hore," said Lucile, "but we must try
it. It's our only chance."

After a hasty breakfast of tea and a last remaining bit of cold duck,
they piled all their supplies and equipment into the kiak, then,
bidding farewell to the humble ice-pan which had given them such a long
ride, they began dragging the kiak toward the island.

This proved a long and tedious task, requiring all the skill and
strength they possessed, for the island, though scarcely four miles in
length, had appeared to be much closer than it really was. The
ice-piles, too, grew rougher and more uneven as they advanced. When
they neared the shore, they found themselves in infinite peril, for the
ice was piling. Here a huge cake a hundred feet across and eight feet
thick glided without a sound, up--up, into mid-air, at last to crumble
and fall; and here a mass of small cakes were thrown into convulsions.

Pick their way as they might with greatest care, they were more than
once in danger of being crushed by overhanging ice-pans, or of being
plunged into a dark pool of water.

When, at length, in triumph, they dragged their kiak to a rocky shelf
well above the trembling ice, Marian, from sheer exhaustion, threw
herself flat upon the rock and lay there motionless for some time.
Lucile sat beside her absorbed in thought.

At last Marian sat up. "Well, we're here," she smiled, giving her
blistered hands a woeful look.

"Yes," smiled Lucile, "we're here. Now where is 'here' and what's it
like?"

The two girls looked at one another solemnly for a full minute. In
their larder was still a little tea, a pint bottle of weak duck soup, a
half-can of much frozen condensed milk--and that was all. They were on
an island of which as yet they knew nothing. Above them towered great,
overhanging cliffs. Before them the giant ice-pans rose, crumbling and
creaking in mad turmoil.

"Life is so strange," said Lucile, at length; then energetically:
"Let's make some soup of the things we have left. Then, if we can get
up there, we'll explore our island. We'll have three or four hours of
daylight left, and if there's anything for us to eat anywhere, the
sooner we find it out the better."

The climb to the top of the island, which they undertook an hour later,
was scarcely less dangerous than had been the struggle to cross the
tumbling ice-floe, for this island was little more than a gigantic
granite bowlder rising for a distance of some five hundred feet out of