lowed the flame thus reduced to burn all night. Over it
hung a kettle of melting snow, and above this, on a snowshoe, supported
by two others, wet mittens and moccasins were slowly but thoroughly
dried.

In spite of the hot tea, their fur-lined sleeping bags, and the
effective wind-break behind which they were huddled, our lads suffered
with cold long before the night was over, and were quite willing to
make a start when Yim, after a glance at the stars, announced that
daylight was only three hours away. For breakfast they had more
scalding tea and a quantity of hard bread, broken into small bits,
soaked in warm water, fried in seal oil, and eaten with sugar. White
pronounced this fine, but Cabot only ate it under protest, because, as
he said, he must fill up with something.

The travel of that day, with its accompaniments of blisters and
strained muscles, was much harder than that of the day before, and our
weary lads were thankful when, towards its close, they entered a belt
of timber that had been in sight for hours.

That night they slept warmly and soundly on luxurious beds of spruce
boughs beside a great fire frequently replenished by Yim.

"I tell you what," said Cabot, as, early in the evening, he basked in
the heat of this blaze, "there's nothing in all this world so good as
that. For my part I consider fire to be the greatest blessing ever
conferred upon mankind."

"How about light, air, water, food, and sleep?" asked White.

"Those are necessaries, but fire is a luxury. Not only that, but it is
the first of all luxuries and the one upon which nearly all others
depend."

When, a little later, Cabot lay so close to the blaze that his sleeping
bag caught on fire, and he burned his hands in putting it out, White
laughingly asked:

"What do you think of your luxury now?"

"I think," was the reply, "that it proves itself the greatest of
luxuries by punishing over-indulgence in it with the greatest amount of
pain."

"Umph!" remarked Yim, who was listening, "Big fire, goot. Baby fire,
more goot. Innuit yamp mos' goot of any."

"Oh, pshaw!" retorted Cabot, "your sooty little lamp isn't in it with a
blaze like that."

On the third day of their journey the party had skirted the edge of the
timber for several hours, when all at once Yim held his head high with
dilated nostrils. At the same time it was noticed that the dogs were
also sniffing eagerly.

"What is it, Yim?"

"Fire. Injin fire," w