ke a whale than one of your sailors--Hamish or Andra."

"Why?" said Steve eagerly.

"Because you are young and pliant, and eager to learn. You would throw
it with your head as well as with your arm. They would throw it with
the arm, and trust only to their strength."

"Here, give us the telescope!" cried Steve. "I want to find a shoal and
begin at once."

"I daresay," said the Norseman, smiling; "but oil-fishing is not so easy
as that, or people would soon make fortunes. I have been on the
look-out for hours, but there is nothing in sight."

"But there'll be plenty of walrus when we get to Spitzbergen?"

"Perhaps. I have been there when we could load our boat in a very
little while, and I have been there when all through the season we have
hardly seen a walrus."

"Oh, but if there are none at Spitzbergen, and we don't find the _Ice
Blink_, we must go somewhere else."

"If," said the Norseman, smiling. "If? If what?"

"If we can. The ice may stop us."

"What, for a day or two?"

"For a season or two seasons. One can never tell, sir. The ice is king
up here, and has its own way."

"Yes, but kings are conquered sometimes," said Steve merrily; "perhaps
we shall master, find the _Ice Blink_, and go right up to the North
Pole, where the open Polar Sea lies."

"No open Polar Sea lies up there, young gentleman," said Johannes
gravely; and as he spoke he gazed northward with a curious far-off look
in his eyes. "I have heard all of that before, but after you pass the
southern edge of the floe it is all ice, ice right away. I know there
is land here and there, for one year, eastward of Spitzbergen, we came
upon a rocky piece of coast; but whether it was an island or a great
country running for hundreds of miles, no one yet knows."

"Well, but how grand to land there and find out," said Steve eagerly.
"I should like that. Would Captain Marsham sail there?" Johannes
smiled.

"It does not depend on Captain Marsham," he replied. "Look," he said,
pointing northward, "there is the edge of the floe. Suppose you knew
that there was land two hundred miles northward, how would you sail
there?"

"Of course you could not for the ice."

"That's right," said Johannes; "and so it is year by year. By about
August the floe has broken up, and part of it is melted, and one can
sail a little way farther north, not very far some years, at others for
a long distance; but the time always comes when the ice is solid