t, the rest of the
task was easy.

"But suppose, when we've got up there, we get frozen in, doctor?" I
said.

"Well, what then?" he answered. "We can wait, till we are thawed out."

"Perhaps all dead," I said.

"Pooh, my dear sir! No such thing. Freezing merely means a suspension
of the faculties. I will give you an example soon."

"Well, Binny," said Abram slowly, after overhearing these words, "I
don't want my faculties suspended; that's all I've got to say!"

The next day we were working our way through great canals of clear
water, that meandered among the pack ice. There were great headlands on
each side, covered with ice and snow, and the solitude seemed to grow
awful, but the doctor kept us all busy. Now it was a seal hunt; then we
were all off after a bear. Once or twice we had a reindeer hunt, and
supplied the ship with fresh meat. Bird shooting, too, and fishing had
their turn, so that it was quite a pleasure trip when the difficulties
of the navigation left us free.

Eighty degrees had long been passed, and still our progress was not
stayed. We often had a bit of a nip from the ice closing in, and over
and over again we had to turn back; but we soon found open water again,
after steaming gently along the edge of the track, and thence northward
once more, till one day the doctor and I took observations, and we found
that we were eighty-five degrees north, somewhere about a hundred miles
farther than any one had been before.

"We shall do it, Cookson!" cried the doctor, rubbing his hands. "Only
five more degrees, my lad, and we have made our fame! Cookson, my boy,
you'll be knighted!"

"I hope not, sir!" I said, shuddering, as I thought of the City
aldermen. "I would rather be mourned!"

"That's a bad habit, trying to make jokes," he said, gravely. "Fancy,
my good fellow, making a pun in eighty-five degrees north latitude! but
I'm not surprised. There is no latitude observed now, since burlesques
have come into fashion. Where are you going, Cookson!"

"Up in the crow's-nest, sir," I said. "I don't like the look of the
hummocky ice out nor'ard."

I climbed up, spy-glass in hand, when, to my horror, the doctor began to
follow me.

"That there crow's-nest won't abear you, sir!" cried Scudds, coming to
the rescue.

"Think not, my man?" said the doctor.

"Sure on't!" said Scudds.

"Ah, well, I'm with you in spirit, Cookson!" he exclaimed.

And I finished my climb, and well swe