Foxes and rabbits, or Arctic hares were common. Occasionally an elk was seen, or a species of reindeer.
Seals were plenty, though rather difficult to hunt, and great flocks of ducks and geese at times flew over.
The party were getting along amazingly well when one day a fearful, thrilling catastrophe occurred.
Of course, none of the ship’s crew had ever penetrated further south, and knew nothing of the Antarctic continent.
That it might be inhabited was possible, but there was no record.
In the Arctic, Esquimaux lived contiguous to the Pole.
But in the Antarctic human life had never been found existent. Yet this was no evidence that it did not exist.
One day Captain Hardy and Jack proposed to go on a seal hunt four miles away toward the open sea.
They took two of the seamen—Jerry Mains and Adolph Sturgeson—with them. This left Second Mate Albert Stearns and six seamen aboard the craft.
Of course, Lucille remained aboard.