“Nonsense! It’s all fancy, my lad. You’re worse off now than you were a couple of hours ago.”
“Worse off?” cried Steve.
“Of course. You have a dozen hungry men to provide for.”
“But you’ve come to save us, and brought us hope.”
“Where is it then, boy?” cried Captain Young. “You all had as much hope as we had—far more; but you gave up and smothered it. We haven’t come to save you; we want you to save us.”
“I don’t understand you,” said Steve.
“Then I’ll make myself plain, my lad. You have a sound ship here in this fiord, well provisioned, and with plenty of fuel, besides having a doctor to take care of you. On the other hand, we have a ship sixty miles away, yonder on the east side of this great island or peninsula of a vast arctic continent, for we have not made out much; but our ship lies where it was driven ashore by the ice, crushed beyond repairing, good for nothing but to make us a house to live in.”
“Then you have been within sixty miles of us all the time!” cried the doctor.
“Yes, sixty miles, I should say, south-east, and only found a way across the mountains during these last few days, and quite by accident; for they have always been like a wall to us till now.”
“But you have tried to get across to here before?”