g when we landed and the
direction we take, in case they come here after we have gone."

"And you will go on hunting and fishing as we touch at place after
place?"

"Certainly, until we have filled the tanks. That will enable me to
prolong my journey, and, if necessary, repeat it next year."

Steve looked at the captain in horror, but said nothing; and directly
after a cairn had been built at the most conspicuous point of the
entrance to the fiord, and a letter left in a meat canister inside, the
_Hvalross_ slowly steamed out, and advanced northward, entering fiord
after fiord, and searching vainly. There were always the same
forbidding cliffs capped with snow, masses of ice piled up, and the
ravines filled with glaciers, and here and there inlets whose entrances
were completely frozen up, and not likely to be open for a month. But
there was no sign of cairn or signal-post. No human being had left a
trace of landing there, and the journey north was continued.

"Why, Johannes," said the captain on the second evening, after they had
spent about a couple of hours in shooting wild fowl to replenish the
larder and keep the men in good health with plenty of fresh provisions,
"I thought as soon as we reached this wild region we should find deer,
bears, and walrus in abundance; and here we have been touching at place
after place for two days, and not seen a single animal since we shot the
deer."

"No, sir; it is a matter of accident," replied the Norseman. "There are
plenty; but every year they get farther away, for they are hunted so
much that they shun the places where vessels come."

Their words came plainly to where Steve was busy with a glass; for,
after the shooting was over, and the men in one of the boats had
collected all the slain to hand over to the cook, who immediately made
Watty Links discontented by setting him to pluck the birds, the lad had
ascended to the crow's-nest to have a look round.

It was very wonderful, that outlook to Steve; but it seemed to him awful
and depressing. It was so silent and so strange that at times even the
continuous daylight caused him to feel a sensation of shrinking,
especially when seen through the telescope; for there were moments when
he felt as if he were passing into some far-off, weird wonderland, a
land of solemn silence, where life could not exist; and at such moments
he would take his eye from the glass, and look down at the men on deck
and see signs of human