"A little, but not much; it's growing colder, too; we'll run into keen weather afore reaching the Pole."
"I shouldn't wonder if it came pretty soon. Hello!" added Rob, looking at his watch; "it is past noon."
"Do you want your dinner?" asked Jack, with a grin.
Both lads gave an expression of disgust, the elder replying:
"I can stand it for twenty-four hours before hankering for another slice of bear steak, and I shouldn't be surprised if Fred feels the same way."
"You are correct, my friend."
"Ah, you chaps can get used to anything!" was the self-complacent remark of the sailor, as he assumed a comfortable attitude on the ice.
While the boys talked thus, Jack was carefully noting the weather. He saw with pleasure that the fog was steadily clearing, and that, before night, the atmosphere was likely to be wholly clear again. That fact might avail them nothing, but it was a thousand-fold better than the mist, in which they might drift within a hundred feet of friends without either party suspecting it.
From what has been told, it will be understood that no one of the three built any hope of a rescue by the "Nautilus." The violent gale had driven her miles away, and a search on her part for this particular iceberg would be like the hunt of one exploring party for another that had been lost years before.
But it was not to be supposed that Captain McAlpine would quietly dismiss all care concerning the lads from his mind. One of them was a son of a leading director of the Hudson Bay Company, and the other was a favorite of the son and his father. For the skipper to return to London at the end of several months with the report that he had left them on an iceberg in the Greenland Sea would be likely to subject him to unpleasant consequences.