Chapter Twenty Two.

Chapter Twenty Two.Frost and no Skates!—Rory Disconsolate—McBain to the Rescue—A Roaring Day and a Merry Night—A Mysterious Pool.King Frosthadcome—and come, too, with a will, for when Rory went on deck next morning the ice was all around the yacht, hard and smooth and black.“It is frozen in we are,” said Rory—“frozen in entirely, and never a vestige of a skate in the ship. Just look, Allan, that ice is bearing already! What could have possessed us to leave Scotland without skates?”“It is provoking,” remarked Allan, looking at the ice with a rueful countenance.“Well, we can’t go back home for them, that is certain sure. D’ye think, now, that old Ap could manufacture us a few pairs?”“He is very handy,” Allan said; “but I question if he could manufacture skates.”“However,” said Rory, “the ice is bearing; we can slide if we can’t skate. So I, for one, am going over the side presently.”“Not to-day, Rory boy,” said a quiet voice behind him, while at the same time a hand was laid gently on his shoulder—“not to-day, Rory, it wouldn’t be safe,” said McBain. “I know you would risk it, but I love you too well to allow it.”“And sure, isn’t your word law, then?” replied Rory.McBain smiled, and no more was said on the subject; but for all that Rory had the ice on his mind all day, and that accounted for his having been seen in close confab with old Ap for a whole hour, during which pieces of wood and bits of iron were critically looked at, and many strange tools examined and designs drawn on paper by Rory’s deft artistic fingers. But the result of all this may be summed up in the little wordnil. Ap had taken much snuff during this consultation, but, “No, no; look, you see,” he said, at last, “if it were a box now, or a barrel, or a boat, I could manage it; but skates, look you, is more science than art.”So Rory had rather a long face when he came aft again, which was something most unusual for Rory. But his was the nature that is easily cast down, and just as easily elevated again. His spirits were about zero before dinner; they rose somewhat during that meal, and fell once more when the cloth was removed.“Do you think,” asked Ralph of McBain, “that the frost will hold?”“Oh,” cried Rory, “don’t talk of the frost! sure it is the provokingest thing that ever was, that the three of us should have forgotten our skates. I’m going to get my fiddle.”“Wait a moment,” said McBain.“Steward,” he continued, “serve out warm clothing to-morrow for these young gentlemen, and remind them to put on their pea-jackets; we are going to have such a frost as you never even dreamt of in Scotland. Don’t forget to put them on, boys; and Peter, ‘dubbing’ for the boots mind, no more paste blacking.”“Ay, ay, sir!” said Peter.“And don’t forget the paper blankets.”“That I won’t, sir!” from Peter.Now while McBain was speaking Rory’s face was a study; the clouds were fast disappearing from his brow, his eye was getting brighter every moment. At last, up he jumped, all glee and excitement.“Hurrah!” he cried, seizing the captain by the hand. “It is true, isn’t it? Oh! you know what I’d be saying. The skates, you know! Never expect me to believe that the man who thought beforehand about warm clothes for his boys, and dubbing and paper blankets, was unmindful of their pleasures as well.”“Peter, bring the box,” said McBain, quietly laughing.Peter brought the box, and a large one it was too.Three dozen pairs of the best skates that ever glided over the glassy surface of pond or lake.Rory looked at them for a moment, then admiringly at McBain.“I was going to get my fiddle,” says Rory, “and it would be a pity to spoil a good intention; but troth, boys, it isn’t a lament I’ll be playing now, at all, at all.”Nor was it. Rory’s fiddle spoke—it laughed, it screamed; it told of all the joyousness of the boy’s heart, and it put everybody in the same humour that he himself and his fiddle were in.Next morning broke bright and clear; Rory and Allan were both up even before the stars had faded, and by the time they had enjoyed the luxury of the morning tub—for that they meant to keep up all the year round, being quite convinced of the good of it—and dressed themselves, laughing and joking all the time, Peter had the breakfast laid and ready.The ice was hard and solid as steel, and glittered like crystal in the rays of the morning sun, and you may be sure our heroes made the best of it, and not they alone, but one half at least of the yacht’s officers and crew. The whole day was given up to the enchanting amusement of skating, and to frolic and fun. Wonderful to say, old Ap proved himself quite an adept in the art, and the figures this little figure-head of a man cut, and the antics he performed, astonished every one.But Seth, alas! was but a poor show; he never had had skates on his feet before, so his attempts to keep upright were ridiculous in the extreme. But Seth did not mind that a bit, and his pluck was of a very exalted order, for, much as his anatomy must have been damaged by the innumerable falls he got, he was no sooner down than he was up again. Allan and Ralph took pity on him at last, and taking each a hand of the old man, glided away down the ice with him crowing with delight.“But, sure, then,” cried Rory, “and it’s myself will have a partner too.”And so he linked up with old Ap, old Ap in paper cap and immensity of apron, Rory in pilot coat and Tam o’ Shanter. What a comical couple they looked! Yes, I grant you they looked comical, but what of that? Their skating far eclipsed anything in the field, and there really was no such thing as tiring either Ap or Rory.And hadn’t they appetites for dinner that day! Allan’s haunch of venison smoked on the board; and Stevenson, Mitchell, and the mate of theTrefoilhad been invited to partake, as there was plenty for everybody, and some to send forward afterwards.“Now,” said McBain, after the cloth had been removed, and cups of fragrant coffee had been duly discussed, “what say you, gentlemen, if we leave theSnowbirdto herself for an hour or two, pipe all hands over the side, and go on shore and open the new hall?”“A grand idea!” cried Ralph and Allan in a breath. “Capital!” said Rory.And in less than an hour, reader, everything was prepared: a great fire of logs and coals was cracking and blazing on the ample hearth of the hall, a fire that warmed the place from end to end, a fire at which an ox might have been roasted. The piano had been transported on shore; at this instrument Ralph presided, and near him stood Rory, fiddle in hand. McBain was duly elected chairman, and the impromptu concert had commenced. The officers occupied the front seats, the men sat respectfully on forms in the rear. Had you been there you would have observed, too, that the crew had paid some little attention to their toilet before coming on shore; they had doffed their work-a-day clothing, and donned their best. Even Ap had laid aside his immensity of apron, and came out in navy blue, and Seth was once again encased in that brass-buttoned coat of his, and looked, as Rory said, “all smiles, from top to toe.”McBain felt himself in duty bound to make a kind of formal speech before the music began. He could be pithy and to the point if he couldn’t be eloquent.“Officers and men,” he said, “of the British yacht,Snowbird,—We are met here to-night to try,—despite the fact, which nobody minds, that we are far from our native land,—if we can’t spend a pleasant evening. We have been together now for many months, together in sunshine and storm, together in our dangers, together in our pleasures, and I don’t think there has ever been an unpleasant word spoken fore or aft, nor has a grumbler ever lifted up his voice. But we have a long dreary winter before us, and perils perhaps to pass through which we little wot of. But as we’ve stood together hitherto, so will we to the end, let it be sweet or let it be bitter. And it is our duty to help keep up each other’s hearts. I purpose having many such meetings here as the present, and let us just make up our minds to amuse and be amused. Everybody can do something if he tries; he who cannot sing can tell a story, and if there be any one single mother’s son amongst us who is too diffident to do anything, why just let him keep a merry face on his figure-head, and, there, we’ll forgive him! That’s all.”McBain sat down amidst a chorus of cheers, and the music began. Ralph played a battle piece. That suited his touch to a “t,” Rory told him, and led an encore as soon as it was finished. Then Rory himself had to come to the front with his fiddle, and he played a selection of Irish airs, arranged by himself. Then there was a duet between Allan and Ralph; then McBain himself strode on the stage with a stirring old Highland song, that brought his hearers back to stirring old Highland times in the feudal days of old, when men flew fiercely to sword and claymore, as the fiery cross was borne swiftly through the glen, and wrong had to be righted in the brave old fashion. Stevenson followed suit with a sea song; he had a deep bass voice, and his rendering of “Tom Bowling” was most effective.It was Rory’s turn once more. He brought out a real Irish shillalah from somewhere, stuck his hat, with an old clay pipe in it, on one side of his head, and gave the company a song so comical, with a brogue so rich, that he quite brought down the house. It was not one encore, but two he got; in fact, he became the hero of the evening. Both Mitchell and the mate of theTrefoilfound something to sing, and Ap and Magnus something to say if they couldn’t sing. Magnus’s story was as weird and wild as he looked himself while telling it; Ap’s was a simple relation of a daring deed done at sea during the herring-fishery season. After this Seth spun one of his trapper yarns, and the music began again. A sailor’s hornpipe this time—a rattling nerve-jogging tune that set the men all on a fidget. They beat time with their fingers, they tapped a tattoo with their toes; and when they couldn’t stand it a moment longer, why they simply started up in a bold and manly British fashion, cleared the floor, and gave vent to their feelings through their legs and their feet.The dancing became fast and furious after that, and when Ralph and Rory were tired of playing they came to the floor, and Peter took their place with his bagpipes. But the longest time has an end, and at last Ap’s shrill pipe summoned all hands on board.There was little need of sleeping-draughts for any one on board theSnowbirdthat night.The frost held, our heroes could tell that before they left their beds, so intensely cold was it. Glad were they now of the addition of the paper blankets served out by Peter; eider-down quilts could hardly have made them feel more comfortable.The frost held, they could tell that when they went to their tubs. Peter had placed the water in each bath only an hour before, but the ice was already so hard that instead of getting in at once Rory squatted down to look at it, and he did not like the looks of it either. The sponge was as hard as a sledge-hammer, so he took that to break the ice with. Then he tried one foot in, and quickly drew it out again and shook it. The water felt like molten lead.“I wonder now,” he said to himself, “if brother Ralph will venture on a cold plunge on such a morning as this.”And, wondering thus, he rolled his shoulders up in his door-curtain, and, poking his head into the passage, hailed Ralph.“Hullo, there!” he cried; “Ralph! Porpy!”“Hullo!” cried Ralph; “I’ll Porpy you if I come into your den!”“Well, but tell me this, old man,” said Rory; “I want to know if you’re going to do a flounder this morning?”“To be sure!” said Ralph. “Listen!”Rory listened, and could hear him plashing.McBain passed along at the moment, and, hearing the conversation, he took part in it to this extent,—“Boys that don’t have their baths don’t have their breakfasts.”“In that case,” said Rory, “I’m in too!” And next moment he was plashing away like a live dolphin. But hardly was he dressed than there came all over him such a glorious warm glow, that he would have gone through the same ordeal again had there been any occasion. At the same time he felt so exhilarated in spirits that nothing would serve him but he must burst into song.The frost held, they could tell that when they met in the saloon and glanced at the windows; the tracery thereon was so beautiful, that even at the risk of letting his breakfast get cold, Rory must needs run for his sketch-book and make two pictures at least. Meanwhile, Ralph had settled down to serious eating. You see, there was very little poetry about honest Ralph, he was more solid than imaginative.After breakfast our trio took to the ice again. They soon had evidence that some one had been there before them, for about a mile along the shore, and a little way out to sea, they saw that several poles had been planted, and on each pole fluttered a red flag. They looked inquiringly at McBain.“You wonder what the meaning of that is?” said McBain; “and I myself cannot altogether explain it.”“But you had the flags placed there?”“True,” said McBain; “and they are placed around a pool of open water.”“Open water!” exclaimed Rory, “and the sea frozen everywhere all around!”“Ah, yes!” replied McBain; “that is the mystery. But we are in the land of mysteries. This pool of open water may be situated over a warm spring, or it may be there is some kind of a whirlpool there which prevents the formation of the ice, only there it is, sure enough, and howsoever hard the frost should become, or howsoever long it may last, I think that that pool will never, never close and freeze.“The ice,” he continued, “was thin at the edge, but I have had it broken off, and will try to keep it so, and thus you will be enabled to go quite close to the water’s edge; and if my experience is anything to go by, you’ll see many a startling apparition there before the winter is past and gone.”“You astonishme,” said Rory.“Andme,” said Allan.“But what,” persisted Rory, “will the apparitions be like?”“Nothing that can harm us, I think,” said McBain. “But as the ice extends farther seaward, sea-monsters will come to the pool to breathe and to disport themselves in the sunshine.”“Perhaps the sea-serpent, for instance?” said Rory.“Perhaps,” said McBain.“Och! sure then,” cried Rory, losing all his seriousness at once, “we’ll have a shot at the old boy, that’s all?”

