Fred and the doctor go on an excursion in which, among other strange things, they meet with red snow and a white bear, and Fred makes his first essay as a sportsman.
But where were Fred Ellice and Tom Singleton all this time? the reader will probably ask.
Long before the game at football was suggested they had obtained leave of absence from the captain, and, loaded with game-bag, a botanical box and geological hammer, and a musket, were off along the coast on a semi-scientific cruise. Young Singleton carried the botanical box and hammer, being an enthusiastic geologist and botanist, while Fred carried the game-bag and musket.
"You see, Tom," he said as they stumbled along over the loose ice towards the ice-belt that lined the cliffs—"you see, I'm a great dab at ornithology, especially when I've got a gun on my shoulder. When I haven't a gun, strange to say, I don't feel half so enthusiastic about birds!"
"That's a very peculiar style of regarding the science. Don't you think it would be worth while communicating your views on the subject to one of the scientific bodies when we get home again. They might elect you a member, Fred."
"Well, perhaps I shall," replied Fred gravely; "but I say, to be serious, I'm really going to screw up my energies as much as possible, and make coloured drawings of all the birds I can get hold of in the Arctic Regions. At least, I would like to try."
Fred finished his remark with a sigh, for just then the object for which he had gone out to those regions occurred to him; and although the natural buoyancy and hopefulness of his feelings enabled him generally to throw off anxiety in regard to his father's fate, and join in the laugh, and jest, and game as heartily as any one on board, there were times when his heart failed him, and he almost despaired of ever seeing his father again, and these feelings of despondency had been more frequent since the day on which he witnessed the sudden and utter destruction of the strange brig.
"Don't let your spirits down, Fred," said Tom, whose hopeful and earnest disposition often reanimated his friend's drooping spirits; "it will only unfit you for doing any good service. Besides, I think we have no cause yet to despair. We know that your father came up this inlet, or strait, or whatever it is, and he had a good stock of provisions with him, according to the account we got at Upernavik, and it is not more than a year since he was there. Many and many a whaler and discovery ship has wintered more than a year in these regions. And then, consider the immense amount of animal life all round us. They might have laid up provisions for many months long before winter set in."
"I know all that," replied Fred, with a shake of his head; "but think of yon brig that we saw go down in about ten minutes."
"Well, so I do think of it. No doubt the brig was lost very suddenly, but there was ample time, had there been any one on board, to have leaped upon the ice, and they might have got to land by jumping from one piece to another. Such things have happened before frequently. To say truth, at every point of land we turn, I feel a sort of expectation amounting almost to certainty that we shall find your father and his party travelling southward on their way to the Danish settlements."
"Perhaps you are right. God grant that it may be so!"
As he spoke, they reached the fixed ice which ran along the foot of the precipices for some distance like a road of hard white marble. Many large rocks lay scattered over it, some of them several tons in weight, and one or two balanced in a very remarkable way on the edge of the cliffs.
"There's a curious-looking gull I should like to shoot," exclaimed Fred, pointing to a bird that hovered over his head, and throwing forward the muzzle of his gun.
"Fire away, then," said his friend, stepping back a pace.
Fred, being unaccustomed to the use of fire-arms, took a wavering aim and fired.
"What a bother! I've missed it!"
"Try again," remarked Tom with a quiet smile, as the whole cliff vomited forth an innumerable host of birds, whose cries were perfectly deafening.
"It's my opinion," said Fred with a comical grin, "that if I shut my eyes and point upwards I can't help hitting something; but I particularly want yon fellow, because he's beautifully marked. Ah! I see him sitting on a rock yonder, so here goes once more."
Fred now proceeded towards the coveted bird in the fashion that is known by the name of stalking—that is, creeping as close up to your game as possible, so as to get a good shot; and it said much for his patience and his future success the careful manner in which, on this occasion, he wound himself in and out among the rocks and blocks of ice on the shore in the hope of obtaining that sea-gull. At last he succeeded in getting to within about fifteen yards of it, and then, resting his musket on a lump of ice, and taking an aim so long and steadily that his companion began to fancy he must have gone to sleep, he fired, and blew the gull to atoms! There was scarcely so much as a shred of it to be found.
Fred bore his disappointment and discomfiture manfully. He formed a resolution then and there to become a good shot, and although he did not succeed exactly in becoming so that day, he nevertheless managed to put several fine specimens of gulls and an auk into his bag. The last bird amused him much, being a creature with a dumpy little body and a beak of preposterously large size and comical aspect. There were also a great number of eider-ducks flying about, but they failed to procure a specimen.
Singleton was equally successful in his scientific researches. He found several beautifully green mosses, one species of which was studded with pale yellow flowers, and in one place, where a stream trickled down the steep sides of the cliffs, he discovered a flower-growth which was rich in variety of colouring. Amid several kinds of tufted grasses were seen growing a small purple flower and the white star of the chickweed; The sight of all this richness of vegetation growing in a little spot close beside the snow, and amid such cold Arctic scenery, would have delighted a much less enthusiastic spirit than that of our young surgeon. He went quite into raptures with it, and stuffed his botanical box with mosses and rocks until it could hold no more, and became a burden that cost him a few sighs before he got back to the ship.
The rocks were found to consist chiefly of red sandstone. There was also a good deal of green-stone and gneiss, and some of the spires of these that shot up to a considerable height were particularly striking and picturesque objects.
But the great sight of the day's excursion was that which unexpectedly greeted their eyes on rounding a cape towards which they had been walking for several hours. On passing this point they stopped with an exclamation of amazement. Before them lay a scene such as the Arctic Regions alone can produce.
In front lay a vast reach of the strait, which at this place opened up abruptly and stretched away northward, laden with floes, and fields, and hummocks, and bergs of every shade and size, to the horizon, where the appearance of the sky indicated open water. Ponds of various sizes and sheets of water whose dimensions entitled them to be styled lakes spangled the white surface of the floes; and around these were sporting innumerable flocks of wild-fowl, many of which, being pure white, glanced like snow-flakes in the sunshine. Far off to the west the ice came down with heavy uniformity to the water's edge. On the right there was an array of cliffs whose frowning grandeur filled them with awe. They varied from twelve to fifteen hundred feet in height, and some of the precipices descended sheer down seven or eight hundred feet into the sea, over which they cast a dark shadow.
Just at the feet of our young discoverers—for such we may truly call them—a deep bay or valley trended away to the right, a large portion of which was filled with the spur of a glacier, whose surface was covered with pink snow! One can imagine with what feelings the two youths gazed on this beautiful sight. It seemed as if that valley, instead of forming a portion of the sterile region beyond the Arctic Circle, were one of the sunniest regions of the south, for a warm glow rested on the bosom of the snow, as if the sun were shedding upon it his rosiest hues. A little farther to the north the red snow ceased, or only occurred here and there in patches; and beyond it there appeared another gorge in the cliffs, within which rose ............