Jack, looking at the label again, "and it says that one capsule,
if chewed and swallowed, is as much as an ordinary meal. There are two
hundred capsules in here, and that will last us for a few days at
least."

"Not very hearty eatin', 'cordin' to my way of thinkin'," said Bill;
"but I guess with that and the moss Dirola can dig up we'll get along."

The Esquimaux woman had finished her simple meal. She dug up quite a
quantity of the moss and laid it on top of a big pile of ice, where she
could find it again.

"Must build house now," she announced. "Make place for sleep. I show
you!"

In a little while a large space was scooped out of the snow drift. Many
hands soon enlarged the cave until it was large enough for all to move
about inside with comfort.

"Now for dinner!" exclaimed Jack, as he opened the tin.

The meal, though simple, was satisfying, and soon the lost ones felt
more comfortable.

"It's stopped snowing!" announced Mark, going to the entrance of the
cave, "and it's much colder. I guess we'll stay here a while."

He returned to his companions. They all went as far to the rear of the
cave as they could, for the wind came in the wide entrance.

"We must make a winding passage, and then the breeze can't find it's way
in," suggested Jack. "I think--"

But what he thought he never told, for at that instant the floor of the
snow cave gave way right under where they were all standing, and the
whole five of them went slipping, sliding and tumbling down, they knew
not to where.

For an instant all were so surprised and frightened that they could not
even cry out. They were plunged into dense blackness.

"What has happened?" Jack cried.

Before any one could answer him, the blackness gave way to a glare of
light, and the two boys, with Dirola and the men, brought up suddenly
with a jolt on the floor of a big ice cavern.

It was several hundred feet long, and as many wide, with a roof fifty
feet above their heads.

The sides were of pure ice, but, strangest of all, was the rosy, golden
glow that filled the whole place. With wonder in their eyes the
adventurers gazed at the source of the illumination.

At one end of the cavern was a rude altar. Behind it, and on both sides,
there arose great streamers of fire, tongues of flame, red, green, blue,
purple, yellow and glaring white.

Yet the fire did not burn, for there was ice on every side, and the ice
did not melt. In wonder the crew of the _Monarc