one or two hot days, but when
the sun goes down the Polar current gets in its work an' it's cold."

"Where do you suppose we're going, Hank?" the boy asked, with a firm
belief that the old whaler knew everything. "I don't like to bother
Captain Murchison."

"Nor I," the gunner answered, looking toward the stern of the boat;
"let him fight his troubles out alone. As for where we're goin', I don't
know. I can't even see the stars, so I don't know which way we're
headin'."

"Do you suppose we'll strike Alaska?" Colin queried. "Or perhaps the
north of Japan? Say, it would be great if we fetched up at Kamchatka or
somewhere that nobody had ever been before!"

The lad's delight in the thought of landing at some inhospitable
northern island off the coast of Asia was so boyish that in spite of the
discomfort of their present position, the old whaler almost laughed
outright.

"Japan's a long ways south of here," he said. "We'd strike the Aleutian
or the Kuril Islands before we got near there. I reckon we ought to try
for some place on the Alaska coast, but as I remember, the wind was dead
east when we left the _Gull_ an' I don't think it's changed much."

Colin gave a long yawn and then shivered.

"I wouldn't mind being in my berth on the _Gull_!" he said longingly;
"I'm nearly dead with sleep."

"Why don't you drop off?" Hank advised. "There's nothin' you can do to
help. Here, change places with me an' you won't get so much spray."

"But you'll get it then!" the boy protested.

"If I had a dollar for every time I've got wet in a boat," the old
whaler answered, "I wouldn't have to go to sea any more."

He got up and made Colin change places.

"Are you warmer now?" he asked a minute or two later.

"Lots," the boy murmured drowsily, and in a few seconds he was fast
asleep. The old whaler gently drew the boy towards him, so that he would
be sheltered from the wind and spray, and held him safe against the
rolling and pitching of the little boat. The long hours passed slowly,
and Colin stirred and muttered in his dreams, but still he slept on
through all the wild tumult of the night, his head pillowed against Hank
and the old whaler's arm around him.

He wakened suddenly, with a whistling, roaring sound ringing in his
ears. Dawn had broken, though the sun was not yet up, and Colin shivered
with the wakening and the cold, his teeth chattering like castanets. A
damp, penetrating fog enwrapped them. Four of the sailors