f, and the sooner we set
about it the better. We can go inland as far as possible, and leave a
line of flags or some sort of signals that will attract attention to
this place."

"I don't know but what that is a good idea," remarked White,
thoughtfully. "At any rate, it would be better than doing nothing, and
if we don't get help in some way we shall certainly freeze to death in
this place long before the winter is over."

So Cabot's suggestion was adopted, and the remainder of that day was
spent in preparing little flags of red and white cloth, attaching them
to slender sticks, and in making a number of wooden arrows. On a
smooth side of these they wrote:

"Help! We are stranded on the coast."

"I wish we could write it in Eskimo and Indian," said Cabot, "for
English doesn't seem to be the popular language of this country."

"The flags and arrows will be a plain enough language for any natives
who may run across them," responded White, "and I only hope they'll see
them; but it is a slim chance, and we'll probably be frozen stiff long
before any one finds us."

"Oh, I don't know," said Cabot, cheerfully. "There's firewood enough
in the schooner itself to last quite a while."

"Burn the 'Sea Bee'!" cried White, aghast at the suggestion. "I
couldn't do it."

"Neither could I at present; but I expect both of us could and would,
long before our blood reached the freezing point."

"But if we destroyed the schooner, how would we get out of here next
summer?"

"I'm sure I don't know, and don't care to try and think yet a while.
Just now I am much more interested in the nearby winter than in a very
distant summer."

The next day, and for a number of days thereafter, our lads worked at
the establishment of their signal line. They erected stone cairns at
such distances apart that every one was visible from those on either
side, and on the summit of each they planted a flag with its
accompanying pointer. In this way they ran an unbroken range of
signals for ten miles, and would have carried it further had they dared
expend any more of their precious firewood.

While they were engaged upon this task the weather became noticeably
colder, the mercury falling below the freezing point each night, and
the whole country was wrapped in the first folds of the snow blanket
under which it would sleep for months. About the time their signal
line was completed, however, there came a milder day, so suggestive of
the van