e
glacier. Food is plentiful, and what men have done before men can do
again."

"If there is no help for it, we must submit," said the doctor.

"Better submit than venture to sea in these two boats," said the
captain; "and in case of the first emergency, I propose that we begin
exploring the land now. We have thoroughly examined all the coast that
we could reach north and south."

"And hunt as we go?" said the doctor.

"And hunt as we go, so as to lay in a good store of fresh meat. This
will freeze and keep any length of time. I don't think our prospects
are so bad--that is, for seamen."

"I thought we should have found some trace of our friends," said the
doctor; but the captain shook his head.

"It is all the merest chance," he said; "we have nothing to guide us.
They might have been at Jan Mayen, or up on the north coast of Greenland
or the coast of Spitzbergen, or they might be here in the next valley,
or north or south where we could not penetrate. On the other hand, they
may be in Novaya-Zemlya, or in some region of the far north never yet
penetrated by others. Feeling all this has made me think that it will
be by accident we shall meet our friends more than by searching; but we
shall go on searching all the same."

"Then you will make a start to-morrow?"

"Yes, as soon as the carpenter has knocked together a few bars, to make
a contrivance that I mean to be a hand-barrow for four or eight men when
the ground is rough, and a sledge when it is smooth enough for them to
pull it, or on snow."

"Which way shall you go?" said Steve. "Couldn't we try the valley up by
the glacier?"

"That is where I mean to go first," said the captain, "so as to examine
more fully those traces of coal; so let's go to rest in good time and
start early."

Steve went on deck to see to his dumb companions before retiring for the
night, and found Skene and the young walrus comfortably asleep together
forward; for four weeks of imprisonment had sufficed to make the new
acquisition so tame and friendly with the dog that Skene quite
appreciated his new companion, treating it as a kind of huge
india-rubber cushion, over and about which he had a right to stretch
himself wherever and whenever he pleased.

But a word roused up the dog, who leaped off the walrus, waking it in
the act; and seeing its master it, too, advanced, not like the dog in
capers and bounds accompanied by barking, but in a curious shuffling
fashion, with