rectly from the land.
Snow began to fall soon after midday, and by sundown a living blizzard
howled over the frozen ocean. None of the distant neighbors had seen
Uncle Rube set out; none of them even knew that he had left his
house; no one before ever heard of his doing such a thing as start
out on the ice alone. Nor was it till the next day that a half-frozen
little girl, who was heard crying in the snow in front of a neighbor's
house, disclosed the secret that Uncle Rube was missing.

How had they known at all that there were seals on the ice that day?
Known? Why, Mark Seaforth had gone all along the coast telling them
early in the morning. He had got the news from the lighthouse, and it
was the oldest of customs to give all hands a chance whenever the
seals were sighted driving alongshore.

It had not been the material ear drum to which the old man had
listened for his sailing orders. On that day especially he had heard
with other ears, and all the coast freed Mark from any blame for the
old sailor's having understood "ships" instead of "seals."

Late in the sealing season of that same year the good ship Artemis, a
stout, steel-sheathed ice hunter, a unit of the modern fleet that have
long ago displaced the wooden schooners that once in hundreds followed
the seal herds, was steaming north to finish up shooting old harps in
the swatches, having lost a number of her pans in bad weather farther
south. Seals were scarce on the west side, and the wireless had warned
the skipper that a patch of old seals was passing eastward through the
Straits. Cape Bauld Light had been sighted, and so also had the new
light on Belle Isle. The barrelmen were eagerly scanning the ice for
any signs of the expected herd.

"Something black on the ice on the port bow!" shouted the man from the
foretop.

"Where away?" answered the master of the bridge.

"About four points to the northwest."

"Hard astarboard!" from the bridge.

"Starboard hard!" from the wheel, and the big ship wheeled a course
direct for the Red Island Shoals.

"Steady!" from the bridge.

"Steady it is!" And the Artemis wheeled a little more, and leaving the
shoals on her right, steamed towards the object that had attracted the
attention of the watch. The bridge master, viewing it through his
glasses, suddenly stopped short, fixing his gaze on the spot with far
more than his wonted intensity.

"What is it, John?" he said to the watchman. "Seems queer to me. It's