ried on, as Skipper Ed told me to!" he moaned. "I'm
always doing something! And there's Jimmy in the--in the fix too! And it
was all my fault!"

And then he remembered the evening devotions that Abel and Mrs. Abel
were doubtless then holding in the cabin. He could see Abel taking the
old worn Eskimo Bible and hymnal from the shelf, and Abel reading and
the two good folks singing a hymn, and then kneeling in praise and
thanks to God for his mercies. And joining them in spirit he sang the
Eskimo version of "Nearer My God to Thee," and then he knelt and prayed,
and felt the better for it.

For a long while he lay, after his devotions were ended, recalling the
kindness of his beloved foster parents. But at last he, too, like Jimmy,
fell asleep to the tune of the booming ice and howling wind, and,
exhausted with his day's work, he slept long and heavily.

When Bobby awoke at last he perceived that it was twilight in his snow
cavern, and, listening for the wind, discovered to his satisfaction that
it had ceased to blow.

"Now I'll find Jimmy," said he, seizing his snow knife, "and see how he
spent the night in the storm."

He removed the snow block from the entrance and cut away the
accumulated drift, and crawling out at once looked about him with
astonished eyes. On one side very near where he had been sleeping waves
were breaking upon the ice, and far away beyond the waters lay the bleak
and naked headland of Cape Harrigan. In the east the sun was just
rising, and the snow of the ice pack sparkled and glittered with
wondrous beauty.

But Bobby saw only the open water, and the distant land, and nowhere
Jimmy or the dogs. A sickening dread came into his heart. The water had
eaten away the ice as he slept! That was the side upon which Jimmy must
have been! Jimmy was gone! He had no doubt Jimmy's body was now floating
somewhere in that stretch of black water!

Then he ran out over the ice and among the hummocks, shouting: "Jimmy!
Jimmy! Answer me, Jimmy, and tell me you're alive! Oh, Jimmy! Tell me
you're alive!"

But no Jimmy answered, and, overcome with grief, Bobby sat down upon the
snow and threw his arms over his knees, and, pillowing his head in the
crook of his elbow, wept.

"It's all my fault! It's all my fault!" he moaned. "I the same as killed
him! I led him into it! Oh, if I hadn't gone back for the whip! Oh, if
I'd only hurried when Skipper Ed told me to!"

But Bobby was young and healthy and active, an