of Captain Pent Barrington, the navigating officer of the ship, and
his first mate, a New Englander, as dry as salt cod, named Darius
Green. The fourth stateroom was empty. The steward bunked forward in a
little cabin rigged up in the same deck-house as the galley which
snuggled up to the foot of the foremast.

Summing up what the boys saw as they followed their conductor over the
ship they found her to be a three-masted, bark-rigged vessel with a
cro' nest, like a small barrel, perched atop of her mainmast. Her
already large coal bunkers had been added to until she was enabled to
carry enough coal to give her a tremendous cruising radius. It was in
order to economize on fuel she was rigged for the carrying of sail
when she encountered a good slant of wind. Her forecastle, originally
the dark, wet hole common to whalers, had been built up till it was a
commodious chamber fitted with bunks at the sides and a swinging table
in the center, which could be hoisted up out of the way when not in
use. Like the officers' cabins, it was warmed by radiators fed from
the main boilers when under way and from the donkey, or auxiliary,
boiler when hove to.

Besides the provisions, which the stevedores, having completed their
"spell," were now tumbling into the hold with renewed ardor, the deck
was piled high with a strange miscellany of articles. There were
sledges, bales of canvas, which on investigation proved to be tents,
coils of rope, pick-axes, shovels, five portable houses in knock-down
form, a couple of specially constructed whale boats, so made as to
resist any ordinary pressure that might be brought to bear on them in
the polar drift, and nail-kegs and tool-chests everywhere.

Peeping into the hold the boys saw that each side of it had been built