paws tried to tear up the ice.

"Have we by any possibility come across a supply of provisions?" said
the doctor.

"It looks like it," answered Bell.

"Go on!" said Hatteras.

A few bits of food were found and a box quarter full of pemmican.

"If we have," said Hatteras, "the bears have visited it before we did.
See, these provisions have been touched already."

"It is to be feared," answered the doctor, "for--"

He did not finish his sentence; a cry from Bell interrupted him; he
had turned over a tolerably large piece of ice and showed a stiff,
frozen human leg in the ice.

"A corpse!" cried the doctor.

"It's a grave," said Hatteras.

It was the body of a sailor about thirty years old, in a perfect state
of preservation; he wore the usual dress of Arctic sailors; the doctor
could not say how long he had been dead.

After this, Bell found another corpse, that of a man of fifty,
exhibiting traces of the sufferings that had killed him.

[Illustration]

"They were never buried," cried the doctor; "these poor men were
surprised by death as we find them."

"You are right, Doctor," said Bell.

"Go on, go on!" said Hatteras.

Bell hardly dared. Who could say how many corpses lay hidden here?

"They were the victims of just such an accident as we nearly perished
by," said the doctor; "their snow-house fell in. Let us see if one may
not be breathing yet!"

The place was rapidly cleared away, and Bell brought up a third body,
that of a man of forty; he looked less like a corpse than the others;
the doctor bent over him and thought he saw some signs of life.

"He's alive!" he shouted.

Bell and he carried this body into the snow-house, while Hatteras
stood in silence, gazing at the sunken dwelling.

[Illustration]

The doctor stripped the body; it bore no signs of injury; with Bell's
aid he rubbed it vigorously with tow dipped in alcohol, and he saw
life gradually reviving within it; but the man was in a state of
complete prostration, and unable to speak; his tongue clove to his
palate as if it were frozen.

The doctor examined his patient's pockets; they were empty. No paper.
He let Bell continue rubbing, and went out to Hatteras.

He found him in the ruined snow-house, clearing away the floor; soon
he came out, bearing a half-burned piece of an envelope. A few words
could be deciphered:--

....tamont
...._orpoise_
....w York.

"Altamont!" shouted the doctor, "of the _Porpoise_! o