unhealthy and
altogether miserable. We had to keep up our spirits, whatever else we
did; and after a while, to help us with this, we got into regular
habits; and we set a great clock up in the sky to tell us the time of
day."

"A clock up in the sky!" exclaimed both the boys; "why, Captain Hardy,
how was that?"

"Why, don't you see, my lads, the 'Great Bear' and all the other
constellations of the north go round and round the Pole-star, which is
right above your head; and it so happened that I knew the 'Great Bear,'
and the two stars in its side called 'the Pointers' because they point
to the Pole-star. Now these two 'Pointers,' going around once in the
four-and-twenty hours, pointed up from the south at one time, and up
from the north at another time, and up from the east and from the west
in the same way; and thus you see we had a clock up in the sky to tell
us the time of day, for we had an iceberg picked out all around for
every hour, and when 'the Pointers' stood over that particular berg we
knew what time it was.

"We should have got along through the winter much more comfortably if we
had had some books, or some paper to write on, and pen and ink to write
with; but these things were quite beyond the reach of our ingenuity. So
our life was very monotonous; doing our daily duties,--that is, whatever
we might find to do,--and, after wading through the deep snow in doing
it, we came back again to our little hut to get warm, and to eat and
talk and sleep.

"And much talking we did, as I can assure you, about each other, and
each other's life, and what great things we would do when we got away
from the island, hopeless though that seemed. Thus we came gradually to
know each other's history, and thus there came to be greater sympathy
between us, and more indulgence of each other's whims and fancies, as we
got better and better acquainted.

"The Dean had quite a story to relate of himself. He told me that he was
born in the great city of New York. His father died before he could
remember, and his mother was very poor; but so long as she kept her
health she managed, in one way or another, to live along from day to day
by sewing; and she managed, too, to send the Dean to school. She loved
her bright-haired little boy so very, very much that she would have
spent the last cent she could ever earn, could she only give her darling
Dean a little knowledge that might help him on in the world when he grew
to be a man. And