King Frosthadcome—and come, too, with a will, for when Rory went on deck next morning the ice was all around the yacht, hard and smooth and black.

“It is frozen in we are,” said Rory—“frozen in entirely, and never a vestige of a skate in the ship. Just look, Allan, that ice is bearing already! What could have possessed us to leave Scotland without skates?”

“It is provoking,” remarked Allan, looking at the ice with a rueful countenance.

“Well, we can’t go back home for them, that is certain sure. D’ye think, now, that old Ap could manufacture us a few pairs?”

“He is very handy,” Allan said; “but I question if he could manufacture skates.”

“However,” said Rory, “the ice is bearing; we can slide if we can’t skate. So I, for one, am going over the side presently.”

“Not to-day, Rory boy,” said a quiet voice behind him, while at the same time a hand was laid gently on his shoulder—“not to-day, Rory, it wouldn’t be safe,” said McBain. “I know you would risk it, but I love you too well to allow it.”

“And sure, isn’t your word law, then?” replied Rory.

McBain smiled, and no more was said on the subject; but for all that Rory had the ice on his mind all day, and that accounted for his having been seen in close confab with old Ap for a whole hour, during which pieces of wood and bits of iron were critically looked at, and many strange tools examined and designs drawn on paper by Rory’s deft artistic fingers. But the result of all this may be summed up in the little wordnil. Ap had taken much snuff during this consultation, but, “No, no; look, you see,” he said, at last, “if it were a box now, or a barrel, or a boat, I could manage it; but skates, look you, is more science than art.”

So Rory had rather a long face when he came aft again, which was something most unusual for Rory. But his was the nature that is easily cast down, and just as easily elevated again. His spirits were about zero before dinner; they rose somewhat during that meal, and fell once more when the cloth was removed.

“Do you think,” asked Ralph of McBain, “that the frost will hold?”

“Oh,” cried Rory, “don’t talk of the frost! sure it is the provokingest thing that ever was, that the three of us should have forgotten our skates. I’m going to get my fiddle.”

“Wait a moment,” said McBain.

“Steward,” he continued, “serve out warm clothing to-morrow for these young gentlemen, and remind them to put on their pea-jackets; we are going to have such a frost as you never even dreamt of in Scotland. Don’t forget to put them on, boys; and Peter, ‘dubbing’ for the boots mind, no more paste blacking.”

“Ay, ay, sir!” said Peter.

“And don’t forget the paper blankets.”

“That I won’t, sir!” from Peter.

Now while McBain was speaking Rory’s face was a study; the clouds were fast disappearing from his brow, his eye was getting brighter every moment. At last, up he jumped, all glee and excitement.

“Hurrah!” he cried, seizing the captain by the hand. “It is true, isn’t it? Oh! you know what I’d be saying. The skates, you know! Never expect me to believe that the man who thought beforehand about warm clothes for his boys, and dubbing and paper blankets, was unmindful of their pleasures as well.”

“Peter, bring the box,” said McBain, quietly laughing.

Peter brought the box, and a large one it was too.

Three dozen pairs of the best skates that ever glided over the glassy surface of pond or lake.

Rory looked at them for a moment, then admiringly at McBain.

“I was going to get my fiddle,” says Rory, “and it would be a pity to spoil a good intention; but troth, boys, it isn’t a lament I’ll be playing now, at all, at all.”

Nor was it. Rory’s fiddle spoke—it laughed, it screamed; it told of all the joyousness of the boy’s heart, and it put everybody in the same humour that he himself and his fiddle were in.

Next morning broke bright and clear; Rory and Allan were both up even before the stars had faded, and by the time they had enjoyed the luxury of the morning tub—for that they meant to keep up all the year round, being quite convinced of the good of it—and dressed themselves, laughing and joking all the time, Peter had the breakfast laid and ready.

The ice was hard and solid as steel, and glittered like crystal in the rays of the morning sun, and you may be sure our heroes made the best of it, and not they alone, but one half at least of the yacht’s officers and crew. The whole day was given up to the enchanting amusement of skating, and to frolic and fun. Wonderful to say, old Ap proved himself quite an adept in the art, and the figures this little figure-head of a man cut, and the antics he performed, astonished every one.

But Seth, alas! was but a poor show; he never had had skates on his feet before, so his attempts to keep upright were ridiculous in the extreme. But Seth did not mind that a bit, and his pluck was of a very exalted order, for, much as his anatomy must have been damaged by the innumerable falls he got, he was no sooner down than he was up again. Allan and Ralph took pity on him at last, and taking each a hand of the old man, glided away down the ice with him crowing with delight.

“But, sure, then,” cried Rory, “and it’s myself will have a partner too.”

And so he linked up with old Ap, old Ap in paper cap and immensity of apron, Rory in pilot coat and Tam o’ Shanter. What a comical couple they looked! Yes, I grant you they looked comical, but what of that? Their skating far eclipsed anything in the field, and there really was no such thing as tiring either Ap or Rory.

And hadn’t they appetites for dinner that day! Allan’s haunch of venison smoked on the board; and Stevenson, Mitchell, and the mate of theTrefoilhad been invited to partake, as there was plenty for everybody, and some to send forward afterwards.

“Now,” said McBain, after the cloth had been removed, and cups of fragrant coffee had been duly discussed, “what say you, gentlemen, if we leave theSnowbirdto herself for an hour or two, pipe all hands over the side, and go on shore and open the new hall?”

“A grand idea!” cried Ralph and Allan in a breath. “Capital!” said Rory.

And in less than an hour, reader, everything was prepared: a great fire of logs and coals was cracking and blazing on the ample hearth of the hall, a fire that warmed the place from end to end, a fire at which an ox might have been roasted. The piano had been transported on shore; at this instrument Ralph presided, and near him stood Rory, fiddle in hand. McBain was duly elected chairman, and the impromptu concert had commenced. The officers occupied the front seats, the men sat respectfully on forms in the rear. Had you been there you would have observed, too, that the crew had paid some little attention to their toilet before coming on shore; they had doffed their work-a-day clothing, and donned their best. Even Ap had laid aside his immensity of apron, and came out in navy blue, and Seth was once again encased in that brass-buttoned coat of his, and looked, as Rory said, “all smiles, from top to toe.”

McBain felt himself in duty bound to make a kind of formal speech before the music began. He could be pithy and to the point if he couldn’t be eloquent.

