Meanwhile Mivins ran ahead of the others, and gave the ball a kick that nearly burst it, and down it came exactly between O’Riley and Grim, who chanced to be far ahead of the others.  Grim dashed at it.  “Och! ye big villain,” muttered the Irishman to himself, as he put down his head and rushed against the carpenter like a battering-ram.

Big though he was, Grim staggered back from the impetuous shock, and O’Riley following up his advantage, kicked the ball in a side direction, away from every one except Buzzby, who happened to have been steering rather wildly over the field of ice.  Buzzby, on being brought thus unexpectedly within reach of the ball, braced up his energies for a kick; but seeing O’Riley coming down towards him like a runaway locomotive, he pulled up, saying quietly to himself, “Ye may take it all yer own way, lad; I’m too old a bird to go for to make my carcass a buffer for a madcap like you to run agin.”

Jack Mivins, however, was troubled by no such qualms.  He happened to be about the same distance from the ball as O’Riley, and ran like a deer to reach it first.  A pool of water lay in his path, however, and the necessity of going round it enabled the Irishman to gain on him a little, so that it became evident that both would come up at the same moment, and a collision be inevitable.

“Hold yer wind, Paddy,” shouted the men, who paused for a moment to watch the result of the race.  “Mind your timbers, Mivins!  Back your top-sails, O’Riley; mind how he yaws!”

Then there was a momentary silence of breathless expectation.  The two men seemed about to meet with a shock that would annihilate both, when Mivins bounded to one side like an indiarubber ball.  O’Riley shot past him like a rocket, and the next instant went head foremost into the pool of water.

This unexpected termination to the affair converted the intended huzzah of the men into a yell of mingled laughter and consternation as they hastened in a body to the spot; but before they reached it, O’Riley’s head and shoulders reappeared, and when they came up he was standing on the margin of the pool blowing like a walrus.

“Oh! then, but it is cowld!” he exclaimed, wringing the water from his garments.  “Och! where’s the ball? give me a kick or I’ll freeze! so I will.”

As he spoke the drenched Irishman seized the ball from Mivins’s hands and gave it a kick that sent it high into the air.  He was too wet and heavy to follow it up, however, so he ambled off towards the ship as vigorously as his clothes would allow him, followed by the whole crew.

CHAPTER VIII.

Fred and the doctor go on an excursion in which, among other strange things, they meet with red snow and a white bear, and Fred makes his first essay as a sportsman.

But where were Fred Ellice and Tom Singleton all this time? the reader will probably ask.