.

When the whole party was re-assembled the hour was so late, and they had
all been so thoroughly excited, that no one felt inclined to sleep
again. It was resolved, therefore, at once to commence the operations
of a new day. Butterface was set to prepare coffee, and the Eskimos
began breakfast with strips of raw blubber, while steaks of Leo's bear
were being cooked.

Meanwhile Chingatok expressed a wish to see the drawing which had so
nearly cost the artist his life.

Alf was delighted to exhibit and explain it.

For some time the giant gazed at it in silence. Then he rested his
forehead in his huge hand as if in meditation.

It was truly a clever sketch of a surpassingly lovely scene. In the
foreground was part of the island with its pearl-grey rocks, red-brown
earth, and green mosses, in the midst of which lay a calm pool, like the
island's eye looking up to heaven and reflecting the bright
indescribable blue of the midnight sky. Further on was a mass of cold
grey rocks. Beyond lay the northern ice-pack, which extended in chaotic
confusion away to the distant horizon, but the chaos was somewhat
relieved by the presence of lakelets which shone here and there over its
surface like shields of glittering azure and burnished gold.

"Ask him what he thinks of it," said Leo to Anders, a little surprised
at Chingatok's prolonged silence.

"I cannot speak," answered the giant, "my mind is bursting and my heart
is full. With my finger I have drawn faces on the snow. I have seen
men put wonderful things on flat rocks with a piece of stone, but
this!--this is my country made little. It looks as if I could walk in
it, yet it is flat!"

"The giant is rather complimentary," laughed Benjy, when this was
translated; "to my eye your sketch is little better than a daub."

"It is a daub that causes me much anxiety," said the Captain, who now
looked at the drawing for the first time. "D'you mean to tell me, Alf,
that you've been true to nature when you sketched that pack?"

"As true as I could make it, uncle."

"I'll answer for its truth," said Leo, "and so will Benjy, for we both
saw the view from the top of the island, though we paid little heed to
it, being too much occupied with Alf and the bear at the time. The pack
is even more rugged than he has drawn it, and it extends quite unbroken
to the horizon."

The Captain's usually hopeful expression forsook him for a little as he
commented on his bad fortune.