Harry and Joe looked at each other. They also had been carefully examining the object through the glass, and each thought it might be a man, fur-clad and lying in a heap, dead or exhausted. “I don’t care,” said Joe; “I’m going to speak to father, if he _is_ tired out. We don’t want to take chances of passing any one that way.” He hastened below with Harry at his heels, both with hearts swelling with indignation. They knew that Mr. Jones was probably right in his guess, but the thought of the possibility of a fellow creature floating thus into the desolate Arctic winter filled them with pity and a great desire to leave nothing to chance. Captain Nickerson listened to their story with attention, and so eager and excited were they that he finally gave them permission to have Mr. Jones stop the ship long enough for them to man the dingey and investigate. “Can you make it with the dingey?” he asked. “Oh, yes, sir,” replied Joe. “There’s a narrow lead or two that will take us part way, and the dingey is so light that we can haul her across in the other places.” The dingey had been the special care of the boys, and rarely used except by them. They had been duck shooting in her during the summer, when whales were not in sight, and had kept the ship’s larder well supplied with the great ducks which swarm in that region all summer long. They had fitted her with a light sail and a few reserve provisions,—a tin or two of meat and some hard-tack, in case they should happen to be away over meal time. There was also a small keg of fresh water, and in the locker forward a one-burner oil stove with tea, sugar, and condensed milk, by way of refreshment. The boatswain used to laugh at this “life-boat,” as he called it, but the arrangement had often been useful, and the little craft was very handy at all times. Mr. Jones did not look particularly happy when he heard the order to stop and lower the dingey, but he did as requested and the boat was soon on its way. The boys entered one of the narrow leads in the floe which barred their way, traversed it to its end, and hauled their boat out. It was some way across to another open space and this did not take them far in the right direction, but it led to where they could haul to another, and so little by little they won their way across. As they came to the open water, they found to their chagrin that other ice-fields had crowded in between them and their object, and they were obliged to make a wide and winding detour to approach it. Distance is always far greater than it looks to be in the Arctic, and they were fully an hour in getting near the motionless heap. At last the dingey grazed the floating cake and they sprang out on it, dropped the ice anchor at the end of the two-fathomed painter into a chink in the ice, and hastened toward the motionless object.