
Steve; and then he turned to the doctor, "Come down for a warm, sir?"

"No! I wanted to try and get some hot drink to the men on deck--some
hot coffee."

"Couldn't be done, sir," said the cook.

"Let's say that when we've tried and failed," cried Steve. "You can get
hot water here; I'll fetch coffee and sugar."

"Very well, sir, I'll try; but how are we to get it to them on deck?"

"Bottles, man, bottles!" cried the doctor. "Where there's a will
there's a way."

The energy displayed by the new-comers, aided by the warmth, had its
effect upon the man; the engineer remembered that he had two clean
bottles in a locker, and Steve and the doctor fought their way again
over the slippery, snowy deck to the cabin, from which they emerged
again well laden, and in another quarter of