The doctor looked doubtful, and Steve felt glad, for he thought the captain was taking matters too coolly. "Well," continued that gentleman, turning to the doctor, "supposing that it was your misfortune to be cast ashore on this desolate place, what would be the first thing you would try to do?" "Try to get away," replied the doctor, smiling. "Exactly; and if you had no means of getting away, would you not hoist a flag on some prominent place where it would be seen by a passing vessel?" "Of course." "Where is the spar, then, hoisted on the cliff?" The doctor shook his head, and Steve gazed up and along the top of the long, level height, which looked like a mighty rampart at the foot of a snowy pyramid. "Here, what do you say, Johannes? You have had plenty of experience of sea life. Where is the crew of this schooner?" The man shook his head and smiled. "Who knows, sir?" he said. "I don't think they ever landed here. It was a deserted ship when it came ashore." "Why do you say that?" said the doctor sharply. "I see nothing, sir: no timbers or spars dragged up the beach; not a sign of anything having been moored." At that moment the dog, which had followed them, quietly waiting for the first shot to be fired, when his task of retrieving the game would begin, uttered an uneasy whimper and cocked his ears. "Quiet, Skeny! What is it?" said Steve, stooping to pat him. "Only getting impatient." "Yes," said the captain, "and we may as well move on. No, doctor, there is nobody to search for, so let's take a tramp for a few miles, try and pick up a few wild fowl, and get back on board. Eh? you have something to say, Jakobsen?" he continued, as he caught the second Norwegian's eye. "Only that I think as Johannes does, sir, that you are right. She was a forsaken vessel when she struck there." "Forward, then," cried the captain, shouldering his gun; and they dropped down on to the drift of sand below her, walked round by the bow, and, keeping a sharp look-out for game, tramped away northward, but bearing for the cliff, where at one point a glacier came right down, and at its foot the snow lay in a long slope; not soft, flocculent snow fresh fallen, but a collection of hard pellets, more resembling a gigantic heap of the remains seen after a very heavy hail-storm. But it was suggestive to Skene of the mountain-side far away beyond the Clyde at home, and with a sharp bark he dashed at it, thrust his nose in the cool, rounded fragments, and then cast himself upon his side to plough his way through them, sniffling and snuffling the while, as if he were trying to find snow-buried sheep after a winter's gale. "Goot tog, goot tog," muttered Andrew, who carried the spare rifle, and he shifted it from one shoulder to the other. "Ah, laddie," he whispered to Steve, "how it 'minds me o' bonnie Scotland."