o to Pymeut the next day, but his feet refused to
carry him. Mac took a diagram and special directions, and went after
the rest of elephas, conveying the few clumsy relics home, bit by bit,
with a devotion worthy of a pious pilgrim.

For three days the Boy growled and played games with Kaviak, going
about at first chiefly on hands and knees.

On the fifth day after the Blow-Out, "You comin' long to Pymeut this
mornin'?" he asked the Colonel.

"What's the rush?"

"_Rush!_ Good Lord! it's 'most a week since they were here. And it's
stopped snowin', and hasn't thought of sleetin' yet or anything else
rambunksious. Come on, Colonel."

But Father Wills had shown the Colonel the piece of dirty paper the
Indian had brought on the night of the Blow-Out.

"_Trouble threatened. Pymeuts think old chief dying not of consumption,
but of a devil. They've sent a dogteam to bring the Shaman down over
the ice. Come quickly.--_PAUL."

"Reckon we'd better hold our horses till we hear from Holy Cross."

"Hear what?"

The Colonel didn't answer, but the Boy didn't wait to listen. He
swallowed his coffee scalding hot, rolled up some food and stuff for
trading, in a light reindeer skin blanket, lashed it packwise on his
back, shouldered his gun, and made off before the Trio came in to
breakfast.

The first sign that he was nearing a settlement, was the appearance of
what looked like sections of rude wicker fencing, set up here and there
in the river and frozen fast in the ice. High on the bank lay one of
the long cornucopia-shaped basket fish-traps, and presently he caught
sight of something in the bleak Arctic landscape that made his heart
jump, something that to Florida eyes looked familiar.

"Why, if it doesn't make me think of John Fox's cabin on Cypress
Creek!" he said to himself, formulating an impression that had vaguely
haunted him on the Lower River in September; wondering if the Yukon
flooded like the Caloosahatchee, and if the water could reach as far up
as all that.

He stopped to have a good look at this first one of the Pymeut caches,
for this modest edifice, like a Noah's Ark on four legs, was not a
habitation, but a storehouse, and was perched so high, not for fear of
floods, but for fear of dogs and mice. This was manifest from the fact
that there were fish-racks and even ighloos much nearer the river.

The Boy stopped and hesitated; it was a sore temptation to climb up and
see what they had in that cache. The