THE SHIPS THAT CAME DOWN TO THE ICE Closer and closer came the three black streaks, and presently the masts, then the funnels, and finally the hulls of three ships appeared, first one, then another, then the third.

Bobby watched them with awe and wonder.

He even forgot for a time that a way was opening for his escape.
The three ships were streaming directly toward the ice, and in the course of an hour after he had first sighted them the advance ship came to, half a mile or so from the floe, and not above a mile to the southward of him.

Boats were lowered before the steamer had fully stopped, and immediately men swarmed over her sides and into them, and in a moment the boats put off for the ice, the men climbed out upon it and presently were running everywhere, beating to the right and to the left with clubs.
Then the boats returned to the ship to fetch more men, and still more, until there were more men upon the ice than Bobby had ever seen before, and all beating about them with their clubs.

So it was with the other ships as they came up; they, too, sent scores upon scores of men to the ice in boats.
Bobby was astonished beyond measure at what he saw, and at first he was afraid, and watched from a distance.