“Well now, gentlemen,” resumed the captain, “let us consider the order of business.  The first thing that must be done now is to unstow the hold and deposit its contents on the small island astern of us, which we shall call Store Island, for brevity’s sake.  Get a tent pitched there, Mr. Bolton, and bank it up with snow.  You can leave Grim to superintend the unloading.—­Then, Mr. Saunders, do you go and set a gang of men to cut a canal through the young ice from the ship to the island.  Fortunately the floes there are wide enough apart to let our quarter-boats float between them.  The unshipping won’t take long.  Tell Buzzby to take a dozen men with him and collect moss; we’ll need a large quantity for fuel, and if another storm like this comes it’ll be hard work to get down to it.  Send Meetuck to me when you go on deck; I shall talk to him as to our prospects of finding deer hereabouts, and arrange a hunt.—­Doctor, you may either join the hunting-party, or post up the observations, etc., which have accumulated of late.”

“Thank you, captain,” said Singleton; “I’ll accept the latter duty, the more willingly that I wish to have a careful examination of my botanical specimens.”

“And what am I to do, captain?” inquired Fred.

“What you please, lad.”

“Then I’ll go and take care of Meetuck; he’s apt to get into mischief when left—­”

At this moment a tremendous shout of laughter, long continued, came from the deck, and a sound as if numbers of men dancing overhead was heard.

The party in the cabin seized their caps and sprang up the companion ladder, where they beheld a scene that accounted for the laughter, and induced them to join in it.  At first sight it seemed as if thirty Polar bears had boarded the vessel, and were executing a dance of triumph before proceeding to make a meal of the crew; but on closer inspection it became apparent that the men had undergone a strange transformation, and were capering with delight at the ridiculous appearance they presented.  They were clad from head to foot in Esquimau costume, and now bore as strong a resemblance to Polar bears as man could attain to.

Meetuck was the pattern and the chief instrument in effecting this change.  At Upernavik Captain Guy had been induced to purchase a large number of fox-skins, deer-skins, seal-skins, and other furs, as a speculation, and had them tightly packed and stowed away in the hold, little imagining the purpose they were ultimately destined to serve.  Meetuck had come on board in a mongrel sort of worn-out seal-skin dress; but the instant the cold weather set in he drew from a bundle which he had brought with him a dress made of the fur of the Arctic fox, some of the skins being white and the others blue.  It consisted of a loose coat, somewhat in the form of a shirt, with a large hood to it, and a short elongation behind like the commencement of a tail.  The boots were made of white bear-skin, which, at the end of the foot, were