uld be
found that the tides or currents have something to do with it, if the
truth could be come at."

"Well, sir, and who causes the tides and currents to run, this-a-way and
that-a-way?"

"There you have me, Stephen; for I never could get hold of the clew to
their movements at all," answered Roswell, laughing. "There is a reason
for it all, I dare say, if one could only find it out. Captain Daggett, it
is high time to look after the safety of your schooner. She ought to be in
the cove before night sets in, since the ice has found its way into the
bay."

This appeal produced a general movement. By this time the two fields were
a hundred fathoms asunder; the smaller, or that on which the vessel lay,
drifting quite fast into the bay, under the joint influences of wind and
current; while the larger floe had clearly been arrested by the islands.
This smaller field was much lessened in surface, in consequence of having
been broken at the rocks, though the fragment that was thus cut off was of
more than a league in diameter, and of a thickness that exceeded many
yards.

As for the Sea Lion of the Vineyard, she was literally shelfed, as has
been said. So irresistible had been the momentum of the great floe, that
it lifted her out of the water as two or three hands would run up a bark
canoe on a gravelly beach. This lifting process had, very fortunately for
the craft, been effected by an application of force from below, in a
wedge-like manner, and by bringing the strongest defences of the vessel to
meet the power. Consequently, no essential injury had been done the vessel
in thus laying her on her screw-dock.

"If a body could get the craft _off_ as easily as she was got _on_,"
observed Daggett, as he and Roswell Gardiner stood looking at the
schooner's situation, "it would be but a light job. But, as it is, she
lies on ice at least twenty feet thick, and ice that seems as solid as
flint!"

"We know it is not quite as hard as that, Daggett," was Roswell's reply;
"for our saws and axes make great havoc in it, when we can fairly get at
it."

"If one _could_ get fairly at it! But here you see, Gar'ner, everything is
under water, and an axe is next to useless. Nor can the saws be used with
much advantage on ice so thick."

"There is no help for it but hard work and great perseverance. I would
advise that a saw be set at work at each end of the schooner, allowing a
little room in case of accidents, and that we weaken the