It was a hard journey.  Some of the men were ill.  These had to be drawn on the sleds by the rest.  They had not enough food.  At one time they rested three days in a kind of cave.  Here they found many birds’ eggs.  These made very good food for them.  At another place they staid a week.  They staid just to eat the eggs of the wild birds.

After they left this place, they were hungry.  The men grew thinner and thinner.  It seemed that they must die for want of food.  But one day they saw a large seal.  He was floating on a piece of ice.  The hungry men thought, “What a fine din-ner he would make for us!” If they could get the seal, they would not die of hunger.

Every one of the poor fellows trembled for fear the seal would wake up.  A man named Pe-ter-sen took a gun, and got ready to shoot.  The men rowed the boat toward the seal.  They rowed slowly and quietly.  But the seal waked up.  He raised his head.  The men thought that he would jump off into the water.  Then they might all die for want of food.

Doctor Kane made a motion to Pe-ter-sen.  That was to tell him to shoot quickly.  But Peter-sen did not shoot.  He was so much afraid that the seal would get away, that he could not shoot.  The seal now raised himself a little more.  He was getting ready to jump into the water.  Just then Petersen fired.  The seal fell dead on the ice.

[Illustration:  A Seal]

The men were wild with joy.  They rowed the boats with all their might.  When they got to the seal, they dragged it farther away from the water.  They were so happy, that they danced on the ice.  Some of them laughed.  Some were so glad, that they cried. [Illustration:  Shooting the Seal.]

Then they took their knives and began to cut up the seal.  They had no fire on the ice, and they were too hungry to think of lighting one.  So they ate the meat of the seal without waiting to cook it.

DOCTOR KANE GETS OUT OF THE FROZEN SEA.

After they got the seal, Doctor Kane and his men traveled on.  Sometimes they were on the ice.  Sometimes they were in the boats.  The men were so weak, that they could hardly row the boats.  They were so hungry, that they could not sleep well at night.

One day they were rowing, when they heard a sound.  It came to them across the water.  It did not sound like the cry of sea birds.  It sounded like people’s voices.

“Listen!” Doctor Kane said to Pe-ter-sen.

Petersen spoke the same language as the people of Greenland.  He listened.  The sound came again.  Pe-ter-sen was so glad, that he could hardly speak.  He told Kane in a half whisper, that it was the voice of some one speaking his own language.  It was some Greenland men in a boat.

The next day they got to a Greenland town.  Then they got into a little ship going to England.  They knew that they could get home from England.  But the ship stopped at another Green-land town.  While they were there, a steamer was seen.  It came nearer.  They could see the stars and stripes flying from her mast.  It was an American steamer sent to find Doctor Kane.