Excerpt from American Boys in the Arctics: A Trip to the Far North by a New Path

They were orphan boys whose fathers had died at sea, and were only related by ties of the warmest, life-long friendship, but hand in hand they had gone to school, and now they were fighting their way together, into that same field of hardship and adventure where their fathers and their grandfathers had lived and fought and died.

The boat was lowered. Four sailors pulled the oars, another stood in the prow, and the second mate held the tiller rope. They had hardly touched the water when the word was given and they pulled away for the drifting boat tossing to and fro in its mute appeal for sympathy.

It was a fair-sized row boat. They could easily make out an oar, thrust into the mast-hole forward, made fast with an end of rope, bearing some poor fellow's shirt, swinging as the boat swung on the heavy sea, waving, still, the ¿ag of distress, for some unfortunate human being.

Loose ends of rope hung over the side, lapping the water as the boat tossed about, but even now there. Was no sign of life.
Stand by with the boat-hook, Mike, the mate said solemnly.

Aye, aye, sir, replied. The man in the prow, in the same low voice, for distress at sea touches every sailor's heart.

It was a moment of intense excitement for Scott and Roy. They had never before been so near to the reality of suffering, though from their earliest cradle songs to the latest sailor's yarn, their lives had' been filled with the romance of distress.

Sitting with their backs to the boat they could not see it, and they were too well drilled to look over their shoulders while pulling an oar. They heard Mike's boat-hook as it caught the drifting boat, however, and a moment later it came alongside. They rested on their oars and all eyes were fixed upon the boat, but no one spoke, for there in the bottom lay three dead bodies, and stretched across them the body of a man who evidently was still alive, though entirely unconscious. The mate leaned over him for a moment, then taking the boat in tow they returned as quickly as possible to the brig.

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