ep las' night till
goodness knows when. Good-night! Hedn't you better go, too, Phoebe?"

"I guess I will," said Phoebe, turning to Copernicus. "Good-night, Mr.
Droop."

"Good-night, Cousin Phoebe--good-night, Cousin Rebecca. I'll go to bed
myself, I b'lieve."

The two doors were closed and Droop proceeded to draw the steel shutters
in order to produce artificially the gloom not vouchsafed by a
too-persistent sun.

In half an hour all were asleep within the now motionless conveyance.

CHAPTER V

DROOP'S THEORY IN PRACTICE

All were up betimes when the faithful clock announced that it ought to
be morning. As for the sun, as though resenting the liberties about to
be taken by these adventurers with its normal functions, it refused to
set, and was found by the three travellers at the same altitude as the
night before.

Promptly after breakfast Droop proceeded to don a suit of furs which he
drew from a cupboard within the engine-room.

"Ye'd better hev suthin' hot ready when I come in again," he said. "I
'xpect I'll be nigh froze to death."

He drew on a huge cap of bear's fur which extended from his crown to his
shoulders. There was a small hole in front which exposed only his nose
and eyes.

"My, but you do look just like a pictur of Kris Kringle!" laughed
Phoebe. "Don't he, Rebecca?"

Rebecca came to the kitchen door wiping a dish with slow circular
movements of her towel.

"I don't guess you'll freeze very much with all that on," she remarked.

"Thet shows you don't know what seventy or eighty below zero means,"
said a muffled voice from within the fur cap. "You'll hev suthin' hot,
won't ye?" Droop continued, looking appealingly at Phoebe.

"The'll be a pot o' good hot tea," she said. "That'll warm you all
right."

Droop thought of something more stimulating and fragrant, but said
nothing as he returned to the cupboard. Here he drew forth an apparently
endless piece of stout rope. This he wound in a thick coil and hung over
his head.

"Now, then," he said, "when I get down you shet the door at the top of
the stairs tight, coz jest's soon's I open the outside door, thet hall's
goin' to freeze up solid."

"All right!" said Phoebe. "I'll see to it."

Droop descended the stairs with a heavy tread, and as he reached the
foot Phoebe closed the upper door, which she now noticed was provided
with weather-strips.

Then the two women stood at the windows on the right-hand side of the
vessel and