As soon as we struck the ice the captain's slop-chest was broken open and skin clothes were dealt out to the men. Accoutred for cold weather, I wore woolen underwear and yarn socks next my flesh; an outer shirt of squirrel skin with hood or parka; pants and vest of hair seal of the color and sheen of newly minted silver; a coat of dogskin that reached almost to my knees; a dogskin cap; deer-skin socks with the hair inside over my yarn socks; walrus-hide boots and walrus-hide mittens over yarn mittens. The walrus-boots were fastened by a gathering string just below the knees and by thongs of tanned skin about the ankle. Some of the men wore heavy reindeer-skin coats. The skin clothes worn by the officers and boat-steerers were of finer quality and more pretentious. Perhaps the handsomest costume was that of Little Johnny. It consisted of coat, vest, and trousers of silvery hair-seal, with the edges of the coat trimmed with the snowwhite fur of fur-seal pups. With this he wore a black dogskin cap and walrus-hide boots. While we were among the ice, the officer in the crow's nest directed the course of the brig. Whaling officers are great fellows to show their skill by just grazing dangerous ice. Many a time we green hands stood with our hearts in our mouths as the ship seemed about to crash into a 'berg bows-on. "Starboard, sir," the helmsman would respond. "Starboard," would come the order from aloft. [Illustration: Waiting For the Floes to Open] The bow would swing slowly to one side and the 'berg would go glancing along the rail so close perhaps that we could have grabbed a snowball off some projection. "Steady," the officer would call. "Steady, sir." The bow would stop in its lateral swing. "Port." "Port, sir." The bow would swing the other way. "Steady." We would be upon our old course again. Once I remember the mate was in the crow's nest and had been narrowly missing ice all day for the fun of the thing--"showing off," as we rather disturbed green hands said. A 'berg about thirty feet high, a giant for Behring Sea waters, showed a little ahead and to leeward of our course. The mate thought he could pass to windward. He kept the brig close to the wind until the 'berg was very near. Then he saw a windward passage was impossible and tried suddenly to go to leeward. "Hard up your wheel," he cried. "Hard up it is, sir." The bow swung toward the 'berg--swung slowly, slowly across it. The tip of the jib-boom almost rammed a white pinnacle. Just when everybody was expecting the brig to pile up in wreck on the ice, the great 'berg swept past our starboard rail. But we had not missed it. Its jagged edges scraped a line an inch deep along our side from bow to stern.