o the tumbled glory of a
stormy summer sunset. Then, too, rumblings and dull thunders came up to
the watching men like the groanings of a world in travail.

For miles the hill-tops seemed to have been swept clear of ice and snow.
They were shorn of their winter shroud. They stood up like black,
unsightly, broken teeth, against a cavernous background of fire burning
in the maw of some Moloch colossus. They stood out bared to the bone of
the world's foundations.

Julyman shaded his eyes with hands that sought to shut out a vision his
savage superstition could no longer support. Oolak had no such emotion.
He turned from it to something which, to his mind, was of greater
interest. Steve alone remained absorbed in that radiant beyond.

The Arctic night no longer reigned supreme. It seemed to have been
devoured at a gulp. The heavenly lights had lost all power in face of
this earthly glory. A mist of smoke had switched off the gleam of
starlight, and the moon and mock-moons wore the tarnished hue of silver
that has lost its burnish. The ghosts of the aurora no longer trod their
measure of stately minuet. They had passed into the world of shadow to
which they rightly belonged.

The heart of Unaga was bared for all to see, that fierce heart which
drives the bravest Indian tongue to the hush of dread.

"We not mak' him--that! Oh, no!"

Julyman's tone was hushed and fearful. He moved close to the white man
in urgent appeal.

"Boss Steve not mak' him. No. Julyman all come dead. Julyman not mush
on. Oh, no."

"Julyman'll do just as 'Boss' Steve says."

Steve had dragged his gaze from the wonder that held it. He was coldly
regarding the haunted eyes of a man he knew to be fearless enough as men
understand fearlessness.

This was no time for sympathy or weakness. It was his purpose to
penetrate to that blazing heart, as nearly as the object of his journey
demanded. He was in no mood to listen patiently to words inspired by
benighted superstition.

"Him--Unaga!" Julyman protested, his outstretched arm shaking. "No--mak'
him? Yes?"

"We mak' this!"

It was Oolak who answered him. He spoke with a preliminary, contemptuous
grunt. He, too, was pointing. But he was pointing at that which lay near
at hand. He stood leaning his crippled body on his gee-pole, and gazing
down at that which lay immediately in front of them, groaning and
grumbling like some suffering living creature.

Steve followed the direction of the outstr