busied herself with her legging thong.

"That girl must be an imbecile!" Or was it the apparition of her
father, up at the Kachime entrance, that inspired such temerity?

The Boy had gone a few paces towards her, and then turned. "Yagorsha!"
he called up the slope. Yagorsha stood stock-still, although the Boy
waved unmistakable danger-signals towards Joe's ighloo. Suddenly an arm
flashed out of the tunnel, caught Anna by the ankle, and in a twinkling
she lay sprawling on her back. Two hands shot out, seized her by the
heels, and dragged the wretched girl into the brute's lair. It was all
over in a flash. A moment's paralysis of astonishment, and the
involuntary rush forward was arrested by Muckluck, who fastened herself
on to the rescuer's parki-tail and refused to be detached. "Yagorsha!"
shouted the Boy. But it was only the Colonel who hastened towards them
at the summons. The poor girl's own father stood calmly smoking, up
there, by the Kachime, one foot propped comfortably on the travellers'
loaded sled. "Yagorsha!" he shouted again, and then, with a jerk to
free himself from Muckluck, the Boy turned sharply towards the ighloo,
seeming in a bewildered way to be, himself, about to transact this
paternal business for the cowardly old loafer. But Muckluck clung to
his arm, laughing.

"Yagorsha know. Joe give him nice mitts--sealskin--_new_ mitts."

"Hear that, Colonel? For a pair of mitts he sells his daughter to that
ruffian."

Without definite plan, quite vaguely and instinctively, he shook
himself free from Muckluck, and rushed down to the scene of the
tragedy. Muffled screams and yells issued with the smoke. Muckluck
turned sharply to the Colonel, who was following, and said something
that sent him headlong after the Boy. He seized the doughty champion by
the feet just as he was disappearing in the tunnel, and hauled him out.

"What in thunder--All right, you go first, then. _Quick_! as more
screams rent the still air.

"Don't be a fool. You've been interruptin' the weddin' ceremonies."

Muckluck had caught up with them, and Yagorsha was advancing leisurely
across the snow.

"She no want _you_," whispered Muckluck to the Boy. "She _like_
Joe--like him best of all." Then, as the Boy gaped incredulously: "She
tell me heap long time ago she want Joe."

"That's just part of the weddin' festivity," says the Colonel, as
renewed shrieks issued from under the snow. "You've been an officious
interferer, and I th