“Officers and men,” he said, “of the British yacht,Snowbird,—We are met here to-night to try,—despite the fact, which nobody minds, that we are far from our native land,—if we can’t spend a pleasant evening. We have been together now for many months, together in sunshine and storm, together in our dangers, together in our pleasures, and I don’t think there has ever been an unpleasant word spoken fore or aft, nor has a grumbler ever lifted up his voice. But we have a long dreary winter before us, and perils perhaps to pass through which we little wot of. But as we’ve stood together hitherto, so will we to the end, let it be sweet or let it be bitter. And it is our duty to help keep up each other’s hearts. I purpose having many such meetings here as the present, and let us just make up our minds to amuse and be amused. Everybody can do something if he tries; he who cannot sing can tell a story, and if there be any one single mother’s son amongst us who is too diffident to do anything, why just let him keep a merry face on his figure-head, and, there, we’ll forgive him! That’s all.”

McBain sat down amidst a chorus of cheers, and the music began. Ralph played a battle piece. That suited his touch to a “t,” Rory told him, and led an encore as soon as it was finished. Then Rory himself had to come to the front with his fiddle, and he played a selection of Irish airs, arranged by himself. Then there was a duet between Allan and Ralph; then McBain himself strode on the stage with a stirring old Highland song, that brought his hearers back to stirring old Highland times in the feudal days of old, when men flew fiercely to sword and claymore, as the fiery cross was borne swiftly through the glen, and wrong had to be righted in the brave old fashion. Stevenson followed suit with a sea song; he had a deep bass voice, and his rendering of “Tom Bowling” was most effective.

It was Rory’s turn once more. He brought out a real Irish shillalah from somewhere, stuck his hat, with an old clay pipe in it, on one side of his head, and gave the company a song so comical, with a brogue so rich, that he quite brought down the house. It was not one encore, but two he got; in fact, he became the hero of the evening. Both Mitchell and the mate of theTrefoilfound something to sing, and Ap and Magnus something to say if they couldn’t sing. Magnus’s story was as weird and wild as he looked himself while telling it; Ap’s was a simple relation of a daring deed done at sea during the herring-fishery season. After this Seth spun one of his trapper yarns, and the music began again. A sailor’s hornpipe this time—a rattling nerve-jogging tune that set the men all on a fidget. They beat time with their fingers, they tapped a tattoo with their toes; and when they couldn’t stand it a moment longer, why they simply started up in a bold and manly British fashion, cleared the floor, and gave vent to their feelings through their legs and their feet.

The dancing became fast and furious after that, and when Ralph and Rory were tired of playing they came to the floor, and Peter took their place with his bagpipes. But the longest time has an end, and at last Ap’s shrill pipe summoned all hands on board.

There was little need of sleeping-draughts for any one on board theSnowbirdthat night.

The frost held, our heroes could tell that before they left their beds, so intensely cold was it. Glad were they now of the addition of the paper blankets served out by Peter; eider-down quilts could hardly have made them feel more comfortable.

The frost held, they could tell that when they went to their tubs. Peter had placed the water in each bath only an hour before, but the ice was already so hard that instead of getting in at once Rory squatted down to look at it, and he did not like the looks of it either. The sponge was as hard as a sledge-hammer, so he took that to break the ice with. Then he tried one foot in, and quickly drew it out again and shook it. The water felt like molten lead.

“I wonder now,” he said to himself, “if brother Ralph will venture on a cold plunge on such a morning as this.”

And, wondering thus, he rolled his shoulders up in his door-curtain, and, poking his head into the passage, hailed Ralph.

“Hullo, there!” he cried; “Ralph! Porpy!”

“Hullo!” cried Ralph; “I’ll Porpy you if I come into your den!”

“Well, but tell me this, old man,” said Rory; “I want to know if you’re going to do a flounder this morning?”

“To be sure!” said Ralph. “Listen!”

Rory listened, and could hear him plashing.

McBain passed along at the moment, and, hearing the conversation, he took part in it to this extent,—

“Boys that don’t have their baths don’t have their breakfasts.”

“In that case,” said Rory, “I’m in too!” And next moment he was plashing away like a live dolphin. But hardly was he dressed than there came all over him such a glorious warm glow, that he would have gone through the same ordeal again had there been any occasion. At the same time he felt so exhilarated in spirits that nothing would serve him but he must burst into song.

The frost held, they could tell that when they met in the saloon and glanced at the windows; the tracery thereon was so beautiful, that even at the risk of letting his breakfast get cold, Rory must needs run for his sketch-book and make two pictures at least. Meanwhile, Ralph had settled down to serious eating. You see, there was very little poetry about honest Ralph, he was more solid than imaginative.

After breakfast our trio took to the ice again. They soon had evidence that some one had been there before them, for about a mile along the shore, and a little way out to sea, they saw that several poles had been planted, and on each pole fluttered a red flag. They looked inquiringly at McBain.

“You wonder what the meaning of that is?” said McBain; “and I myself cannot altogether explain it.”

“But you had the flags placed there?”

“True,” said McBain; “and they are placed around a pool of open water.”

“Open water!” exclaimed Rory, “and the sea frozen everywhere all around!”

“Ah, yes!” replied McBain; “that is the mystery. But we are in the land of mysteries. This pool of open water may be situated over a warm spring, or it may be there is some kind of a whirlpool there which prevents the formation of the ice, only there it is, sure enough, and howsoever hard the frost should become, or howsoever long it may last, I think that that pool will never, never close and freeze.

“The ice,” he continued, “was thin at the edge, but I have had it broken off, and will try to keep it so, and thus you will be enabled to go quite close to the water’s edge; and if my experience is anything to go by, you’ll see many a startling apparition there before the winter is past and gone.”

“You astonishme,” said Rory.

“Andme,” said Allan.

“But what,” persisted Rory, “will the apparitions be like?”

“Nothing that can harm us, I think,” said McBain. “But as the ice extends farther seaward, sea-monsters will come to the pool to breathe and to disport themselves in the sunshine.”

“Perhaps the sea-serpent, for instance?” said Rory.

“Perhaps,” said McBain.

“Och! sure then,” cried Rory, losing all his seriousness at once, “we’ll have a shot at the old boy, that’s all?”

