Splash! The lad slid into the water, which closed over him in a flash. But in a second he was on the surface again and striking out. Not far from him was a large floe, one of the numerous ones that belted the big berg. With some difficulty he clambered upon this. He had hardly gained its surface when a roar made him look round. The polar bear was not going to be cheated of its prey in that way.

To his horror, Raynor saw the hunger-maddened creature leaping toward him across the ice floes. In a few minutes it would be upon him. Those cruel jaws would be crushing and tearing his flesh. The lad turned sick and faint and reeled as if about to fall. But he was brought sharply back to his senses.

Bang!

A rifle cracked and the bear, in a pool of crimson, sank on the floe it was about to leap from. The next instant the phenomenon was explained. Not far off lay a handsome, yacht-like looking schooner with her sails aback.

The rifle shot that had saved Raynor’s life had been fired from her deck. He could see the marksman, a tall, bearded fellow, lowering his rifle on which the light glinted.

Then Raynor saw a boat being lowered from the stern davits. Four oarsmen made the light craft fairly skim over the waves toward him. In the stern sheets of the boat the man who had fired the lucky shot stood up handling the tiller. The light gleamed in his great bronze beard and made it shine like copper. His huge build and his attitude at the helm made him look like a Viking of old.

But of all this Raynor, for the time being, had only a hazy impression. Vague lights swam and danced before his eyes in a mad merry-go-round and a sound like the roar of a thousand waterfalls drilled in his ears. Then everything went out in a great wave of darkness.

CHAPTER VII: JACK SAVES THE CAPTAIN.

“Well, young man, I guess you won’t be sorry to get those ropes off.”

Jack looked up from the uneasy slumber into which he had fallen to find Chief Officer Mulliner looking down rather quizzically at him. His ankles and wrists felt as if they had been seared by hot irons. With the tide of his returning memory he recalled dropping off to sleep soon after the mysterious shot had been fired. And now here was Mulliner, knife in hand, and looking quite amiable, ready to set him free.

“You can cut the ropes as soon as you like 

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