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"Gone again, sir!" I said, for just as the doctor made a lurch at the
Frenchman, he melted away like the others.
"I never knew anything so provoking," cried the doctor. "But never
mind, we must find another, and keep to my old plan--cut him out in a
block, and take him home frozen, like a fly in amber. What a
sensation!"
"What! being friz?" said Scudds.
"No, my man. What a sensation it will make at the Royal Society, when I
uncover my specimen, pointing to it like a huge fly in amber. It will
be the greatest evening ever known."
He gave us no peace till we found another specimen, which we did, and
cut out by rule, and at last had it lying there by the tent, as clear as
glass, and the doctor was delighted.
"Not a very handsome specimen, doctor," I said, looking through the ice
at a lean, long, ugly Yankee, lying there like a western mummy, with his
eyes shut, and an ugly leer upon his face, just as if he heard what we
said, and was laughing at us.
"No, not handsome, Captain, but a wonderful specimen. We must give up
the North Pole, and go back to-morrow. I wouldn't lose that specimen
for worlds."
I gave my shoulders a shrug like the Frenchman did, and said nothing,
though I knew we could never get that block over the ice, even if it did
not melt.
Just then I saw the doctor examining the glass, and before long a most
rapid thaw set in. The surface ice was covered with slushy snow, and
for the first time for days we felt the damp cold horribly, huddling
together round the lamp, and longing for the frost to set in once more.
We had not stirred outside for twelve hours, a great part of which had
been spent in sleep, when suddenly the doctor exclaimed--
"Why, it will be thawed out!"
"What will?" I said.
"My specimen!" he exclaimed.
"Here it is!" I said; and we all started, in spite of being used to
such appearances; for just then the tent opening was dragged aside, and
the tall Yankee, that we had left in the ice slab, came discontentedly
in, and just giving us a nod, he stood there staring straight before him
in a half-angry, spiteful way.
I never could have believed that tobacco would have preserved its virtue
so long, till I saw that tall, lean, muscular Yankee begin slowly to wag
his jaw in a regular grind, grind, grind; when, evidently seeing their
danger, our men backed away. For our friend began coolly enough to spit
about him, forming a regular ring, within which no one ventured; and at
last, taking up his position opposite the lamp, he would have put it out
in about a couple of minutes, had not the doctor slewed him round, when,
facing the wind, we all set to wondering at the small brown marbles that
began to fall, and roll about on the ice, till we saw that it was
freezing so hard again that the tobacco-juice congealed as it left his
lips.
"I like grit--I do like a fellow as can show grit!" he kept on muttering
in a discontented kind of way, as he took a piece of pine-wood out of
his pocket, and then, hoisting a boot like a canoe upon his knee, he
sharpened his knife, and began to whittle.
"Where did you get that piece of wood?" said the doctor, then.
The Yankee turned his head slowly, spat a brown hailstone on to the ice,
and then said--
"Whar did I get that thar piece o' wood, stranger? Wall, I reckon
that's a bit o' Pole--North Pole--as I took off with these here hands
with the carpenter's saw."
"I'll take a piece of it," said the doctor, and turning it over in his
hands, "Ha, hum!" he muttered; "_Pinus silvestris_." Then aloud--"But
how did you get up here, my friend?"
"Wall, I'll tell you," drawled the Yankee. "But I reckon thar's yards
on it; and when I begin, I don't leave off till I've done, that I don't,
you bet--not if you're friz. Won't it do that I'm here?"
"Well, no," said the doctor; "we should like to know how you got here."
"So," said the Yankee sailor, and, drawing his legs up under him, firing
a couple of brown hailstones off right and left, and whittling away at
so much of the North Pole as the doctor had left him, he thus began.