ing his own nose frequently by way of expressing
satisfaction or friendship, and otherwise exchanging compliments with
the no less amiable and gratified crew of the steam yacht _Whitebear_.

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Note. The oomiak is the open boat of skin used by Eskimo _women_, and
is capable of holding several persons. The kayak, or man's canoe, holds
only one.

CHAPTER THREE.

SHOWS HOW THE ESKIMOS WERE ENTERTAINED BY THE WHITE MEN.

The _Whitebear_ steam yacht, owned and commanded by Captain Jacob Vane,
had sailed from England, and was bound for the North Pole.

"I'll find it--I'm bound to find it," was the Captain's usual mode of
expressing himself to his intimates on the subject, "if there's a North
Pole in the world at all, and my nephews Leo and Alf will help me.
Leo's a doctor, _almost_, and Alf's a scientific Jack-of-all-trades, so
we can't fail. I'll take my boy Benjy for the benefit of his health,
and see if we don't bring home a chip o' the Pole big enough to set up
beside Cleopatra's Needle on the Thames embankment."

There was tremendous energy in Captain Vane, and indomitable resolution;
but energy and resolution cannot achieve all things. There are other
factors in the life of man which help to mould his destiny.

Short and sad and terrible--ay, we might even say tremendous--was the
_Whitebear's_ wild career.

Up to the time of her meeting with the Eskimos, all had gone well. Fair
weather and favouring winds had blown her across the Atlantic. Sunshine
and success had received her, as it were, in the Arctic regions. The
sea was unusually free of ice. Upernavik, the last of the Greenland
settlements touched at, was reached early in the season, and the native
interpreter Anders secured. The dreaded "middle passage," near the head
of Baffin's Bay, was made in the remarkably short space of fifty hours,
and, passing Cape York into the North Water, they entered Smith's Sound
without having received more than a passing bump--an Arctic kiss as it
were--from the Polar ice.

In Smith's Sound fortune still favoured them. These resolute intending
discoverers of the North Pole passed in succession the various
"farthests" of previous explorers, and the stout brothers Vandervell,
with their cousin Benjy Vane, gazed eagerly over the bulwarks at the
swiftly-passing headlands, while the Captain pointed out the places of
interest, and kept up a run