“There!” ejaculated Burnham, who, though in his shirt-sleeves, was perspiring freely and panting after his work; “so far, so good. Let us go into the studio and sit down and rest while _our guest_”--I was struck with the quaintness of the epithet as applied to the corpse in the next room, as also with the emphasis Burnham gave it--“sheds the remnant of the crystal mantle he has worn for who shall say how many thousand years. It will take at least half an hour before he is completely thawed out, and meanwhile, if you like, I will tell you how I managed to run across him in the Far North.” We were all curious to know, so Burnham gave the following details: “After leaving San Francisco in March, last year, we sailed North with the intention of reaching Behring Sea by the time the ice broke up, hoping to do well enough with whales and seals to return before the season closed. I had, of course, made my arrangements with the captain, going as a volunteer, to do duty or not as I pleased, and living in the cabin. We had the usual adventures which are part and parcel of a whaler’s experience, and which I will not bother you with, as they are not germane to the question, and I found my health improving wonderfully under the influence of the fresh air, exercise, and excitement. “By June we had passed Behring Straits and then cruised for a good many weeks in the open sea beyond; but our luck was bad, and, owing to trying to better it before we left, we waited too long; worse than that, we were caught by a storm which blew us nearly due north for several days to a point some hundred miles east of Banks’s Land and the Parry Isles; and before we knew where we were, we found ourselves shut in by the ice, luckily in the lee of some bluffs, forming part of a small island only a few square miles in extent, to which circumstance alone we could attribute the escape of our vessel from being crushed by the ice-pack. Subsequent observations showed that we were in longitude 162 degrees W. and about latitude 76 degrees N.--a point, by the way, rarely reached by navigators even under the most exceptionally favorable circumstances. There was nothing for it, however, but to make the best of a bad job and prepare to winter it out with the best grace we could. Luckily we had plenty of provisions--I had looked after the matter of commissariat, personally, before embarking--and I think I may safely say that few whalers ever wintered in the Arctic circle better equipped in that respect than we were.