nd no boat
was visible!

"They may have got behind some of the islands," he thought, and
continued his look-out for some time, with growing anxiety and
impatience, however, because the breeze was by that time freshening to a
gale.

When an hour had passed away the poor boy became thoroughly alarmed.

"Can anything have happened to the boat?" he said to himself. "The
india-rubber is easily cut. Perhaps they may have been blown out to
sea!"

This latter thought caused an involuntary shudder. Looking round, he
observed that the depression of the sun towards the horizon indicated
that night had set in.

"This will never do," he suddenly exclaimed aloud. "Leo will be lost.
I _must_ risk it!"

Turning as he spoke, he ran back to the spot where he had left the
water-dress, which he immediately put on. Then, leaving gun and game on
the beach, he boldly entered the sea, and struck out with feet and
paddle for Poloeland.

Although sorely buffeted by the rising waves, and several times
overwhelmed, his waterproof costume proved well able to bear him up, and
with comparatively little fatigue he reached the land in less than two
hours. Without waiting to take the dress off, he ran up to the Eskimo
village and gave the alarm.

While these events were going on among the islets, Captain Vane and
Alphonse Vandervell had been far otherwise engaged.

"Come, Alf," said the Captain, that same morning, after Leo and
his party had started on their expedition, "let you and me
go off on a scientific excursion,--on what we may style a
botanico-geologico-meteorological survey."

"With all my heart, uncle, and let us take Butterface with us, and
Oolichuk."

"Ay, lad, and Ivitchuk and Akeetolik too, and Chingatok if you will, for
I've fixed on a spot whereon to pitch an observatory, and we must set to
work on it without further delay. Indeed I would have got it into
working order long ago if it had not been for my hope that the cessation
of this miserable war would have enabled us to get nearer the North Pole
this summer."

The party soon started for the highest peak of the island of Poloe--or
Poloeland, as Alf preferred to call it. Oolichuk carried on his broad
shoulders one of those mysterious cases out of which the Captain was so
fond of taking machines wherewith to astonish the natives.

Indeed it was plain to see that the natives who accompanied them on this
occasion expected some sort of surprise, despite the Captai