cabin and soap and water. As he removed the grime of the engine-room, he mused on the subject of icebergs. Not many weeks before a big liner had blundered at night into a huge floating continent of ice and had sunk, with a terrible toll of lives and suffering.

“If a big old liner like that couldn’t stand one wallop from an iceberg what chance would the Cambodian stand?” he wondered. “Still, as Jack said, since the accident they’ve had a regular iceberg patrol to send out warnings by wireless of any bergs that happen to be in the vicinity. I wouldn’t mind seeing a berg though, if it wasn’t at too close range. Wonder if I ever will?”

Had the young engineer possessed the gift of second sight, he would have been able to foresee that in the immediate future he was destined to come into closer contact with icebergs than he would have dreamed possible, and also that the entire current of his life was to be changed by a series of unlooked for and astonishing happenings.

CHAPTER II: ON THE LOOKOUT FOR ICE.

With the dropping of the sun it fell bitter cold. The sea heaved in a leaden, lightless swell which the forefoot of the Cambodian, as she drove along, broke into spuming spray. The officers donned their heavy bridge coats. The crew, or that portion of it which had the watch on deck, wrapped up as warmly as they could in the scanty garments they possessed.

When Jack opened his cabin to go below to his evening meal, a slight flurry of snow struck him in the face.

“Goodness!” thought the boy, “here’s a change, and when we left New York folks were thinking about Coney Island and putting their winter coats in moth-balls.”

The captain was the only other occupant of the dining-room, from which opened the officer’s cabins, when Jack went below. The boy noticed that Captain Briggs’ face was rather flushed, and his eyes were very bright as he took his seat. The captain had finished eating but before he left the room he came to Jack’s side and, leaning over him, asked in a rather thick voice, if there had been any more reports on icebergs. Jack replied in the negative.

“Tha’s aw’ ri’ then,” said the captain in a loud, boastful voice, whose tones were thick. “Donner be ’fraid icebergs with Cap’n Briggs on board. I’m an old sea-going walrus, I am. I jes go ri’ through ’em, yes, sir, jes like knife goin’ thro’ cheese. Thas me.”

He swaggered out of the cabin with his scarlet face 

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