y. He reached over, and touched him on the shoulder.

Jolly Roger widened the snow-slit another inch, straining his ears to
hear. He could see Tavish and the girl asleep. In another moment Porter
was sitting up, with the Ferret's hand gripping his arm warningly.
Breault motioned toward the inner room, and Porter was silent. Then
Breault bent over and began to whisper. Jolly Roger could hear only
the indistinct monotone of his voice. But he could see very clearly the
change that came into Porter's face. His eyes widened, and he stared
toward the inner room, making a movement as if to rouse Tavish and the
girl.

The Ferret stopped him.

"Don't get excited. Let them sleep."

McKay heard that much--and no more. For some time after that the two
men sat close together, conversing in whispers. There was an exultant
satisfaction in Porter's clean-cut face, as well as in Breault's. Jolly
Roger watched them until Breault extinguished the second lamp. Then he
lightly plugged the hole in the partition with snow, and reached out in
the darkness until his hand found Peter.

"They think they've got us, boy," he whispered, "They think they've got
us!"

Very quietly they lay for an hour. McKay did not sleep, and Peter was
wide awake. At the end of that hour Jolly Roger crept on his hands and
knees to the doorway and listened. One after another he picked out the
steady breathing of the sleepers. Then he began feeling his way around
the wall of his room until he came to a place where the snow was very
soft.

"An air-drift," he whispered to Peter, close at his shoulder. "We'll
fool 'em, boy. And we'll fight--if we have to."

He began worming his head and shoulders and body into the air-drift like
a gimlet. A foot at a time he burrowed himself through, heaving his body
up and down and sideways to pack the light snow, leaving a round tunnel
two feet in diameter behind him. Within an hour he had come to the
outer crust on the windward side of the big snow-dune. He did not break
through this crust, which was as tough as crystal-glass, but lay quietly
for a time and listened to the sweep of the wind outside. It was warm,
and very comfortable, and he had half-dozed off before he caught himself
back into wakefulness and returned to his room. The mouth of his tunnel
he packed with snow. After that he wound the blanket about him and gave
himself up calmly to sleep.

Only Peter lay awake after that. And it was Peter who roused Jolly Roger