"Good for you, Sandy," cried Tom. "Come on, we'll give the old boy a bath in it. He surely looked out well for you to-day."
While their elders looked on amusedly, the lads doused the long suffering totem with the ill-smelling oil and danced around the aged figure with mock solemnity, intoning what was meant to be a mystic chant:
"Oh, totem in our hours of ease,
Uncertain, coy and hard to please;
Now you have had your walrus bath,
Be nice and kind, and smile and laugh;
And kindly watch our destiny,
Northward, toward the Arctic Sea."
[CHAPTER VII.]
AN ADVENTURE OF JACK'S.
"What's that yonder, uncle?" asked Tom.
It was the morning after the adventure with the walrus and the Northerner was steaming steadily on toward Valdez, her next port of call on her voyage north. At that place she would take on coal for the final stage of her journey to St. Michaels near the mouth of the Yukon, where the party would be left after the small steamer had been put together.
Tom was a great boy to lean against the rail scanning the sea in search of something that might prove exciting. He had been gazing steadily against the far horizon for some minutes. Mr. Dacre hastened to his cabin and came back with a pair of binoculars.