ours it would be till breakfast, the Colonel
said to the Boy:

"'Johnny, get your gun,' and we'll go out."

In these December days, before the watery sun had set, the great,
rich-coloured moon arose, having now in her resplendent fulness quite
the air of snuffing out the sun. The pale and heavy-eyed day was put to
shame by this brilliant night-lamp, that could cast such heavy shadows,
and by which men might read.

The instant the Big Cabin door was opened Kaviak darted out between the
Colonel's legs, threw up his head like a Siwash dog, sniffed at the
frosty air and the big orange moon, flung up his heels, and tore down
to the forbidden, the fascinating fish-hole. If he hadn't got snared in
his trailing coat he would have won that race. When the two hunters had
captured Kaviak, and shut him indoors, they acted on his implied
suggestion that the fish-trap ought to be examined. They chopped away
the fresh-formed ice. Empty, as usual.

It had been very nice, and neighbourly, of Nicholas, as long ago as the
1st of December, to bring the big, new, cornucopia-shaped trap down on
his sled on the way to the Ikogimeut festival. It had taken a long time
to cut through the thick ice, to drive in the poles, and fasten the
slight fencing, in such relation to the mouth of the sunken trap, that
all well-conducted fish ought easily to find their way thither. As a
matter of fact, they didn't. Potts said it was because the Boy was
always hauling out the trap "to see"; but what good would it be to have
it full of fish and not know?

They had been out about an hour when the Colonel brought down a
ptarmigan, and said he was ready to go home. The Boy hesitated.

"Going to give in, and cook that bird for supper?"

It was a tempting proposition, but the Colonel said, rather sharply:
"No, sir. Got to keep him for a Christmas turkey."

"Well, I'll just see if I can make it a brace."

The Colonel went home, hung his trophy outside to freeze, and found the
Trio had decamped to the Little Cabin. He glanced up anxiously to see
if the demijohn was on the shelf. Yes, and Kaviak sound asleep in the
bottom bunk. The Colonel would climb up and have forty winks in the top
one before the Boy got in for their game of chess. He didn't know how
long he had slept when a faint scratching pricked through the veil of
slumber, and he said to himself, "Kaviak's on a raid again," but he was
too sodden with sleep to investigate. Just before he dropped off a