By the time he had reached the ship, however, what with the warm sunshine and a stimulant the Spectioneer had administered to him, Joe was all right and smiling.
But his brother Jack, as soon as Joe came on board, pointed at him a stern finger of reproof.
“I ’shamed o’ you,” he said. “I ’shamed o’ you proper. You not can turn your kayak, ha! ha! You no true Indian. Suppose one shark snap your two legs off, dat do you plenty mooch good. Bah!”
The summer passed away only too quickly; it passed, but not in vain, for Dr Barrett had done much good for the cause of science; and, reader, science always does or always should bring us nearer to Him who made all things and rules over them by unchangeable laws that He knows are good, whatever we finite beings may dare to imagine.
The summer passed; Claude and all his crew had enjoyed splendid sport. I wish I had space to tell of the adventures they had, some of them wild enough in all conscience. But while enjoying themselves there had been no neglect of duty, with one sad, solitary exception presently to be mentioned.
“I am very glad to say,” remarked Dr Barrett, one evening at dinner, “that I have succeeded in doing about all I believe that our learned friends in England wanted me to do, thanks to your good judgment, Captain Alwyn, in steering us to this wondrous country.”
“And so am I glad also,” replied Claude. He was thinking of home just then. “Let me see,” continued the doctor, musingly, “I have collected quite a museum of specimens of Arctic flora and even fauna. To the lichen world I have, I think, added not a few species hitherto unknown. I have taken observations of every conceivable kind; there is a record of them in my notes. I have, or, pardon me for my egotism, we have discovered coal—that is of little use, perhaps; iron—that exists everywhere; tin—that is more to the purpose; silver and gold, and these are better still. We have also,” he went on, “found the bones of extinct mammals, and the evidences on all sides that at one time the hills around us, or hills like them, were covered with forest and fern, and inhabited by a race of animals that we human beings too often, I think, call inferior. We have, moreover—”
“I beg your pardon, sir,” said the steward. “May I speak to you half a minute?”
The doctor followed him into the steerage.
He soon returned, looking serious and vexed.