as the Boy rose again. Nicholas lurched his body over the
brink, his arms outstretched, straining farther, farther yet, till it
seemed as if only the counterweight of the rest of the population at
the other end of the canvas prevented his joining the Boy in the hole.
But Nicholas had got a grip of him, and while two of the Pymeuts hung
on to the half-stunned Colonel to prevent his adding to the
complication, Nicholas, with a good deal of trouble in spite of
Yagorsha's help, hauled the Boy out of the hole and dragged him up on
the ice-edge. The others applied themselves lustily to their end of the
canvas, and soon they were all at a safe distance from the yawning
danger.

The Boy's predominant feeling had been one of intense surprise. He
looked round, and a hideous misgiving seized him.

"Anything the matter with you, Colonel?" His tone was so angry that, as
they stared at each other, they both fell to laughing.

"Well, I rather thought that was what _I_ was going to say"; and
Kentucky heaved a deep sigh of relief.

The Boy's teeth began to chatter, and his clothes were soon freezing on
him. They got him up off the ice, and Nicholas and the sturdy old
Pymeut story-teller, Yagorsha, walked him, or ran him rather, the rest
of the way to Pymeut, for they were not so near the village as the
travellers had supposed on seeing nearly the whole male population. The
Colonel was not far behind, and several of the bucks were bringing the
disabled sled. Before reaching the Kachime, they were joined by the
women and children, Muckluck much concerned at the sight of her friend
glazed in ice from head to heel. Nicholas and Yagorsha half dragged,
half pulled him into the Kachime. The entire escort followed, even two
or three very dirty little boys--everybody, except the handful of women
and girls left at the mouth of the underground entrance and the two men
who had run on to make a fire. It was already smoking viciously as
though the seal-lamps weren't doing enough in that line, when Yagorsha
and Nicholas laid the half-frozen traveller on the sleeping-bench.

The Pymeuts knew that the great thing was to get the ice-stiffened
clothes off as quickly as might be, and that is to be done
expeditiously only by cutting them off. In vain the Boy protested.
Recklessly they sawed and cut and stripped him, rubbed him and wrapped
him in a rabbit-blanket, the fur turned inside, and a wolverine skin
over that. The Colonel at intervals poured sm