Chapter Twenty Three.The Great Black Frost—Funny Jack Frost—The Cold Half-Hour—A Terrible Apparition under the Ice—Blowing Soap-Bubbles—Strange Effect—Snow and Snow-Shoes.For week after week the great black frost continued, seeming only to wax more and more intense as the time went on. With the exception of the mysterious pool, mentioned in last chapter, and the small hole kept open alongside the yacht, there was no water to be met with anywhere. The sea, as far as the eye could reach, was a smooth unbroken sheet of glass, two feet in thickness if a single inch. If there was any ripple or swell in the now far-off blue water, it did not affect the ice for miles around theSnowbirdin the slightest. There was never a crack and never a flaw in it. It was hard, solid, and black, adamantine one might almost say in its extreme hardness. The chips broken off from the edge of the ice-hole looked like pieces of greenish rock crystal. The ice-hole itself required to be broken every time a bucket was dipped in it.Meanwhile the days grew shorter and shorter, but there was never a breath of wind, and never a cloud in the sky. And the sun looked cold and rayless, yet at night the stars shone out with extraordinary brilliancy.Breakfast was now a meal to be partaken of by lamplight, and so too was dinner, but they both passed off none the less pleasantly for that.“It seems to me,” said Allan one morning, “that one of these days the sun won’t trouble to get up at all.”“We are just in the latitude,” remarked McBain, “where even at midsummer there is a little night, and at mid-winter a little day.”“But we will never be positively in the dark, I should think, while the stars are so brilliant?” Allan asked.“We’ll have the glorious aurora borealis by-and-bye,” said McBain, “to say nothing of long spells of moonlight; but we are, as I said before, in the very centre of a land of wonders, and there will doubtless be nights when the storm spirit will be abroad in all his might and majesty, clothed in clouds and darkness, a darkness more intense and terrible than any we have ever experienced in our own country.”“It is a good thing,” said Rory, “that you thought of taking such an array of beautiful lamps.”Yes, Rory was right, it was a beautiful array. As Ralph remarked, “theSnowbirdwas strong in lamps.”They hung in the passage, they hung in the snuggery, and four of them lit up the saloon, with a brightness almost equal to that of day itself.And those lamps gave heat as well as light, but large fires were kept constantly roaring in the stoves. The stove that stood in the snuggery was a very large one, and to make the place all the more comfortable the deck was almost buried in skins—trophies of the prowess of our heroes in the hunting-field. And yet with all this it must be confessed that at times the cold was felt to be very severe; indeed, the thermometer kept steadily down many degrees below zero. There was one way of defying it during the day, however, and that way lay in action.“Keep moving is my motto,” said Rory one day on the ice.“Indeed, Rory boy,” said McBain, “you act well up to it; if I were asked to define you now, do you know the words I would use?”“No,” said Rory.“Perpetual motion personified,” said McBain.“Thank you,” Rory said, lifting his cap.There was an excellent way of keeping out the cold after dinner, and that was to make a circle round the snuggery stove, reclining on the skins with cups of warm fragrant coffee, and engaging in pleasant conversation. There was another way of keeping out the cold in the long evenings, and that was to retire to the new hall and give a dance. This was the favourite plan with the crew at all events, and McBain, well knowing the value of healthful happy exercise, was always delighted when Rory professed himself ready and willing to discourse sweet music to the men tripping it on the light fantastic toe.But the time of all others when our heroes really did feel the effects of the excessively low temperature, was the cold half-hour immediately after turning into bed. Of course the curtains would be carefully and closely drawn, ay, and heads carefully covered with bedclothes, but for all that, shiver they must for the cold half-hour. But gradually the feeling wore away, warmth stole over them, then noses could be protruded over the quilts, and by-and-by sleep sealed up their senses.When they awoke in the morning, lo and behold they were lying in caves of snow! Top and bottom of the bed, back and roof, were covered with snow to the depth of half an inch; and so were the curtains, and so were the quilts. Where in the name of mystery had the snow come from? The explanation is easy enough. The snow was nothing more nor less than their frozen breath.I do not think a single day passed that Rory did not, during this black frost, make a sketch from a frozen pane of glass. The frost effects on the frozen glass were simply magical, and it was very curious to notice that some of the panes had been but lightly touched with the frost; they were unfinished sketches, so to speak, while others represented whole landscapes, mountain and forest and sky as well.“Look at this pane,” said Rory, one morning. “Now I wonder what Jack Frost meant to have filled that picture in with?”“Jack seems to have been having a frolic,” said Allan. “Why, there is only one long white thread down the centre of the pane, and this is all hung over with battle-axes and crosses. Jack’s a funny fellow.”“Jackis,” said Rory.“Poor Seth!” he continued; “d’ye know the trick he played him yesterday?”“No,” said Allan.“Oh! then,” said Rory, “what should John Frost, woe worth him! do but go and freeze the poor man’s nose, and sure enough to-day it is as big as the teapot; there is no looking at him without laughing.”“Poor fellow!” Allan remarked.Frost-biting was far from a rare accident now, and when on the ice it was found necessary for both men and officers to keep a sharp look-out on each other’s faces; a white spot represented a sudden frost-bite, unfelt by the person most interested, and only visible to his companion. But it had at once to be rubbed with ice to gradually restore the circulation, else the part, after the lapse of some hours, would mortify.Here is a strange thing. For the first day or two of frost, while the ice was still comparatively thin, by lying flat down and gazing beneath, they were in a short time able to perceive fishes and other denizens of the deep close underneath them. Even sharks, and creatures with shapes still more dreadful, at times appeared. There was a strange fascination in this to Rory, these dark, turning, twisting shapes close under him, that stared at him with their terrible eyes, or mouthed at the ice as if they would fain swallow him, appearing and disappearing in the dark water; it was fascinating, yet fearful.When coming from the shore on the evening of the second day, “Let us skate for a mile or two in the starlight,” said Rory.“Agreed!” said Allan, and off they went.They skated quite a mile from the shore.“Now,” said Rory, “let us have a peep through the ice.”“We can’t see anything in the dark,” replied Allan.But Rory was of a different opinion, and no sooner had he lain down than, “Oh, Allan, Allan! look, look!” he cried.Allan saw it too—a terrible shape, seemingly made of fire, wriggling up from the dark depths and approaching the spot where they lay, until they could see it easily. A gigantic snake apparently, as big as the stem of the tallest oak, all quivering and phosphorescent, with crimson eyes and a mouth of awful teeth! The boys felt fear now if they never felt it before. They were spellbound, too; they could not remove their gaze from the apparition, and a kind of nightmare dread took possession of their hearts.But the thing disappeared at last; it vanished as it had come, leaving only the blackness of darkness. The spell was broken, and they skated back again towards the yacht in silence, but wondering greatly at what they had seen.The country around them, with its hills and its forests, looked dismal enough now at times. There was no cloud scenery, and consequently no lovely sunrises or sunsets, but just in the gloaming hour, soon after the sun had gone down, the lower part of the sky all round, between the immediate horizon and the upper vault of blue, used to assume a strange sea-green hue, in which the bright stars sparkled and shone like diamonds of the purest water.“Hallo!” said Rory, one day, “I’ve got an idea.”The day was one of intensest frost—probably the coldest they had ever yet experienced.“Yes, an idea,” he continued—“and that is more than ever you had, you know, Ralph.”“Well, then, tell us,” said Ralph; “but I should think it will get frozen hard if you attempt to put it into words.”“But I won’t,” said Rory; “I mean to put it into action.”Rory dived down below, and his two companions remained on deck, wondering what he was going to be up to.But presently Rory returned, bearing long clay pipes and a basin of soapsuds. “The idea is a very ridiculous one,” he said, “but a funny one. Fancy, old sailors like ourselves, and mighty hunters, blowing soap-bubbles like so many babies! But here, boys, take your pipes and heave round.”Next moment both Ralph and Allan entered into the business with spirit, and everybody looked on astonished, for, strange to say, the beautiful soap-bubbles were no sooner blown than they were frozen, and instead of floating away and fading shortly, they remained in existence. The boys blew them by the score and by the hundred, until the deck of the yacht and the top of the companion, and even the bulwarks, were laden with them.“Now then,” cried Rory, in ecstasy; “what d’ye think of that, captain? Troth! there is a beautiful cargo for you.”“It’s a very fragile one,” said McBain.“Ah! but,” said Rory, “it is poetic in the extreme, and entirely new, and I’m sure nobody ever saw such a sight before.”“Nobody but yourself,” said McBain, “could have conceived so very strange an idea.”“Truly,” said Rory, “Jack Frost is a funny fellow.”“Jack Frost and you are a pair then, Rory; but I’ve got news for you.”“What is it?”“The glass is going down, and I think we’ll soon have a change.” McBain was right. That same day, shortly before sundown, a strange mist or fog gathered in the sky all around them, but not close aboard of them; the country was nowhere obscured, only the sky itself; and through this mist the great sun glared ruddy and angry-like.“It is the snow-mist,” said McBain.But still there was no wind; all nature was hushed, as if she held her breath and waited expectant.The powdery snow began to fall as soon as the sun went down, and ere nightfall it lay inches deep on the decks, and on all the sea of ice beside them. It soon changed in its character—from being powdery it now came down in huge flakes; and when the morning broke, so deep was the fall, that there was little to be seen of the yacht save her tall and tapering masts. She was now, indeed, aSnowbird!The fall had seemingly stopped, however, but the clouds with which the sky was now overcast were dark and threatening.It was now “all hands on deck to clear the ship of snow,” and in less than an hour the yacht looked quite herself again, only all around her was the white waste of snow. There would be no more skating for a time, at least. A look of disappointment crept over Rory’s face, and he sighed as he saw Peter restoring the now useless skates to their box and putting them away. He had to fly to his fiddle for relief. That, at all events, was a never-failing source of comfort to this strangely-tempered Irish boy.The men were very busy now for a few days. A road had to be dug through the deep snow to the shore, and a clearance made all around the new hall, as well as around the ice-hole. Had Rory had his will, he would have set the men to work on the ice itself, to clear roads all over it, so that he might still enjoy his favourite pastime, skating.The snow was soft and powdery, and when he got over the side and attempted to walk on it, he almost disappeared entirely, but there was a remedy for even this evil.From his store-room McBain produced half-a-dozen pairs of snow-shoes, and old Ap and his assistant were invited aft to study their construction, with the intention of imitating them, and making many more pairs, for all hands must be furnished with these curious “garments,” as Rory called them.Our heroes felt very awkward in them at first, especially Ralph, but Seth came to the rescue and volunteered a few lessons.“I guess,” he said to Rory, “you imagines you’ve got a pair of dancing-pumps on, and you wants to do a hornpipe. It ain’t a mortal bit of use trying that. You mustn’t lift your feet so high; you must just skoot along as I do, so, and—so.”“Why, I wish I could skoot along like you,” said Rory, picking himself up the best way he could, for in trying to imitate the old trapper he had gone over and almost disappeared, shoes and all. “Troth, Seth, my bright young boy, these pedal appliances don’t suit me at all. Och! my poor ankles. I do believe the whole lot of the two of them is fairly out of joint. But one can’t learn anything useful without trying, so here goes again. Come along, Porpy. Cheerily does it. Hullo! WhereisPorpy?”There was at that present moment nothing of Porpy, as Rory often facetiously called his companion Ralph, to be seen except a pair of legs with snow-shoes at the end of them, and these were waggling most expressively.But Ralph soon got up and alongside again, and then Rory did not call him Porpy any longer, because he did not like to have his ears pulled.“I say, Ralph,” he said, slyly, “you’ve no idea what a pair of elegant legs you have.”“Indeed!” said Ralph.“Yes,” continued his tormentor, “and eloquent as well as elegant. They are a speaking pair. Had you only seen yourself two minutes ago, when there was nothing of you visible at all, at all, but just them same pair of beautiful limbs, you’d—”But Rory never finished his sentence. He had stuck the toe of one of his snow-shoes into the snow, and away he went next.Well, you see this learning to “skoot along,” as Seth called it, was not devoid of interest and fun, but in a few days they could skoot as well as Seth himself, and even carry their guns under their arms in the most approved fashion.It was well for them that they had learned to hold their guns while walking with snow-shoes, for one day the trio had an adventure with some illustrious strangers, that taxed all their skill both in walking and shooting. I will introduce them to you in the next chapter.

For week after week the great black frost continued, seeming only to wax more and more intense as the time went on. With the exception of the mysterious pool, mentioned in last chapter, and the small hole kept open alongside the yacht, there was no water to be met with anywhere. The sea, as far as the eye could reach, was a smooth unbroken sheet of glass, two feet in thickness if a single inch. If there was any ripple or swell in the now far-off blue water, it did not affect the ice for miles around theSnowbirdin the slightest. There was never a crack and never a flaw in it. It was hard, solid, and black, adamantine one might almost say in its extreme hardness. The chips broken off from the edge of the ice-hole looked like pieces of greenish rock crystal. The ice-hole itself required to be broken every time a bucket was dipped in it.

