of boat,
according to our notions. It was only nine inches deep, and about a foot
and a half wide in the middle, tapering to a point at either end and
curving upward. It was about sixteen feet long. Its frame was of very
light wood, and this was covered with tanned seal-skin. Sammy's mother
was a Greenlander, and she could sew on seal-skin very handily, using
sinews for thread; and she had covered her little boy's boat with
seal-skin, leaving a hole in the centre just large enough to receive
Sammy.

When he had dropped into his place, he then laced the lower border of
his jacket to the rim of the hole, and there he was all snug--not a drop
of water could get in. Grasping his single oar, about six feet long,
with a paddle at either end, and flourishing it in the water right and
left, away swept the young fisherman.

"I should think his craft would be top-heavy, and over he would go,"
says some reader.

One naturally would think his craft would be top-heavy and over he would
go, as the kayah has no keel and carries no ballast, and if we should
try a kayah, it would certainly be on land. But those Greenlanders learn
to handle themselves so well that their kayahs will go dancing over the
big billows and then fly through a ragged, dangerous surf. From their
kayahs, too, they will fight the fierce white bear.

Ah! Sammy, what is the matter?

"Ugh-h-h-h!"

Sammy gives a melancholy groan. He begins to suspect that his boat is
leaking.

_Could_ any one have slit the seal-skin bottom?

The kayah is really settling.

Sammy feels troubled. "I _must_ go home," he says.

He turns his back upon the bright, beautiful sea, tufted with cakes of
ice that seem in the distance like the white, pure lilies on a glassy
pond, and paddles off home with good-by to the fishing, good-by to the
black-headed seals, good-by to the low islands with their gulls and
mollimucks and burgomeisters and tern and kittiwakes and
eider-ducks--good-by to the long day's fun!

"It makes me feel like a mad whale," said Sammy, "to be cheated out of
my fishing. I wonder who cut my kayah!"

Just then he looked off to the shore, and there stood Billy Blubber, an
ancient enemy.

"There's the fellow," said Sammy. "He slit my kayah, I know. If I had
him, I'd eat him quicker than a tern's egg. Just see how he looks!"

Billy did look exasperating. He saw everything and he enjoyed
everything. Plainly he was the miscreant. He was waddling round on his
stout