“Have you got the log all written up?”
“Yes, sir,” replied Dick, “and she’s heading just about north, the same direction that I was looking.”
“What were you trying to make out?” They spoke with subdued voices so as not to disturb the sleepers.
“Well, sir, I was trying to make out the great wheel turning around the Pole-star; that is, I was trying to see it turn, but the water’s so unsteady that it’s hard work telling whether you can see it turn or not.”
Now Mr. Miller was very much interested in the stars, and was fond of coming up on deck at night to take a look at the heavens now and then, and so the question Dick had raised was one that interested him quite as much as it did Dick.
After he had thought for a few minutes he finally said:
“It is a difficult thing to observe unless you have some fixed and conspicuous object in the landscape to watch the turning stars go past. If we could stay here all night, though, or even for three or four hours, we would easily notice the change in their positions. But our night watches aren’t arranged for the study of astronomy; it’s too bad, isn’t it?”
“I was thinking, sir, if I could make a little rough chart of the principal northern stars as they are now, it might be interesting to compare their positions with the way they look in the early evening.”
“That’s a good idea,” said Mr. Miller cordially, “have you anything to draw a circle with?”
“No, I haven’t up here, sir.”