0 ALL ABOARD FOR SUNRISE LANDS.

place, a nor’west passage. He expected to be back in 1847, but he was
never seen after July, 1845. Well, they hunted and found traces of
Franklin’s party on King William’s Land. The Esquimaux had seen
‘some of ’em, but what the savages had to tell, only proved that Franklin’s
party was at last swept away by death. I was in one of the expeditions
that hunted for Sir John. You see his wife, Lady Jane, could not give
him up, and when it was. useless to think he could be found alive, then
she spent her money trying to get some information of his fate
and recover his body. When I went, I thought I might never
come back myself, and then what Lady Jane would have hunted for
poor Jack Bobstay? At one time, our cap’n concluded to send some of
bis men ahead to see what the prospect was. We had two boats, and
‘contrived to get ahead some way, when we were caught in the sudden
closing of the ice. There we were a number of miles from the ship, in
two open boats, with few provisions beside our water-kegs. We drew
our boats up on the ice and waited for the next thing, and that was the
dark. Luckily, we
had some sleeping
bags.” .

“What are
those?” asked Rick.

“Just what I say,

 

A SLEEPING-BAG.

bags, to sleep in. There is a chance for you to get into them —
and they are made nice and warm—and when inside, you button
yourself in.

“We went to sleep, and as things were no better, the next day we
‘concluded to abandon one boat and drag the other over the ice to open
water, if we could find it. We began to strip one boat, and I re-
member it fell to me to roll along the water-keg. Tom Savin took
the sleeping-bags. Another man took the oars, and so on. Then