's a sad sight at best."

"Of course it is. But then we've only got seventeen balls left, and no
knowing how many battles to fight."

This last argument was a clincher.

"Let go!" ordered the captain.

Don and Hobbs shook the line violently, but couldn't tear out the
grapple from the tough seal-skin.

"Well, let go line and all, then!" cried the captain.

With a dull plash the _kayak_ fell back into the sea; and we all
turned away.

At midnight the ice-patches were thickening rapidly; and by two
o'clock all sail had to be taken in, the bumps had grown so frequent
and heavy. 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. To each of them was
bent one of our two-and-a-half-inch hawsers. The anchors themselves
were, as will probably be remembered, simply large, strong grapnels.
Dragging them along to the holes, they were hooked into the ice, and
the hawsers drawn in tight from deck. Planks, secured to the rail by
lines, were then run down to bear the chafe. This was our process of
anchoring to ice. Sometimes three or four grapnels were used when the
tendency to swing off was greater. To-night there was so much floating
ice all about, that the swell was almost entirely broken, and the
schooner lay as quiet as if in a country lake. A watch was set, and we
turned in again.

Breakfast at six. Fog thick and flat on the ice. The breeze in the
night, blowing against the schooner, had turned the ice-field
completely round. Occasionally a cake of ice would bump up against us.
We could hear them grinding together all about; yet the wind was
light, otherwise we might have had heavier thumps. About seven o'clock
we heard a splashing out along the floe.

"Seals!" remarked the captain.

"Bet you, I'll have one of those fellows!" exclaimed Donovan, catching
up a pike-pole, and dropping over the rail.

"Can he get near en