"'Cut up all the spare wood in the hold,' I said, 'and feed that to the furnaces.'
"The engineer went away shaking his head, and then the boy came up to me and said,
"'Captain, are we ever going to get home?'
"'Oh yes,' I said, with an effort to appear cheerful; 'of course we are. We're doing very well now.'
"The boy looked at me reproachfully and walked away. His father hadn't said a word to me for two days. But I declare it wasn't my fault. Well, you may think we had had our share of trouble, but we were not through yet. On the afternoon of July 20th several large ice-floes were sighted, and that night the ship ran into a dense field of ice. By this time most of our spare wood had been burned, and we were depending largely on our sails to carry us along, while the wind, which was still blowing half a gale, was almost dead ahead. And here we were in an ice-field that hemmed us in as far as the eye could see. The temperature of the air was bitterly cold, and it seemed as if we had been plunged into the midst of arctic regions. The ice-floes crashed and groaned, gulls whirled phantomlike and screaming above our stained spars, and all the time the wind blew against us as if some supernatural force were bent on driving us back. On the evening of the 21st the ship's carpenter came to me and said,
"'Captain, there are six inches of water in the hold.'
"For a minute, I think, I could not speak, for this new misfortune quite stunned me.
"'Have you found the leak?' I asked at length.
"'Not yet, sir,' he answered. 'It is somewhere forward, though.'
"'Make a close search for it, and let me know at once,' I said.