is jacket and then his mackintosh. He realized that
his hands were numb. The sun was now only a foot or so above the sky
line.

This time it was Marc who grunted and thrust the canoe toward the
river's edge with a sideways push. It grounded on a belt of sand and
they dragged it ashore. Bennie, who had been looking forward to the
night with vivid apprehension, now discovered to his great happiness
that the chill was keeping away the black flies. Joyfully he assisted in
gathering dry sticks, driving tent pegs, and picking reindeer moss for
bedding. Then as darkness fell Edouard fried eggs and bacon, and with
their boots off and their stockinged feet toasting to the blaze the
three men ate as becomes men who have laboured fifteen hours in the open
air. They drank tin cups of scalding tea, a pint at a time, and found it
good; and they smoked their pipes with their backs propped against the
tree trunks and found it heaven. Then as the stars came out and the
woods behind them snapped with strange noises, Edouard took his pipe
from his mouth.

"It's getting cold," said he. "The marionettes will dance to-night."

Bennie heard him as if across a great, yawning gulf. Even the firelight
seemed hundreds of yards away. The little professor was "all in," and he
sat with his chin dropped again to his chest, until he heard Marc
exclaim:

"_Voila! Elles dansent!_"

He raised his eyes. Just across the black, silent sweep of the river
three giant prismatic searchlights were playing high toward the
polestar, such searchlights as the gods might be using in some monstrous
game. They wavered here and there, shifting and dodging, faded and
sprang up again, till Bennie, dizzy, closed his eyes. The lights were
still dancing in the north as he stumbled to his couch of moss.

"_Toujour les marionettes!_" whispered Marc gently, as he might to a
child. "_Bon soir, monsieur._"

The tent was hot and dazzling white above his head when low voices,
footsteps, and the clink of tin against iron aroused the professor from
a profound coma. The guides had already loaded the canoe and were
waiting for him. The sun was high. Apologetically he pulled on his
boots, and stepping to the sand dashed the icy water into his face. His
muscles groaned and rasped. His neck refused to respond to his desires
with its accustomed elasticity. But he drank his tea and downed his
scrambled eggs with an enthusiasm unknown in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Marc gave him a han