to the sea the waves leapt up, the way wolves might
leap about a running caribou. In such a battle of the ice with the
ice, a man knows what a pigmy he is, measured against the mightiest
natural forces.

The _Neptune_ escaped a ramming--but her neighbor, the _Wolf_, was not
so lucky. The _Wolf_ had rounded Fogo Island in an offshore wind that
treacherously offered her a clear channel close to the land. As soon
as she got round, the north wind, as though a demon impelled it,
brought the ice crashing back and pinned her fast. An immense floe of
ice, massing in upon the doomed ship, piled higher and higher above
the bulwarks.

"Get the boats onto the pans!" Captain Kean shouted to his men. It is
just what they have had to do on many an Arctic expedition when the
ice has nipped them.

They took their food and clothes--but Captain Kean, the last to leave
the ship, of course--saved nothing of his own except his life. And it
was the closest possible call for him. Just after he jumped, the ice
opened like the Red Sea parting for the hosts of Pharaoh. Down went
the _Wolf_ like a stone, and as she tossed and heaved and gurgled in
her death-throes the ends of her spars caught on the edges of the ice
and were broken off as if they were match-wood. The sea seems to dance
above such a wreck with a personal, malicious vengeance.

It was the old, sad story for the captain and his men. They would have
to walk ashore, three hundred of them, over the miles of cruel ice. At
home, their wives and children would be waiting and hoping for a grand
success and a good time. Instead, after a forced and weary march of
days,--going perhaps three hundred miles,--with much rowing and
camping, father or brother would stagger in, his little pack of poor
belongings on his sore shoulders, and throw it down, and say with a
great sob: "'Tis all I've brought ye!"

It is a pitiful thing indeed for a man to have traveled hundreds of
miles to board a ship, in the hope of a few dollars for the risk of
his life, and then to have the sea swallow up his chance, and turn him
loose to the ice and snow, a ruined man. When a captain loses his
ship, whatever the reason, it is almost impossible for him to obtain a
command again.

IV

HAULED BY THE HUSKIES

There was great excitement at the little village of St. Anthony, on
the far northern tip of Newfoundland.

Tom Bradley was coming back from a seal-hunt, and his big dogs Jim and
Jack were helping