d for August."

"Yes, my lad, more than rather, for there was a thin film of ice on the
fiord till the sun touched it. Only a very thin film, but a suggestion
of how soon winter sets in up here."

But the next day proved to be so glorious, bright, and sunny that Steve
could not realise the fact that the winter would be upon them soon.
There were tiny flowers in sunny corners, the sea and sky were of a
brilliant blue, and the birds that were sailing round and round, and,
chasing each other, made the rocks echo with their joyous cries.

"This place is so sheltered that we ought not to feel the winter so very
much," he said to himself; and he walked up to where the Norsemen were
seated rebinding the lashing about their lance heads, examining the
grommetting round the harpoons, and planing up a fresh shaft for a lance
whose handle had been cracked in an encounter with a huge walrus, which
gave one vigorous flap and broke away, the lance handle snapping as if
it had been a match, at the same time preparing one for Johannes' weapon
broken by the bear.

"Morning," he said; and the fair, big, grave-looking fellows returned
his salute with a smile.

"Going to be fine weather?" he asked.

"Yes, sir, fine and clear for some days yet. I don't think we shall
have any snow."

"I should hope not," said Steve, smiling. "I say, Johannes, didn't we
have a bit of a frost this morning?"

"Yes, sir, a slight one."

"You don't think that's a sign of the winter coming, do you?"

"Yes, sir; and very soon."

"What nonsense!" cried Steve. "Why, we often have sharp frosts at home
in April and May, and they don't mean that winter is coming. Why do you
think it is coming so soon?"

The big Norseman smiled.

"Because, sir, it is not coming; it has already come."

"Come?"

"Yes," said Johannes, raising his hand, and pointing to the dazzling
peaks of ice and the glistening snow coming quite low down on the
slopes, leading gradually to the lake-like shores of the fiord; "there
it is, sir."

"Oh, but ice and snow have been there all the summer."

"What we call the summer, sir; but it seems to me that the winter is
always here. It rises a little when the sun comes back and a part of
the snow melts; but if we climb up into the mountains a little way, it
freezes every night, and the winter is always there. And now the sun
rises a little less high every day, and there is real night which grows
longer as the days grow shorter."