how to stalk a seal; he had watched the Eskimos do
it many times. Lying flat on your stomach, you cautiously creep
forward. Every moment or two you bob your head up and down in
imitation of a seal awakened and looking about. If your seal is awake,
since his eyesight is poor he will take you for a member of his own
species and will go back to sleep again.

Knowing all this, Phi had dragged himself a hundred feet across the
ice, without disturbing the seal. Only fifty feet remained, yet to his
feverish brain this seemed too great a distance. Seeing his seal
bobbing his head, he bobbed in turn, then, when the seal had dozed off
again, continued his crawl.

He had made another six yards when, with a sudden resolve, he slid the
rifle forward, lifted it to position, glanced steadily along its
barrel, then pulled the trigger.

There followed a metallic snap, then a splash, The rifle had missed
fire; the seal had dropped into its pool.

For a moment the boy lay there motionless, stunned by the realization
that he was still without food and was now powerless to procure any.

"Well, anyway it was luck for the seal," he smiled uncertainly. "It
sure was his lucky day!"

Rising unsteadily, he put two fingers to his mouth and uttered a shrill
whistle. From behind a towering ice pile, Rover, gaunt and miserable
yet unmistakably a white man's dog, and, by his bearing, a one time
leader of the team, came limping toward him.

"Well," the boy said, patting the dog, "it's hard luck, but we don't
eat. It's harder for you than for me, for you are old and I'm young,
but somehow--somehow, we'll have to manage. If only we knew. If
only--"

He stopped abruptly and his eyes opened wide. Off to the left of them,
like a giant fist thrust through the fog, there had appeared the dark
bulk of a granite cliff.

"Land, Rover, land!" he muttered hoarsely.

The next moment, utterly overcome with excitement, he sank weakly to
the surface of the ice-pan.

"This won't do," he said cheerily, after a brief period of rest.
"Rover, old boy, we must be traveling. If the ice is crowding that
shore, which it must be from the feel of the wind, there's a chance for
us yet."

CHAPTER XIV

A LONESOME ISLAND

After fleeing from the great white bear, the two girls crouched behind
the ice pile with bated breath. Expecting at any moment to see the
long neck of the gigantic beast thrust around the corner of the ice
pile, they longed to