Meanwhile the days grew shorter and shorter, but there was never a breath of wind, and never a cloud in the sky. And the sun looked cold and rayless, yet at night the stars shone out with extraordinary brilliancy.

Breakfast was now a meal to be partaken of by lamplight, and so too was dinner, but they both passed off none the less pleasantly for that.

“It seems to me,” said Allan one morning, “that one of these days the sun won’t trouble to get up at all.”

“We are just in the latitude,” remarked McBain, “where even at midsummer there is a little night, and at mid-winter a little day.”

“But we will never be positively in the dark, I should think, while the stars are so brilliant?” Allan asked.

“We’ll have the glorious aurora borealis by-and-bye,” said McBain, “to say nothing of long spells of moonlight; but we are, as I said before, in the very centre of a land of wonders, and there will doubtless be nights when the storm spirit will be abroad in all his might and majesty, clothed in clouds and darkness, a darkness more intense and terrible than any we have ever experienced in our own country.”

“It is a good thing,” said Rory, “that you thought of taking such an array of beautiful lamps.”

Yes, Rory was right, it was a beautiful array. As Ralph remarked, “theSnowbirdwas strong in lamps.”

They hung in the passage, they hung in the snuggery, and four of them lit up the saloon, with a brightness almost equal to that of day itself.

And those lamps gave heat as well as light, but large fires were kept constantly roaring in the stoves. The stove that stood in the snuggery was a very large one, and to make the place all the more comfortable the deck was almost buried in skins—trophies of the prowess of our heroes in the hunting-field. And yet with all this it must be confessed that at times the cold was felt to be very severe; indeed, the thermometer kept steadily down many degrees below zero. There was one way of defying it during the day, however, and that way lay in action.

“Keep moving is my motto,” said Rory one day on the ice.

“Indeed, Rory boy,” said McBain, “you act well up to it; if I were asked to define you now, do you know the words I would use?”

“No,” said Rory.

“Perpetual motion personified,” said McBain.

“Thank you,” Rory said, lifting his cap.

There was an excellent way of keeping out the cold after dinner, and that was to make a circle round the snuggery stove, reclining on the skins with cups of warm fragrant coffee, and engaging in pleasant conversation. There was another way of keeping out the cold in the long evenings, and that was to retire to the new hall and give a dance. This was the favourite plan with the crew at all events, and McBain, well knowing the value of healthful happy exercise, was always delighted when Rory professed himself ready and willing to discourse sweet music to the men tripping it on the light fantastic toe.

But the time of all others when our heroes really did feel the effects of the excessively low temperature, was the cold half-hour immediately after turning into bed. Of course the curtains would be carefully and closely drawn, ay, and heads carefully covered with bedclothes, but for all that, shiver they must for the cold half-hour. But gradually the feeling wore away, warmth stole over them, then noses could be protruded over the quilts, and by-and-by sleep sealed up their senses.

When they awoke in the morning, lo and behold they were lying in caves of snow! Top and bottom of the bed, back and roof, were covered with snow to the depth of half an inch; and so were the curtains, and so were the quilts. Where in the name of mystery had the snow come from? The explanation is easy enough. The snow was nothing more nor less than their frozen breath.

I do not think a single day passed that Rory did not, during this black frost, make a sketch from a frozen pane of glass. The frost effects on the frozen glass were simply magical, and it was very curious to notice that some of the panes had been but lightly touched with the frost; they were unfinished sketches, so to speak, while others represented whole landscapes, mountain and forest and sky as well.

“Look at this pane,” said Rory, one morning. “Now I wonder what Jack Frost meant to have filled that picture in with?”

“Jack seems to have been having a frolic,” said Allan. “Why, there is only one long white thread down the centre of the pane, and this is all hung over with battle-axes and crosses. Jack’s a funny fellow.”

“Jackis,” said Rory.

“Poor Seth!” he continued; “d’ye know the trick he played him yesterday?”

“No,” said Allan.

“Oh! then,” said Rory, “what should John Frost, woe worth him! do but go and freeze the poor man’s nose, and sure enough to-day it is as big as the teapot; there is no looking at him without laughing.”

“Poor fellow!” Allan remarked.

Frost-biting was far from a rare accident now, and when on the ice it was found necessary for both men and officers to keep a sharp look-out on each other’s faces; a white spot represented a sudden frost-bite, unfelt by the person most interested, and only visible to his companion. But it had at once to be rubbed with ice to gradually restore the circulation, else the part, after the lapse of some hours, would mortify.

Here is a strange thing. For the first day or two of frost, while the ice was still comparatively thin, by lying flat down and gazing beneath, they were in a short time able to perceive fishes and other denizens of the deep close underneath them. Even sharks, and creatures with shapes still more dreadful, at times appeared. There was a strange fascination in this to Rory, these dark, turning, twisting shapes close under him, that stared at him with their terrible eyes, or mouthed at the ice as if they would fain swallow him, appearing and disappearing in the dark water; it was fascinating, yet fearful.

When coming from the shore on the evening of the second day, “Let us skate for a mile or two in the starlight,” said Rory.

“Agreed!” said Allan, and off they went.

They skated quite a mile from the shore.

“Now,” said Rory, “let us have a peep through the ice.”

“We can’t see anything in the dark,” replied Allan.

But Rory was of a different opinion, and no sooner had he lain down than, “Oh, Allan, Allan! look, look!” he cried.

Allan saw it too—a terrible shape, seemingly made of fire, wriggling up from the dark depths and approaching the spot where they lay, until they could see it easily. A gigantic snake apparently, as big as the stem of the tallest oak, all quivering and phosphorescent, with crimson eyes and a mouth of awful teeth! The boys felt fear now if they never felt it before. They were spellbound, too; they could not remove their gaze from the apparition, and a kind of nightmare dread took possession of their hearts.

But the thing disappeared at last; it vanished as it had come, leaving only the blackness of darkness. The spell was broken, and they skated back again towards the yacht in silence, but wondering greatly at what they had seen.

The country around them, with its hills and its forests, looked dismal enough now at times. There was no cloud scenery, and consequently no lovely sunrises or sunsets, but just in the gloaming hour, soon after the sun had gone down, the lower part of the sky all round, between the immediate horizon and the upper vault of blue, used to assume a strange sea-green hue, in which the bright stars sparkled and shone like diamonds of the purest water.

“Hallo!” said Rory, one day, “I’ve got an idea.”

The day was one of intensest frost—probably the coldest they had ever yet experienced.

“Yes, an idea,” he continued—“and that is more than ever you had, you know, Ralph.”

“Well, then, tell us,” said Ralph; “but I should think it will get frozen hard if you attempt to put it into words.”

“But I won’t,” said Rory; “I mean to put it into action.”

Rory dived down below, and his two companions remained on deck, wondering what he was going to be up to.

But presently Rory returned, bearing long clay pipes and a basin of soapsuds. “The idea is a very ridiculous one,” he said, “but a funny one. Fancy, old sailors like ourselves, and mighty hunters, blowing soap-bubbles like so many babies! But here, boys, take your pipes and heave round.”

Next moment both Ralph and Allan entered into the business with spirit, and everybody looked on astonished, for, strange to say, the beautiful soap-bubbles were no sooner blown than they were frozen, and instead of floating away and fading shortly, they remained in existence. The boys blew them by the score and by the hundred, until the deck of the yacht and the top of the companion, and even the bulwarks, were laden with them.

“Now then,” cried Rory, in ecstasy; “what d’ye think of that, captain? Troth! there is a beautiful cargo for you.”

“It’s a very fragile one,” said McBain.

“Ah! but,” said Rory, “it is poetic in the extreme, and entirely new, and I’m sure nobody ever saw such a sight before.”

“Nobody but yourself,” said McBain, “could have conceived so very strange an idea.”

“Truly,” said Rory, “Jack Frost is a funny fellow.”

“Jack Frost and you are a pair then, Rory; but I’ve got news for you.”

“What is it?”

“The glass is going down, and I think we’ll soon have a change.” McBain was right. That same day, shortly before sundown, a strange mist or fog gathered in the sky all around them, but not close aboard of them; the country was nowhere obscured, only the sky itself; and through this mist the great sun glared ruddy and angry-like.

“It is the snow-mist,” said McBain.

But still there was no wind; all nature was hushed, as if she held her breath and waited expectant.

The powdery snow began to fall as soon as the sun went down, and ere nightfall it lay inches deep on the decks, and on all the sea of ice beside them. It soon changed in its character—from being powdery it now came down in huge flakes; and when the morning broke, so deep was the fall, that there was little to be seen of the yacht save her tall and tapering masts. She was now, indeed, aSnowbird!

The fall had seemingly stopped, however, but the clouds with which the sky was now overcast were dark and threatening.

It was now “all hands on deck to clear the ship of snow,” and in less than an hour the yacht looked quite herself again, only all around her was the white waste of snow. There would be no more skating for a time, at least. A look of disappointment crept over Rory’s face, and he sighed as he saw Peter restoring the now useless skates to their box and putting them away. He had to fly to his fiddle for relief. That, at all events, was a never-failing source of comfort to this strangely-tempered Irish boy.

The men were very busy now for a few days. A road had to be dug through the deep snow to the shore, and a clearance made all around the new hall, as well as around the ice-hole. Had Rory had his will, he would have set the men to work on the ice itself, to clear roads all over it, so that he might still enjoy his favourite pastime, skating.

The snow was soft and powdery, and when he got over the side and attempted to walk on it, he almost disappeared entirely, but there was a remedy for even this evil.

