"Not I!" replied Hatteras.
"It has always been in your keeping," said the Doctor.
"Well, I have not got it now!" exclaimed Johnson, turning pale.
"Not got the steel!" repeated the Doctor, shuddering involuntarily at the bare idea of its loss, for it was all the means they had of procuring a fire.
"Look again, Johnson," he said.
The boatswain hurried to the only remaining place he could think of, the hummock where he had stood to watch the bear. But the missing treasure was nowhere to be found, and the old sailor returned in despair.
Hatteras looked at him, but no word of reproach escaped his lips. He only said-
"This is a serious business, Doctor."
"It is, indeed!" said Clawbonny.
"We have not even an instrument, some glass that we might take the lens out of, and use like a burning glass."