they crossed,
according to their "dead reckoning," the Arctic circle; and midnight
found them abreast of Disko Island, gazing with delighted eyes upon the
glorious spectacle of the midnight sun, the lower edge of his ruddy disc
just skimming the northern horizon.

At this point the channel between the Greenland coast and the pack-ice
narrowed very considerably; and their rate of progress northward next
day was reduced to a speed of between two and three miles per hour; the
engines needing to be just started, and then stopped again for a few
minutes in order to keep the speed down to this very low limit. But
they were all as yet so new to Arctic scenery--everything was so
entirely novel to them--that even this snail's pace failed to prove
wearisome, especially as the weather continued gloriously fine.

Strange to say, up to this time they had not set eyes on a single Arctic
animal; but now, as they were busily threading their way through a
narrow channel in the ice, a white bear was seen about half a mile ahead
rapidly making his way across the pack toward them, whilst, a quarter of
a mile nearer, an animal which they at once took for a seal was seen
basking in the sun on the ice close to the water. It speedily became
evident that the bear was after the seal, which, seemingly all
unconscious of the proximity of its enemy, raised its head now and then
as though in keen enjoyment of the warm glow. The colonel hurried below
for rifles, as eager as a schoolboy, to obtain a shot at one or both of
the animals; and when he returned to the pilot-house with the weapons
both the seal and the bear were within range. He raised one of the
rifles to his shoulder, and was covering the seal with it, when Sir
Reginald, who was watching the animals through a telescope, said:

"Do not fire, Lethbridge; there is something very curious about this;
_that seal is armed with a bow_."

The colonel stared incredulously at his companion, and then, dropping
the rifle, took and applied to his eye the telescope which Sir Reginald
handed to him.

"By George, you are right!" he exclaimed. "What a very extraordinary
thing. Why," he continued, "it is not a seal at all, it is a man, an
Esquimaux. Now, look out and you will see some sport; the fellow is
fitting an arrow to his string, and how cautiously he is doing it, too.
It is my belief that he has got himself up as a seal and has been
simulating the actions of the animal in order to entice