From his store-room McBain produced half-a-dozen pairs of snow-shoes, and old Ap and his assistant were invited aft to study their construction, with the intention of imitating them, and making many more pairs, for all hands must be furnished with these curious “garments,” as Rory called them.

Our heroes felt very awkward in them at first, especially Ralph, but Seth came to the rescue and volunteered a few lessons.

“I guess,” he said to Rory, “you imagines you’ve got a pair of dancing-pumps on, and you wants to do a hornpipe. It ain’t a mortal bit of use trying that. You mustn’t lift your feet so high; you must just skoot along as I do, so, and—so.”

“Why, I wish I could skoot along like you,” said Rory, picking himself up the best way he could, for in trying to imitate the old trapper he had gone over and almost disappeared, shoes and all. “Troth, Seth, my bright young boy, these pedal appliances don’t suit me at all. Och! my poor ankles. I do believe the whole lot of the two of them is fairly out of joint. But one can’t learn anything useful without trying, so here goes again. Come along, Porpy. Cheerily does it. Hullo! WhereisPorpy?”

There was at that present moment nothing of Porpy, as Rory often facetiously called his companion Ralph, to be seen except a pair of legs with snow-shoes at the end of them, and these were waggling most expressively.

But Ralph soon got up and alongside again, and then Rory did not call him Porpy any longer, because he did not like to have his ears pulled.

“I say, Ralph,” he said, slyly, “you’ve no idea what a pair of elegant legs you have.”

“Indeed!” said Ralph.

“Yes,” continued his tormentor, “and eloquent as well as elegant. They are a speaking pair. Had you only seen yourself two minutes ago, when there was nothing of you visible at all, at all, but just them same pair of beautiful limbs, you’d—”

But Rory never finished his sentence. He had stuck the toe of one of his snow-shoes into the snow, and away he went next.

Well, you see this learning to “skoot along,” as Seth called it, was not devoid of interest and fun, but in a few days they could skoot as well as Seth himself, and even carry their guns under their arms in the most approved fashion.

It was well for them that they had learned to hold their guns while walking with snow-shoes, for one day the trio had an adventure with some illustrious strangers, that taxed all their skill both in walking and shooting. I will introduce them to you in the next chapter.

Chapter Twenty Four.The Dogs and the Snow—The Sledge-Dog—Training Caribou—A Dinner-Party Interrupted—The Race for Life.“What’s ‘agley’?” asked Rory of Allan, on the morning after the great snowfall.“What iswhat?” Allan replied, looking at his friend in some surprise.“What’s ‘agley’?” repeated Rory. “Sure, now, can’t you speak your own language?”“Oh yes,” said Allan; “but I don’t know that anything in particular is agley this morning. Is there anything agley with you?”“Be easy with a poor boy,” said Rory. “Troth, it is the meaning of the word I’d be after getting hold of.”“Ah! now I see,” said Allan. “Well, ‘agley’ means ‘deviation from a straight line;’ ‘out of the plumb,’ in other words.”“I thought as much,” Rory remarked in a thoughtful manner, “and it is your own darling poet that says,—“‘The best-laid schemes of mice and menGang aft agley,And leave us nought but grief and painFor promised joy.’”Rory finished the quotation with a bit of a sigh, that caused McBain to say,—“Whatisthe matter with you, boy Rory? Have you received a disappointment of any kind?”“Indeed, and I have then,” replied boy Rory, “and I suppose I must confess, for haven’t Ap and myself been busy at it for the last three weeks, making an ice-ship, and hadn’t we got her all complete, keel and hull and sails and all? and troth, she would have gone gliding over the surface of the ice like a thing of life. It was only the wind we were waiting for, and then we would have given you such a surprise, but instead of the wind the snow comes. Isn’t it a pity?”“Oho!” cried Ralph, “and so that accounts for Rory’s mysterious disappearances; that accounts for Ap and he being closeted together for an hour or two every day for weeks back. Sly Rory!”“Yes,” said Rory; “sly if you like, but it would have been such fine fun, you know; and there isn’t one of the three of you that wouldn’t have followed my example and gone in for ice-yachts too. And from all I can learn it is the rarest sport in existence. Seth knows all about it, and he says skating isn’t a circumstance to it. Fancy gliding along over the ice, on the wings of the wind, boys, at the rate of twenty knots an hour!”“It would have been nice, I must confess,” said Ralph. “Something else will turn up, though,” McBain said. “What?” cried Rory, all excitement; “are you going to invent a new pleasure for us, captain?”“Your ice-yacht,” replied McBain, “would have been a glorious idea if the snow hadn’t fallen, and in calm days I had meant to have got up games of curling on the ice; and that, you know, is the most charming game in the world.”“Without exception,” said Allan, enthusiastically. “But the snow, the snow!” sighed Rory. “The beautiful snow has fallen and spoiled everything.”“Not quite so bad as that,” said McBain, with an amused smile. “In a day or two the snow will harden; we can then go long journeys and resume our hunting expeditions.” Walking on snow-shoes soon became not only easy to our heroes, but positively pleasurable, so that they were able to enjoy their rambles over the snow-clad country very much indeed.As for the dogs, they seemed to feel that they could not possibly get enough of the snow. The exuberance of great Oscar’s joy when he went out with his mister for a walk, the first thing every morning, was highly comical to witness. Out for awalk, did I say? Nay, dear reader, that word but poorly expresses the nature of Oscar’s pedal progression. It was not a walk, but a glorious compound of dance, scamper, race, run; gallop, and gambol. Had you been ever so old it would have made you feel young again to behold him. He knew while Allan was dressing that he meant to go out, and begin at once to exhibit signs of impatience. He would yawn and stretch himself and wriggle and shake; then he would open his mouth and endeavour to round a sentence in real verbal English, and, failing in this, fall back upon dog language pure and simple. Or he would stand as steady as a pointer, looking up at Allan with his beautiful head turned on one side, and his mouth a little open, just sufficiently so to show the tip of his bright pink tongue, and his brown eyes would speak to his master. “Couldn’t you,” the dog would seem to ask—“couldn’t you get on your coat a little—oh,everso little!—faster? What can you want with a muffler? I don’t wear a muffler. And now you are looking for your fur cap, and there it is right before your very eyes!”“And,” the dog would add, “I dare say we are out at last,” and he would hardly give his mister time to open the companion door for him.But once over the side, “Hurrah!” he would seen to cry, then away he would bound, and away, and away, and away, straight ahead as crow could fly, through the snow and through the snow, which rose around him in feathery clouds, till he appeared but a little dark speck in the distance. This race straight ahead was meant to get rid of his super-extra steam. Having expended this, back he would come with a rush and a run, make pretence to jump his master down, but dive past him at the very last moment. Then he would gambol in front of his master in such a daft and comical fashion that made Allan laugh aloud; and, seeing his master laughing, Oscar would laugh too, showing such a double regiment of white, flashing, pearly teeth, that, with the quickness of the dog’s motions, they seemed to begin at his lips and go right away down both sides of him as far as the tail.Hurroosh! hurroosh! Each exclamation, reader, is meant to represent a kind of a double-somersault, which I verily believe Oscar invented himself. He performed it by leaping off the ground, bending sideways, and going right round like a top, without touching the snow, with a spring like that of a five-year-old salmon getting over a weir.Hurroosh! hurroosh!Then Allan would make a grab at his tail.“Oh, that’s your game!” Oscar would say; “then downyougo!”And down Allan would roll, half-buried in the powdery snow, and not be able to get up again for laughing; then away Oscar would rush, wildly round and round in a complete circle, having a radius of some fifty yards, with Allan McGregor on his broad back for a centre.After half-an-hour of such furious fun, is it any wonder that Allan and Oscar returned to breakfast with appetites like hunters?The Skye terrier enjoyed the snow quite as much in his own little way as Oscar did, and, indeed, he used to live in under it a goodly part of his time every day. He in a manner buried himself alive. Plunket, the mastiff, on the other hand, was always in the habit of taking his pleasures in a quiet and dignified manner.“Now, gentlemen,” said old Seth one day, “I guess I can a kind o’ prove to you that my dog Plunket is useful, if he ain’t ornamental.”And so the trapper set himself to manufacture a light sledge, and when he had done so, and harnessed the great dog thereto, and seated himself among the skins, it seemed about the most natural thing in the world for that dog to draw the sledge, and Seth had never seemed so much at home before as he did sitting behind him.Oscar took very great interest in the yoking of the sledge-dog, as Plunket soon came to be called, so much so that the happy thought occurred to Rory to try him in harness too, and this was accordingly done. He was made tracer to Plunket, and although he managed sometimes to capsize the sledge in the snow, he soon became less rash, and settled quietly down to the work.A larger and very lightly-constructed sledge was then made, and in this both Allan and Rory could travel over the snow with great ease, dragged along by the two faithful dogs.“What a glorious thing it would be,” said Allan one day, “if we could tame and harness a real caribou!”“We can if we try, I think,” said McBain. “Love and kindness will tame almost any animal.”“First catch your hare,” said Ralph.But through Seth’s skill a week had not passed before they were in possession of not only one, but a pair of deer. A rude kind of a stable was built for them on shore, and the taming commenced, and with such good results that in little over three weeks they were both broken to harness. Sledging now became quite a pastime, and great fun they found it.Although, owing to the rugged nature of the ground, it was impracticable to venture far inland with the deer-sledge, they were able to take quite long journeys along the seashore, and here many strange birds and beasts fell to their guns, and they met with many adventures.It is doubtful whether there is any animal in the world, that, for strength and ferocity combined can be compared, to the polar bear, the king of the sea of ice. I do not say that he is the bravest animal ever I have met, but he is nevertheless daring enough in all conscience. Daring and cunning too. A bear will attack one man, and even come out of his way a long distance to do so, but I have never known an instance of a single bear attacking a party of even two, unless he were chased, and had to stand at bay.Hitherto our heroes had not met, nor ever seen, this gigantic monster. But the time came.Allan and Rory were one morning very early astir, for in the company of trapper Seth they were to make a long journey in pursuit of game, the game in question being a smaller kind of seal, to be found in abundance some distance along the coast to the east. So sledges were got out and harnessed, a long time before the stars paled before the light of the short Arctic winter day. The deer had been well fed, and were consequently in fine form; they tossed their tall antlers in the air, and seemed to spurn the very ground on which they trod.It was a glorious morning for a sledge-drive; the snow was hard, and just sufficiently packed to make an easy path. They skirted a great forest that at times grew almost close to the edge of the sea, and long before the sun gleamed up from the north-east, to sink again in the north-west in little over an hour, they had put twenty goodly miles between them and theSnowbird.They were now at the scene of action—their shooting-ground—and, much to their joy, they found the creatures they had come so far to seek. The seals had come up out of the water to bask in the sun, and therefore lay close, so that in little over an hour they had possessed themselves of as many skins as they could conveniently carry, and were on the eve of returning to the wood, where they had tied up their deer and left their sledges.“I wonder,” said Rory, “what is at the other side of that far-off point of land yonder, and what we would see if we rounded it.”“What a fellow you are for wondering, Rory!” said Allan. “Suppose now, instead of wondering, we go and have a look?”“Agreed,” said Rory; and off they set, Seth preferring to stay behind and get the skins packed.It was a long road and a rough one; the snow was deeper than they could have believed, but they had donned their snow-shoes, and so they reached the point at last, just as the setting sun was tipping the far-off hills with gold.The scene beyond the point was indeed a strange one; as far as the eye could reach it was a sea of ice, but ice entirely different from the smooth unbroken snow-clad plain that lay around theSnowbird. For here the ice, exposed to the whole force of the heaving billows, had been broken up into a chaos of pieces of every conceivable size and shape. Nor was this ice quite untenanted. On the contrary, Allan and Rory had arrived in time to be witnesses of a very busy scene indeed, and one that they would be unlikely ever to forget. Half-a-dozen enormous bears were feasting on the body of an immense whale, not fifty yards from where Rory and Allan now stood.“Down, Rory!” cried Allan, throwing himself on his face; “here is a chance for a bag, the like of which we never even dreamt of.”It was evident that the bears had not become aware of their presence, either by sight, or scent, or sound; they kept on with their ghastly feast.Not quietly, though, but with much snarling and growling.“Just hear them,” whispered Rory. “Wouldn’t you think they’d be content with a whole whale? But, big and all as they are, it will be many a day before they finish their dinner.”“They never will finish it,” said Allan, “unless I have lost the art of holding my rifle straight. Are you ready, Rory? Well, you take the nearest Mr Bruin; aim straight for the skull. I mean to give that centre gourmand a pill to aid his digestion.”They both fired at once, and with this result—the centre bear sprang into the air, then fell dead on the snow; the near bear was only wounded, he sprang on one of his fellows, and a most desperate combat ensued. Another volley from behind the rock put a different complexion on the matter, and one more bear dropped never to rise.“Hand me a cartridge,” said Rory, “I’ve just fired my last.”“In that case,” cried Allan, in some alarm, “let us be off, for I have only two more cartridges; and look you, we have irritated these monsters, they are making directly for us.”This was true. A polar bear is at no time an animal of a very sweet temper, but only just interrupt him at his dinner, and he will have revenge if he possibly can.“Shall we fire again?” said Rory.“No, Rory, no. Come on quick, boy, there isn’t a moment to lose.”Even as he spoke the foremost bear had gained the shore, and as soon as he spied our heroes he uttered a growl of rage that seemed to awaken every echo in the rocks, and with head down he came ferociously and quickly on to the attack.It was to be a race for life, that was evident from the first. On level ground I think the advantage would have been all on the side of the men, but here on the snow, and encumbered with their snow-shoes, the odds were all on the side of the pursuers. Before they had run a hundred yards this was evident. The bears were gaining, and there was fully a mile to be covered.“Come on quicker if you can,” said Allan, who was the better runner.“Couldn’t we stop and drop the foremost?” said Rory.“No, no; that would be madness. The others would have all the more time to come up.”Presently Allan had recourse to a ruse which he had read of, but never thought he would have to put in practice in order to save his life. He took off his jacket and threw it upon the snow. The bears stopped to sniff at it, and the temptation was now strong to fire, but he resisted it. They had only two cartridges between them and death, so to speak, and they did well to reserve them.When old Seth had quietly stowed away the skins, he sat down to rest himself on the edge of one of the sledges, and so, dreaming and musing, a whole half-hour passed away. Then he began to get uneasy at the non-appearance of the boys.“And it’s getting late, too,” he said, as he shouldered his rifle. “Seth will even go and seek them. Why,” he added, after he had gone some distance, “if yonder isn’t both on ’em coming runnin’. And what is that behind them? Why, may I be skivered if it ain’t b’ars! Hurrah! Seth to the rescue!”And, so saying, the old trapper increased his walk to a run, and the distance between him and the boys was rapidly lessened.And dire need too, for both Allan and Rory were well-nigh exhausted, and the foremost bear was barely forty yards behind them.But Allan’s time had come for decisive action. He threw himself on his face, the better to make sure of his aim, and almost immediately after the foremost bear came tumbling down. And now Seth came up, and another Bruin speedily followed his companion into the land of darkness. The others escaped into the forest.It had been a very narrow escape, but McBain told Allan that very evening that he was not sorry for it, as the adventure would surely teach him caution.

