gs a little food. When this latter
process had been completed, the teams became so lively that they tried
to runaway.

"Let them run," said the Captain to Leo.

"And help them on," added Benjy.

Leo took the advice of both, applied the lash, and increased the speed
so much that the sledge swung from side to side on the smooth places,
sometimes catching on a lump of ice, and all but throwing out its
occupants. The Eskimos entered into the spirit of their leaders. They
also plied their lashes, and, being more dexterous than Leo, soon
converted the journey into a race, in which Chingatok--his giant arm
flourishing an appropriately huge whip--was rapidly coming to the front
when a tremendous shout in the rear caused them to pull up. Looking
back, Alf's sledge was seen inverted and mixed, as it were, with the
team, while Alf himself and his Eskimo friends were sprawling around on
the ice. No damage was done to life or limb, but a sledge-runner had
been partially broken, and could not be mended,--so said Oolichuk--in
less than an hour.

"This, then," said the Captain, "is our first obstruction, so here we
will make our beds for the night."

CHAPTER ELEVEN.

ANOTHER ISLAND DISCOVERED--THE ENGLISHMEN AND ESKIMOS ALIKE ARE
ASTONISHED IN MORE WAYS THAN ONE.

As Chingatok had predicted, on the sixth day from Home-in-sight Island
the party came to another island, where the great pack abruptly
terminated. It was not large, probably ten or twelve miles in length,
from the Eskimo account, but the ends of it could not be seen from the
spot where they landed. At that point it was only two miles wide, and
on the opposite side its shores were laved by an open sea, which was
quite free from ice, with the exception of a few scattered floes and
bergs--a sea whose waves fell in slow regular cadence on a pebbly beach,
and whose horizon was an unbroken line barely distinguishable from the
sky.

Close to it a few black rocks showed above the water, around which great
numbers of gulls, puffins, and other sea-birds disported themselves in
clamorous joy; sometimes flying to the shore as if to have a look at the
newcomers, and then sheering off with a scream--it might be a laugh--to
tell their comrades what they had seen.

"Here, then, at last, is the open Polar Sea," said Captain Vane, after
the first long silent gaze of joy and admiration. "I have no doubt of
it whatever. And now we shall proceed, I hope without interrupti