he had gone out to those regions occurred to him; and although the
natural buoyancy and hopefulness of his feelings enabled him generally
to throw off anxiety in regard to his father's fate, and join in the
laugh, and jest, and game as heartily as any one on board, there were
times when his heart failed him, and he almost despaired of ever seeing
his father again, and these feelings of despondency had been more
frequent since the day on which he witnessed the sudden and utter
destruction of the strange brig.

"Don't let your spirits down, Fred," said Tom, whose hopeful and earnest
disposition often reanimated his friend's drooping spirits; "it will
only unfit you for doing any good service. Besides, I think we have no
cause yet to despair. We know that your father came up this inlet, or
strait, or whatever it is, and he had a good stock of provisions with
him, according to the account we got at Upernavik, and it is not more
than a year since he was there. Many and many a whaler and discovery
ship has wintered more than a year in these regions. And then, consider
the immense amount of animal life all round us. They might have laid up
provisions for many months long before winter set in."

"I know all that," replied Fred, with a shake of his head; "but think of
yon brig that we saw go down in about ten minutes."

"Well, so I do think of it. No doubt the brig was lost very suddenly,
but there was ample time, had there been any one on board, to have
leaped upon the ice, and they might have got to land by jumping from one
piece to another. Such things have happened before frequently. To say
truth, at every point of land we turn, I feel a sort of expectation
amounting almost to certainty that we shall find your father and his
party travelling southward on their way to the Danish settlements."