dressed
themselves so quietly that nobody heard them. They remembered the trail
along which Souwanas and Jakoos had carried them. After they had walked for
some time they came to where there was a larger trail, and they turned into
it, and came upon a lot of dogs that had been chasing some rabbits. Soon
the rabbits got away from the dogs, when they reached those trees that had
been chopped down. Minnehaha was the first to notice that the dogs had
turned back, and were coming after them, and she shouted:

"'O, look! those dogs think we are rabbits, and they are coming for us!'"

"When I saw they really were coming," said Sagastao, "Minnehaha and I
jumped up on the logs, and we climbed up as high as we could, and I took up
a stick, and then I stood up with Minnehaha behind me, and I shook the
stick at them, and--and I shouted:

"'A wus, atimuk!'" (Get away, you dogs!)

"They came so near on the logs that I hit one or two of them, while all of
the others on the ground kept barking at us. But I kept shouting back at
them, 'A wus, atimuk!' My! it was great fun. Then all at once we heard Jack
and Cuffy, and, I tell you! soon there was more fun, when our big dogs
sprang at them. Every time an Eskimo was tackled by Jack or Cuffy he went
down, and was soon howling from the way in which he was shaken. And they
had nearly thrashed the whole of them when papa and Kennedy came rushing
up. I wished they had been there sooner, to have seen all the fun."

Thus the lad's tongue rattled on, while it was evident he was utterly
unconscious of the danger they had been in.

After some deliberation it was decided that, in view of this runaway being
the first offense of the kind, the punishment should be confinement to
their own room the next day, until six o'clock in the evening, on a diet of
bread and water. At this Mary was simply furious. She well knew, however,
that it was necessary for her to control herself in her master's and
mistress's presence. She managed to hold her tongue, but her flashing eyes
and an occasional mutter, which would come out as she went about her usual
duties, showed the smoldering fire that was burning inside. The children
had been duly lectured for their breach of discipline and then, that
evening, consigned to their room for their imprisonment which was to last
until the next evening. That night Mary took up her mattress and blankets
and went and slept on the floor between the two beds of the children, and