“What’s ‘agley’?” asked Rory of Allan, on the morning after the great snowfall.

“What iswhat?” Allan replied, looking at his friend in some surprise.

“What’s ‘agley’?” repeated Rory. “Sure, now, can’t you speak your own language?”

“Oh yes,” said Allan; “but I don’t know that anything in particular is agley this morning. Is there anything agley with you?”

“Be easy with a poor boy,” said Rory. “Troth, it is the meaning of the word I’d be after getting hold of.”

“Ah! now I see,” said Allan. “Well, ‘agley’ means ‘deviation from a straight line;’ ‘out of the plumb,’ in other words.”

“I thought as much,” Rory remarked in a thoughtful manner, “and it is your own darling poet that says,—

“‘The best-laid schemes of mice and menGang aft agley,And leave us nought but grief and painFor promised joy.’”

“‘The best-laid schemes of mice and menGang aft agley,And leave us nought but grief and painFor promised joy.’”

Rory finished the quotation with a bit of a sigh, that caused McBain to say,—

“Whatisthe matter with you, boy Rory? Have you received a disappointment of any kind?”

“Indeed, and I have then,” replied boy Rory, “and I suppose I must confess, for haven’t Ap and myself been busy at it for the last three weeks, making an ice-ship, and hadn’t we got her all complete, keel and hull and sails and all? and troth, she would have gone gliding over the surface of the ice like a thing of life. It was only the wind we were waiting for, and then we would have given you such a surprise, but instead of the wind the snow comes. Isn’t it a pity?”

“Oho!” cried Ralph, “and so that accounts for Rory’s mysterious disappearances; that accounts for Ap and he being closeted together for an hour or two every day for weeks back. Sly Rory!”

“Yes,” said Rory; “sly if you like, but it would have been such fine fun, you know; and there isn’t one of the three of you that wouldn’t have followed my example and gone in for ice-yachts too. And from all I can learn it is the rarest sport in existence. Seth knows all about it, and he says skating isn’t a circumstance to it. Fancy gliding along over the ice, on the wings of the wind, boys, at the rate of twenty knots an hour!”

“It would have been nice, I must confess,” said Ralph. “Something else will turn up, though,” McBain said. “What?” cried Rory, all excitement; “are you going to invent a new pleasure for us, captain?”

“Your ice-yacht,” replied McBain, “would have been a glorious idea if the snow hadn’t fallen, and in calm days I had meant to have got up games of curling on the ice; and that, you know, is the most charming game in the world.”

“Without exception,” said Allan, enthusiastically. “But the snow, the snow!” sighed Rory. “The beautiful snow has fallen and spoiled everything.”

“Not quite so bad as that,” said McBain, with an amused smile. “In a day or two the snow will harden; we can then go long journeys and resume our hunting expeditions.” Walking on snow-shoes soon became not only easy to our heroes, but positively pleasurable, so that they were able to enjoy their rambles over the snow-clad country very much indeed.

As for the dogs, they seemed to feel that they could not possibly get enough of the snow. The exuberance of great Oscar’s joy when he went out with his mister for a walk, the first thing every morning, was highly comical to witness. Out for awalk, did I say? Nay, dear reader, that word but poorly expresses the nature of Oscar’s pedal progression. It was not a walk, but a glorious compound of dance, scamper, race, run; gallop, and gambol. Had you been ever so old it would have made you feel young again to behold him. He knew while Allan was dressing that he meant to go out, and begin at once to exhibit signs of impatience. He would yawn and stretch himself and wriggle and shake; then he would open his mouth and endeavour to round a sentence in real verbal English, and, failing in this, fall back upon dog language pure and simple. Or he would stand as steady as a pointer, looking up at Allan with his beautiful head turned on one side, and his mouth a little open, just sufficiently so to show the tip of his bright pink tongue, and his brown eyes would speak to his master. “Couldn’t you,” the dog would seem to ask—“couldn’t you get on your coat a little—oh,everso little!—faster? What can you want with a muffler? I don’t wear a muffler. And now you are looking for your fur cap, and there it is right before your very eyes!”

