To stalk or crawl up to an animal within shooting distance upon a level prairie, where there is no sign of bush or tree, not so much as a big clump of grass, is a difficult task which it takes a Red Indian to achieve, with his peculiar powers of creeping along the ground almost like a caterpillar, moving, as it were, upon his crooked fingers and his toes; but out upon a rocky shore, among piled-up masses of ice, many of them big enough to hide a couple of hundred men, the stalking appeared to be simplicity itself, and the three bearers of firearms stepped jauntily along toward the walrus herd, screening themselves behind the masses of ice with more than one slip and stumble. The scene was brilliant in the extreme, with the sun's rays darting from the broken fragments so lately deposited by the ice pressure, which was all that remained of the terrible convulsion of nature in which the expedition so nearly came to utter destruction. Saving the cries of the sea-birds and the ripple of the waves on the shore, there was not a sound to be heard. The water had regained its balance, so to speak, and to right and left, as far as they could see, there was a dark, open space of about a quarter of a mile wide on an average between the rugged ice-piled shore and the pack, with comparatively few fragments, flashing with light as they glided along in the now gentle current. In their passage in the boat through the gloomy chasm the cold had been intense; but a few minutes' climbing over the ice in the clear sunshine, carrying a heavy rifle and ammunition, resulted in a pause behind a huge mass of piled-up ice, where flat piece after flat piece had been thrust one above the other, and a declaration that it was very hot. "Hist!" whispered Johannes, who, with Jakobsen, was their companion on land once more. "A sound may alarm the walrus." "But I should have thought they would be tame enough up here," said Steve. "They can't have seen men before. Couldn't we walk up to them boldly?" The Norseman shook his head. "They have other enemies beside man, sir, and they are suspicious of anything strange which they see moving. Look," he continued, pointing downward from the height to which they had climbed. "What at? More walrus?" "No, sir; that shining water. We need not have left the boat. It is the continuation of the passage we came through, and you can trace it from those great blocks of ice right away in and out to the sea." "All but in that one place not so very far from where we left the boat." "Yes; the ice-floe was thrust right over it there. It may have choked it up, but perhaps there is a way under the ice. Great floes like that in motion yesterday would easily be thrust right over such a narrow canal. Look what has been done here." "Then, if we can row right through to the sea that will be grand," said Steve; "because it will make it so easy if we can explore along the coast in the boat."