boats for their first expedition against the
walrus, so that when the time came everything might be quite ready, when
Watty rushed hurriedly out of the galley, turned sharply upon seeing
him, burst into one of his silent fits of laughter, and hurried back
through the door.

It all happened in a moment, and Watty's departure was hastened far more
than he intended. There was a bound, a kick, and the boy disappeared
with a crash, followed by a burst of objurgations, the sound of cuffs
and blows, and a whining voice raised pitifully in appeal and
explanation. But he had evidently knocked something down in his
unceremonious and hasty entrance, and the irate cook was in no temper
either to listen to explanations or to believe in what he immediately
set down as an excuse.

Steve stood listening to the struggle within, his anger gone, like the
electricity in a Leyden jar, at a touch, and he was about to enter the
galley and explain, when Watty rushed out, darted forward, and dived
down the hatchway into the forecastle, from which place he was
ignominiously fetched by the cook like some culprit arrested by a
policeman; and the next time he met Steve without the faintest
suggestion of a smile upon his countenance.

CHAPTER SIX.

FIRST PERILS.

The next day there was something else to think about, for the arctic
summer strongly resembled a temperate zone winter. The wind came in
heavy gusts from the north-east; there were snow-squalls which shut them
in, and on passing away left the deck an inch deep in the soft white
fur, while for a time every yard, rope, and sail was covered.

"Doesn't seem much like June, eh, Steve?" said the doctor.

But in the intervals between the squalls the sun came out warmly, the
snow melted aloft, and was rapidly swept from the deck.

Three days passed like this, during which careful, slow progress had to
be made, for it was early in the year yet, and June meant a month when
the ice was still packed heavily and had not had time to break up and
disperse, so that in even this brief time the _Hvalross_ had sailed from
summer back, as it were, into winter. Then the wind dropped, the sea
grew calm, and the vessel lay rolling slowly in the heavy swell,
apparently with night coming on, which seemed the more strange, for
evening by evening it had grown lighter, and but for the clouds Steve's
great desire would have been gratified, and he would have seen the
midnight sun.

On this particula