"Seal oil, eh?" laughed Tom. "Well, there's a scarcity of that article on board just now, so I'm afraid that Mister Totem will just have to job along without any."
"Huh!" grunted Sandy, "then dinna depend on yon old gent to treat us right. I'll bet he's got it in for us richt noo."
The next day it appeared, indeed, as if Sandy's dire predictions were about to be verified. The Northerner ran into a storm that buffeted her about sadly. Her speed had to be cut down till she made scarcely any headway. It was a difficult matter to get about on deck owing to the great seas that washed over the laboring vessel. By orders of Mr. Dacre the lads were kept below much to their disgust.
The gale finally blew itself out and the boys found that the old totem had remained at his post through it all, although they had more than half expected to find him washed overboard. But their faith in him as a mascot was sadly shaken.
From time to time, as they nosed northward, the ship encountered floating icebergs. None of them were so large as to cause alarm, however, and for the most part they were low and islandlike in appearance.
The boys were idly watching one of these as the ship approached it, when Tom made out several black objects on the floe. What these specks were did not become apparent till some time later when Jack proclaimed their nature.
"Seals!" cried he. "Don't I wish we had a harpoon! We'd have a seal hunt!"
Tom smiled and drew from his pocket his automatic revolver which he had been cleaning.
"I guess this is as good as any harpoon that ever harpooned," he said, tapping its heavy stock.
"I wonder if we could get permission to go after them?" pondered Jack. "I'm sick of being penned up on board here."