Seals were plentiful, and Hardenberg and Strokher promptly revived the
quarrel of their respective nations. Once even they slew a mammoth bull
walrus--astray from some northern herd--and played poker for the tusks.
Then suddenly they pulled themselves sharply together, and, as it were,
stood "attention."

For more than a week the schooner, following the trend of the
far-distant coast, had headed eastward, and now at length, looming out
of the snow and out of the mist, a somber bulwark, black, vast, ominous,
rose the scarps and crags of that which they came so far to see--Point
Barrow.

Hardenberg rounded the point, ran in under the lee of the land and
brought out the chart which Ryder had given him. Then he shortened sail
and moved west again till Barrow was "hull down" behind him. To the
north was the Arctic, treacherous, nursing hurricanes, ice-sheathed; but
close aboard, not a quarter of a mile off his counter, stretched a gray
and gloomy land, barren, bleak as a dead planet, inhospitable as the
moon.

For three days they crawled along the edge keeping their glasses trained
upon every bay, every inlet. Then at length, early one morning, Ally
Bazan, who had been posted at the bows, came scrambling aft to
Hardenberg at the wheel. He was gasping for breath in his excitement.

"Hi! There we are," he shouted. "O Lord! Oh, I s'y! Now we're in fer it.
That's them! That's them! By the great jumpin' jimminy Christmas, that's
them fer fair! Strike me blind for a bleedin' gutter-cat if it eyent. O
Lord! S'y, I gotta to get drunk. S'y, what-all's the first jump in the