with his party; and he took good care to keep beyond danger of being mistaken for a seal, after having known two or three fired at from the ship that morning, one of them a first-rate hit. He did not know it had cost me the last charge of powder I could lay my hands upon aboard; what was more, for all he knew as yet, the castaway whalers might turn up at any moment. Evidently there had been no want of timbers on the berg before it capsized, so as to have rafted off in good time, judging by the amount of loose timbers adrift at every tide. These the Huskies, along with Peter, were always fishing to get hold of, and might have had more if they had had anything of the nature of a boat with them. The cold of the water was against their swimming out; in fact, I question if many of them are fit for it at any time, sweltered up as they are in skins. According to Myuk, they were commencing to put a sort of canoe together for the purpose, with whalebone and hides. All of a sudden they knocked off, and a bustle got up, along toward the cove and past it. I could not make out the reason of the commotion, even with the glass; consequently despatched Chummey to find out. Our work had stopped at any rate, the whole of the trading Esquimaux having gone over in that direction.

He had not got the whole way, when two or three of them broke out to meet him, along with a dog-sledge that had arrived from somewhere or

other. These came on with Chummey toward the ship, and I could soon see that one was Oosisoak; indeed, the only men I did not know by sight were the two on the sledge. There was something about the appearance of one of them that brought my heart in my throat, as he had a good deal the look of one of the half-breed pilots from the Danish settlements, that join whalers, or come driving dogteams and the like. The sledge was drawn by five starved-looking dogs, and made as if to cross direct to the floe, some distance in astern, where the crack narrowed; but the snow, where tried, either stuck the dogs, or else the Husky they belonged to would not risk it, neither could the man on some account. As to Mr Peter Oosisoak, he plainly had no inclination to venture. Chummey brought word across that there was great news of some description; and Peter no sooner saw me out on the ice than he made signs to the same effect. From the look of things aboard, he clearly did not intend coming over, but wanted me to do so, beyond shooting distance. This I at once did without the least hesitation, in fact too excited to have made. any ceremonies myself about it.

I

YARN VII.

WENT, as I said, across the crack in the floe,

to where the Esquimaux sledge had stopped with the new-comers from the main ice. Peter Oosisoak kept near alongside of them, whether wanting to hear all that passed, or to get his hand in by way of interpreting; still he had not the appearance even of being acquainted with the sledge-driver and the other man, much less of being in the secret. The first was pretty much like other Esquimaux, blubbery - looking and dingy-coloured, with pitch-black hair and eyes. I saw in a moment that the other was the one in question. He was huddled up in furs, but evidently bigger built; an old fellow, so grizzled and worn about the hair that one couldn't very well make out what it had been, a face like mahogany, and puckered about the eyes as if troubled with pains.

He had lost one leg somehow, and got it replaced with a bone one, which seemingly accounted for his not trying to come across. But what struck me most was his always screwing up one eye or the other when he looked at you, bringing the open one to bear steadily; and a gimlet it

was, you had no time to make out the colour. From his first words I understood in a moment he had something to tell about the men off the berg, though he spoke thorough Esquimaux, with two or three scraps of either Danish or Russian. So far as concerned the particulars, this was all Greek to me, accordingly Peter had to be called in, giving his services rather unwillingly, to judge by his manner; and on my asking if the new-comers had seen the shipwrecked Kablunays-that was to say, white men-Peter put the question to them.

"Armelarng," answered both; which I knew well enough meant "Yes," even if Peter had not taken care to show me by all sort of nods, with every sign of delight. The pilot-looking old chap with the peg leg-as he then found out for me-had not belonged to the party himself. This was contrary to my hopes; for the truth was, he had a most extraordinary look of being somehow different from a Husky. However, he had not only been in communication with them, but brought proof of the same, for the purpose of getting them assistance. It seemed they were on the other side of an open channel that the moving berg had broken in; which was according to my own calculations, so did not surprise me. From what I could make out, with the help of signs and also figures drawn on the ice very cleverly by Peter, these sledge-men had noticed our fire and other signals, consequently made sure there was a whaler at hand; this they

had managed to signify to the Kablunays, who not being able to make themselves understood by message, had hove over a sort of a letter for the ship. This the lame man at once produced out of his seal-skins, ready to hand over to the proper quarter; and on Peter explaining matters, the other gave it up to me to take aboard. It was a scrap of yellow oilskin, seemingly from a sailor's watchcoat, folded up flat, and addressed outside in a rough scrawl of greasy black, "To the Captain." The fact was, I wanted the man to have got off his sledge and come across with me if possible, where I could have drawn him out of view, intending to trust him further, and see if he could not help me

The more I wanted this, however, the less he liked it, no doubt from some hint of Peter's as to the captain's temper. As to their notion of the strength of our crew, the ship had a livelier look than ever, owing to my two or three native hands at work, with Myuk's good-natured squaw keeping an eye over the goods for barter; moreover, her little pickaninny had been slung to the rigging on deck, in a pocket of one of uncle's old coats, to amuse himself with the dogs,-which all happened to increase the bustle. I had, of course, to go back with the letter, to see quietly what was in it, with what required to be done for the whalers. But first I put a question or two, as independent of Peter as I could. The bone-legged man was by name Hans, it seemed; well known about the