"

"O, the devil!" said Pen; "he'll look like everybody else. And if he
wants to lead us where we don't want to go, we'll let him know what we
think about it."

"All right," said Bolton; "Pen doesn't know him, and wants to quarrel
with him already."

"Who doesn't know all about him?" asked Clifton, with the air of a man
who has the whole story at his tongue's end; "I should like to know
who doesn't."

"What do you mean?" asked Gripper.

"I know very well what I mean."

"But we don't."

"Well, Pen has already had trouble with him."

"With the captain?"

"Yes, the dog-captain; for it's the same thing precisely."

The sailors gazed at one another, incapable of replying.

"Dog or man," muttered Pen, between his teeth, "I'll bet he'll get his
account settled one of these days."

"Why, Clifton," asked Bolton, seriously, "do you imagine, as Johnson
said in joke, that that dog is the real captain?"

"Certainly, I do," answered Clifton, with some warmth; "and if you had
watched him as carefully as I have, you'd have noticed his strange
ways."

"What ways? Tell us."

"Haven't you noticed the way he walks up and down the poop-deck as if
he commanded the ship, keeping his eye on the sails as if he were on
watch?"

"That's so," said Gripper; "and one evening I found him with his paws
on the wheel."

[Illustration]

"Impossible!" said Bolton.

"And then," continued Clifton, "doesn't he run out at night on the
ice-fields without caring for the bears or the cold?"

"That's true," said Bolton.

"Did you ever see him making up to the men like an honest dog, or
hanging around the kitchen, and following the cook when he's carrying
a savory dish to the officers? Haven't you all heard him at night,
when he's run two or three miles away from the vessel, howling so that
he makes your blood run cold, and that's not easy in weather like
this? Did you ever seen him eat anything? He never takes a morsel from
any one; he never touches the food that's given him, and, unless some
one on board feeds him secretly, I can say he lives without eating.
Now, if that's not strange, I'm no better than a beast myself."

"Upon my word," answered Bell, the carpenter, who had heard all of
Clifton's speech, "it may be so."

But all the other sailors were silent.

"Well, as for me," continued Clifton, "I can say that if you don't
believe, there are wiser people on board who don't seem so sure."

"Do you mean the mate?" asked Bolt