d Skene!" whispered Watty. But he might as
well have whispered his soothing words to the winds, for the dog only
uttered a low growl and trotted back to his master, who was once more
eagerly scanning the coast.

But it was always very much the same: heavy breakers tumbling over to a
chain of rocks--foaming, rushing, falling back, and swinging to and fro
till fresh help came from the tide, and they gathered themselves for a
fresh assault. Beyond the waves a more or less narrow line of shore,
and then cliff, and above that mountainous heights glittering with ice
and snow, and here and there in some opening a frozen river looking as
if it were rushing headlong down to the sea, but hanging there solid,
save for a little rill which trickled forth from a cavern of celestial
blue at its foot.

They steamed on for hours quite slowly, rounding the southern shore, and
then further progress was stayed, for, once more, there before them was
the low cliff of ice, extending apparently right up behind the island,
and connecting it with the mainland. Ice everywhere now, and another
mountain, emitting a faint film of smoke.

"No sign of human being on the shore: all that journey southward for
nothing," said the doctor.

"One can hardly call it for nothing, eh, Steve?" said the captain. "We
have satisfied ourselves pretty well that our friends are not here."

"But they may be inland beyond those cliffs, sir!" cried the boy.

"Maybe, Steve, my lad," said the captain sadly; "but as far as we can
make out there is no chance for a human being to exist there. Any one
wrecked in such an inhospitable place would certainly have taken to a
sheltered spot under the cliffs, where he would be protected from the
coldest winds. Aloft there!"

"Ay, ay, sir!"

"What do you make out over the cliffs there to westward and north?"

"Ice and snow, sir," came for answer from the crow's-nest.

"No good land?"

"No, sir. All ice and snow piled up higher and higher. There's that
frozen river goes winding up right into the mountains."

"No place for a camp?"

"No, sir; not as far as I can see."

These were the quiet, sober words of Johannes, who was aloft once more,
armed with a telescope.

"Any opening where we could land on the ice-floe?" cried Captain
Marsham.

"No, sir," came back after a time; "nothing here. Any boat would be
stove in directly."

"What shall you do now?" said the doctor; and Steve listened eagerly for
the repl