alled "ancient sea" was absolutely juvenile. On
the ice-plain, which was apparently illimitable to the right and left,
were hundreds of pools of water in which the icebergs, the golden
clouds, the sun, and the blue sky were reflected, and on the surface of
which myriads of Arctic wild-fowl were sporting about, making the air
vocal with their plaintive cries, and ruffling the glassy surfaces of
the lakes with their dipping wings. The heads of seals were also
observed here and there.

"These will stop us at last," said Alf, pointing to the bergs with a
profound sigh.

"No, they won't," remarked the Captain quietly. "_Nothing_ will stop
us!"

"That's true, anyhow, uncle," returned Alf; "for if it be, as Chingatok
thinks, that we are in search of nothing, of course when we find
nothing, nothing will stop us!"

"Why, Alf," said Leo, "I wonder that you, who are usually in an
enthusiastic and poetical frame of mind, should be depressed by distant
difficulties, instead of admiring such a splendid sight of birds and
beasts enjoying themselves in what I may style an Arctic heaven. You
should take example by Benjy."

That youth did indeed afford a bright example of rapt enthusiasm just
then, for, standing a little apart by himself, he gazed at the scene
with flushed face, open mouth, and glittering eyes, in speechless
delight.

"Ask Chingatok if he ever saw this range before," said the Captain to
Anders, on recovering from his first feeling of surprise.

No, Chingatok had never seen it, except, indeed, the tops of the bergs--
at sea, in the far distance--but he had often heard of it from some of
his countrymen, who, like himself, were fond of exploring. But that sea
of ice was not there, he said, when he had passed on his journey
southward. It had drifted there, since that time, from the great sea.

"Ah! the great sea that he speaks of is just what we must find and cross
over," muttered the Captain to himself.

"But how are we to cross over it, uncle?" asked Leo.

The Captain replied with one of his quiet glances. His followers had
long become accustomed to this silent method of declining to reply, and
forbore to press the subject.

"Come now, boys, get ready to descend to the plain. We'll have to do it
with caution."

There was, indeed, ground for caution. We have said that they had
climbed to an elevated plateau on one of the small bergs which formed
the outside margin of the rugged ice. The side of thi