Among its chiefs is the second naval lord, whose duties lie especially with the hearts of oak, the men behind the guns, whose courage and skill are the very soul of the service. The second naval lord has in charge the manning and officering of the war-ships; he plans the bringing together at a special place and in a given time the mighty dreadnoughts, the tiny torpedo-boats, the swaying submarines, and the swift destroyers; and he sees that gunnery, marksmanship, and other special training are up to the highest mark. Such a lord should, above all, be a man among men--one inspiring confidence both by knowing when and how times of peril should be met and also through having himself done such service in earlier life. [Illustration: Robeson Channel and Lady Franklin Bay.] Such is the life history of Admiral Sir George Le Clerc Egerton, who, passing from a high sea command to duty as the naval aid to his majesty the King, rose a few years since to this lofty station and assumed its important duties. Great as may be the respect and high as can be the admiration of the world for efficient performance of public duties by officials of high station, yet the hearts of sympathetic, tender-hearted men and women are more deeply moved whenever and where-ever they hear a tale of self-sacrifice and of heroic comradeship. Such is the story of this great naval lord, enacted by him as a sub-lieutenant far from the civilized world, on the ice-bound coast of a desolate arctic land, for the safety of an humble dog driver. The nobler the heart the greater is its sense of duty to helpless dependents in deep distress. And more heroic was the work of Lieutenant Egerton, flying his sledge flag, "_Tanq je puis_ (All that I can)," than any done under his stately flag as a naval lord or as admiral of the fleet. When Captain Nares looked longingly southward from his ship on the Arctic Ocean, wishing in his heart for word of his assistant, he was not blind to the dangers and difficulties of the journey. The preceding September gallant Lieutenant Rawson with strength and courage had pressed on to Cape Rawson. The precipitous cliffs there made a farther journey by land impossible, while the half-open sea was covered with a shifting, ever-moving ice-pack that made the ocean as impassable for a boat as the ice was for a sledge.