howed them that the fog too had
thickened. Lucile's brow wrinkled; her eyes were downcast.

"Cheer up!" said Marian. "You can never tell what will happen. Things
change rapidly in this Arctic world. We'd better explore our ice-floe,
hadn't we? And don't you think we could eat a bit before we go?"

Cheered by the very thought of something to be done, Lucile munched her
half of the pilot biscuit and bit of reindeer meat contentedly.

Then, after they had seen to it that their white middy flag was
properly fastened, for this must act as a guide back to camp, they
prepared to go exploring.

Armed with the butcher knife, Lucile led the way. Marian carried the
fishing tackle, and about her waist were wound the strings of the boola
ball.

"Quite some hunters," laughed Marian. "Regular Robinson Crusoettes!"

Several wide circles of the camp revealed nothing but ice, the
whiteness of which was relieved here and there by spots of water, black
as night.

"Might be fish in them," suggested Marian.

"Yes, but you couldn't catch them. You can only catch tomcod through a
hole in the ice."

They were becoming tired, and had spoken of turning back, when Marian
whispered:

"Down!"

She pulled her companion into the dark side of an ice-pile.

A shadow had passed over the ice. Now it passed again, and Lucile,
looking up, saw a small flock of ducks circling for a pool of water not
twenty yards away.

"Wha--what's the idea?" she whispered.

"Boola balls. Maybe we can catch one. They come from the north; not
easily scared."

"Can you--"

"Yes, my brother showed me how to handle the boola balls. You whirl
them about your head a few times, then you let them go. If the string
strikes a duck's neck, it winds all about it; then the duck can't fly."

With eager fingers Marian straightened out the twelve feet of
double-strand leather thong.

"There! There! They're down!" whispered Lucile.

"You stay here. If they rise and fly away, call me."

Creeping around two piles of ice, Marian threw herself flat and began
to crawl the remaining distance across a flat pan of ice. Her heart
was beating wildly, for in her veins there flowed a strain of the
hunter's blood of her Briton ancestors of many generations back.

Now she was forty feet away, now twenty, now ten, and the ducks had not
flown. Stretching out the thong, she rose on an elbow and set the
balls whirling over her head. Once, twice, three times, then