Mark, with the air of a boy to whom sea terms were familiar.

"I don't care," answered his sister; "they are beds for all that, and
have got pillows and sheets and counterpanes, just like the beds at
home."

Mr. Elmer found that his furniture, and the various packages of tools
intended for their Southern home, were all safe on board the schooner
and stowed down in the hold, and he soon had the trunks from the
station and the bags from the hotel brought down in a wagon.

The captain said they had better spend the night on board, as he wanted
to be off by daylight, and they might as well get to feeling at home
before they started. They thought so too; and so, after a walk through
the city, where, among other curious sights, they saw a post-office
built on a bridge, they returned to the Nancy Bell for supper.

Poor Mr. Elmer, exhausted by the unusual exertions of the day, lay
awake and coughed most of the night, but the children slept like tops.
When Mark did wake he forgot where he was, and in trying to sit up and
look around, bumped his head against the low ceiling of his berth.

Daylight was streaming in at the round glass dead-eye that served as a
window, and to Mark's great surprise he felt that the schooner was
moving. Slipping down from his berth, and quietly dressing himself, so
as not to disturb his father, he hurried on deck, where he was greeted
by "Captain Li," who told him he had come just in time to see something
interesting.

The Nancy Bell was in tow of a little puffing steam-tug, and was
already some miles from Bangor down the Penobscot River. The clouds of
steam rising into the cold air from the surface of the warmer water
were tinged with gold by the newly-risen sun. A heavy frost rested on
the spruces and balsams that fringed the banks of the river, and as the
sunlight struck one twig after another, it covered them with millions
of points like diamonds. Many cakes of ice were floating in the river,
showing that its navigation would soon be closed for the winter.

To one of these cakes of ice, towards which a boat from the schooner
was making its way, the captain directed Mark's attention. On this
cake, which was about as large as a dinner-table, stood a man anxiously
watching the approach of the boat.

"What I can't understand," said the captain, "is where he ever found a
cake of ice at this time of year strong enough to bear him up."

"Who is he? How did he get there, and what is he doing?" a