ys the way where there's hardship and suffering. Your great,
strong, thoughtless fellow is the first to give out and fail up. You
mark my words, now. If we have to undertake this journey, Weymouth and
Donovan will be the first to sicken and fall behind. I don't believe
they would ever get through it. But, after the first three days, Wade
would lead us all. He will sort of rally and rise as the peril and
hardship increase. He is kind of discouraged now, because he sees
what's before us, and has to muster his energies to meet it; but he is
getting a reserve of will-force in store. There's a good deal in that,
I tell you! A strong will has carried many a fellow through hardships
that would have killed men of twice the muscle without the will; and
that's the way it will be with our two sailors, I'm afraid."

"But I am not in favor of making this trip overland," Kit added after
we had sat musing a few minutes.

"What do you propose?"

"I think it best to work out of the straits in our boat, if we can."

I had thought of that plan.

"We could make a sail out of this walrus-hide, and watch our chance
with a favorable breeze to scud us along from islet to islet on the
south side here. We could run down into Ungava Bay, clean to the foot
of it; and then, leaving the boat, go across to Nain. It couldn't be
more than a hundred and fifty miles from the foot of the bay. We could
start off, and, with a strong spurt, do it in a week from that place,
I think. We should, at least, be sure of getting seals for food. But
Raed don't think it best."

"Why not?"

"Well, he says, that, by the time we get into Ungava Bay, it will
begin to freeze ice nights, enough to stop us. He thinks, too, that we
should suffer a good deal more from cold on the water than on the
land. Then we should have to wait for favorable winds, and be laid up
through storms, besides the danger of getting capsized in gusts, and
caught in the ice-patches. But he has agreed to leave it to the party
to decide. I know the two sailors will vote to go by boat; but I'm not
sure Raed is not right, after all. He's a better judge than any of the
rest of us, I do suppose. I have a horror of starting off inland,
though."

A very reasonable horror, I considered it. Any thing but toiling over
sterile mountains, for me.

We sat there for a long time looking off, pondering the situation.
Suddenly my eye caught on a tiny brown speck far to the northward. I
watched it a moment