“And,” the dog would add, “I dare say we are out at last,” and he would hardly give his mister time to open the companion door for him.

But once over the side, “Hurrah!” he would seen to cry, then away he would bound, and away, and away, and away, straight ahead as crow could fly, through the snow and through the snow, which rose around him in feathery clouds, till he appeared but a little dark speck in the distance. This race straight ahead was meant to get rid of his super-extra steam. Having expended this, back he would come with a rush and a run, make pretence to jump his master down, but dive past him at the very last moment. Then he would gambol in front of his master in such a daft and comical fashion that made Allan laugh aloud; and, seeing his master laughing, Oscar would laugh too, showing such a double regiment of white, flashing, pearly teeth, that, with the quickness of the dog’s motions, they seemed to begin at his lips and go right away down both sides of him as far as the tail.

Hurroosh! hurroosh! Each exclamation, reader, is meant to represent a kind of a double-somersault, which I verily believe Oscar invented himself. He performed it by leaping off the ground, bending sideways, and going right round like a top, without touching the snow, with a spring like that of a five-year-old salmon getting over a weir.

Hurroosh! hurroosh!

Then Allan would make a grab at his tail.

“Oh, that’s your game!” Oscar would say; “then downyougo!”

And down Allan would roll, half-buried in the powdery snow, and not be able to get up again for laughing; then away Oscar would rush, wildly round and round in a complete circle, having a radius of some fifty yards, with Allan McGregor on his broad back for a centre.

After half-an-hour of such furious fun, is it any wonder that Allan and Oscar returned to breakfast with appetites like hunters?

The Skye terrier enjoyed the snow quite as much in his own little way as Oscar did, and, indeed, he used to live in under it a goodly part of his time every day. He in a manner buried himself alive. Plunket, the mastiff, on the other hand, was always in the habit of taking his pleasures in a quiet and dignified manner.

“Now, gentlemen,” said old Seth one day, “I guess I can a kind o’ prove to you that my dog Plunket is useful, if he ain’t ornamental.”

And so the trapper set himself to manufacture a light sledge, and when he had done so, and harnessed the great dog thereto, and seated himself among the skins, it seemed about the most natural thing in the world for that dog to draw the sledge, and Seth had never seemed so much at home before as he did sitting behind him.

Oscar took very great interest in the yoking of the sledge-dog, as Plunket soon came to be called, so much so that the happy thought occurred to Rory to try him in harness too, and this was accordingly done. He was made tracer to Plunket, and although he managed sometimes to capsize the sledge in the snow, he soon became less rash, and settled quietly down to the work.

A larger and very lightly-constructed sledge was then made, and in this both Allan and Rory could travel over the snow with great ease, dragged along by the two faithful dogs.

“What a glorious thing it would be,” said Allan one day, “if we could tame and harness a real caribou!”

“We can if we try, I think,” said McBain. “Love and kindness will tame almost any animal.”

“First catch your hare,” said Ralph.

But through Seth’s skill a week had not passed before they were in possession of not only one, but a pair of deer. A rude kind of a stable was built for them on shore, and the taming commenced, and with such good results that in little over three weeks they were both broken to harness. Sledging now became quite a pastime, and great fun they found it.

Although, owing to the rugged nature of the ground, it was impracticable to venture far inland with the deer-sledge, they were able to take quite long journeys along the seashore, and here many strange birds and beasts fell to their guns, and they met with many adventures.

It is doubtful whether there is any animal in the world, that, for strength and ferocity combined can be compared, to the polar bear, the king of the sea of ice. I do not say that he is the bravest animal ever I have met, but he is nevertheless daring enough in all conscience. Daring and cunning too. A bear will attack one man, and even come out of his way a long distance to do so, but I have never known an instance of a single bear attacking a party of even two, unless he were chased, and had to stand at bay.

Hitherto our heroes had not met, nor ever seen, this gigantic monster. But the time came.

Allan and Rory were one morning very early astir, for in the company of trapper Seth they were to make a long journey in pursuit of game, the game in question being a smaller kind of seal, to be found in abundance some distance along the coast to the east. So sledges were got out and harnessed, a long time before the stars paled before the light of the short Arctic winter day. The deer had been well fed, and were consequently in fine form; they tossed their tall antlers in the air, and seemed to spurn the very ground on which they trod.

It was a glorious morning for a sledge-drive; the snow was hard, and just sufficiently packed to make an easy path. They skirted a great forest that at times grew almost close to the edge of the sea, and long before the sun gleamed up from the north-east, to sink again in the north-west in little over an hour, they had put twenty goodly miles between them and theSnowbird.

They were now at the scene of action—their shooting-ground—and, much to their joy, they found the creatures they had come so far to seek. The seals had come up out of the water to bask in the sun, and therefore lay close, so that in little over an hour they had possessed themselves of as many skins as they could conveniently carry, and were on the eve of returning to the wood, where they had tied up their deer and left their sledges.

“I wonder,” said Rory, “what is at the other side of that far-off point of land yonder, and what we would see if we rounded it.”

“What a fellow you are for wondering, Rory!” said Allan. “Suppose now, instead of wondering, we go and have a look?”

“Agreed,” said Rory; and off they set, Seth preferring to stay behind and get the skins packed.

It was a long road and a rough one; the snow was deeper than they could have believed, but they had donned their snow-shoes, and so they reached the point at last, just as the setting sun was tipping the far-off hills with gold.

The scene beyond the point was indeed a strange one; as far as the eye could reach it was a sea of ice, but ice entirely different from the smooth unbroken snow-clad plain that lay around theSnowbird. For here the ice, exposed to the whole force of the heaving billows, had been broken up into a chaos of pieces of every conceivable size and shape. Nor was this ice quite untenanted. On the contrary, Allan and Rory had arrived in time to be witnesses of a very busy scene indeed, and one that they would be unlikely ever to forget. Half-a-dozen enormous bears were feasting on the body of an immense whale, not fifty yards from where Rory and Allan now stood.

“Down, Rory!” cried Allan, throwing himself on his face; “here is a chance for a bag, the like of which we never even dreamt of.”

It was evident that the bears had not become aware of their presence, either by sight, or scent, or sound; they kept on with their ghastly feast.

Not quietly, though, but with much snarling and growling.

“Just hear them,” whispered Rory. “Wouldn’t you think they’d be content with a whole whale? But, big and all as they are, it will be many a day before they finish their dinner.”

“They never will finish it,” said Allan, “unless I have lost the art of holding my rifle straight. Are you ready, Rory? Well, you take the nearest Mr Bruin; aim straight for the skull. I mean to give that centre gourmand a pill to aid his digestion.”

They both fired at once, and with this result—the centre bear sprang into the air, then fell dead on the snow; the near bear was only wounded, he sprang on one of his fellows, and a most desperate combat ensued. Another volley from behind the rock put a different complexion on the matter, and one more bear dropped never to rise.

“Hand me a cartridge,” said Rory, “I’ve just fired my last.”

“In that case,” cried Allan, in some alarm, “let us be off, for I have only two more cartridges; and look you, we have irritated these monsters, they are making directly for us.”

This was true. A polar bear is at no time an animal of a very sweet temper, but only just interrupt him at his dinner, and he will have revenge if he possibly can.

“Shall we fire again?” said Rory.

“No, Rory, no. Come on quick, boy, there isn’t a moment to lose.”

Even as he spoke the foremost bear had gained the shore, and as soon as he spied our heroes he uttered a growl of rage that seemed to awaken every echo in the rocks, and with head down he came ferociously and quickly on to the attack.

It was to be a race for life, that was evident from the first. On level ground I think the advantage would have been all on the side of the men, but here on the snow, and encumbered with their snow-shoes, the odds were all on the side of the pursuers. Before they had run a hundred yards this was evident. The bears were gaining, and there was fully a mile to be covered.

“Come on quicker if you can,” said Allan, who was the better runner.

“Couldn’t we stop and drop the foremost?” said Rory.

“No, no; that would be madness. The others would have all the more time to come up.”

Presently Allan had recourse to a ruse which he had read of, but never thought he would have to put in practice in order to save his life. He took off his jacket and threw it upon the snow. The bears stopped to sniff at it, and the temptation was now strong to fire, but he resisted it. They had only two cartridges between them and death, so to speak, and they did well to reserve them.

When old Seth had quietly stowed away the skins, he sat down to rest himself on the edge of one of the sledges, and so, dreaming and musing, a whole half-hour passed away. Then he began to get uneasy at the non-appearance of the boys.

“And it’s getting late, too,” he said, as he shouldered his rifle. “Seth will even go and seek them. Why,” he added, after he had gone some distance, “if yonder isn’t both on ’em coming runnin’. And what is that behind them? Why, may I be skivered if it ain’t b’ars! Hurrah! Seth to the rescue!”

And, so saying, the old trapper increased his walk to a run, and the distance between him and the boys was rapidly lessened.

And dire need too, for both Allan and Rory were well-nigh exhausted, and the foremost bear was barely forty yards behind them.

But Allan’s time had come for decisive action. He threw himself on his face, the better to make sure of his aim, and almost immediately after the foremost bear came tumbling down. And now Seth came up, and another Bruin speedily followed his companion into the land of darkness. The others escaped into the forest.

It had been a very narrow escape, but McBain told Allan that very evening that he was not sorry for it, as the adventure would surely teach him caution.

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