tortuous, and bewildering. At last they ceased
altogether, and the travellers were compelled to take an almost straight
course right over everything, for blocks, masses, and drifts on a
gigantic scale were heaved up in such dire confusion, that nothing
having the faintest resemblance to a track or passage could be found.

"It's hard work, this," remarked the Captain to Leo one evening, seating
himself on a mass of ice which he had just chopped from an obstruction,
and wiping the perspiration from his brow.

"Hard, indeed," said Leo, sitting down beside him, "I fear it begins to
tell upon poor Benjy. You should really order him to rest more than he
does, uncle."

A grim smile of satisfaction played for a minute on the Captain's rugged
face, as he glanced at his son, who, a short distance ahead, was hacking
at the ice with a pick-axe, in company with Alf and Butterface and the
Eskimo men.

"It'll do him good, lad," replied the Captain. "Hard work is just what
my Benjy needs. He's not very stout, to be sure, but there is nothing
wrong with his constitution, and he's got plenty of spirit."

This was indeed true. Benjy had too much spirit for his somewhat
slender frame, but his father, being a herculean man, did not quite
perceive that what was good for himself might be too much for his son.
Captain Vane was, however, the reverse of a harsh man. He pondered what
Leo had said, and soon afterwards went up to his son.

"Benjy, my lad."

"Yes, father," said the boy, dropping the head of his pick-axe on the
ice, resting his hands on the haft, and looking up with a flushed
countenance.

"You should rest a bit now and then, Benjy. You'll knock yourself up if
you don't."

"Rest a bit, father! Why, I've just had a rest, and I'm not tired--that
is, not very. Ain't it fun, father? And the ice cuts up so easily, and
flies about so splendidly--see here."

With flashing eyes our little hero raised his pick and drove it into the
ice at which he had been working, with all his force, so that a great
rent was made, and a mass the size of a dressing-table sprang from the
side of a berg, and, falling down, burst into a shower of sparkling
gems. But this was not all. To Benjy's intense delight, a mass of many
tons in weight was loosened by the fall of the smaller lump, and rolled
down with a thunderous roar, causing Butterface, who was too near it, to
jump out of the way with an amount of agility that threw the whole part