native took a few steps forward. Phi thought he walked
with a kind of stagger.

"It's strange he'd have the courage to attack me alone, armed only with
rocks," he murmured.

A yelp from the old dog roused him to action. The native's rock had
found a mark. His back was turned to the boy and with a sudden, swift
rush Phi leaped out and landed full upon his back. The two of them
went crashing to earth.

For a moment the man struggled with almost demoniacal strength, then
suddenly he crumpled in the boy's grasp and sank lifeless to the ground.

Fearing a trick Phi turned the man over and sat upon his chest, pinning
his hands to the ground. But he was unconscious; there was no
mistaking that.

"That's queer," perplexedly. "I didn't do anything to him that I know
of. Wasn't thrown hard or anything."

He bent over to gather up a handful of snow with which to rub the
native's brow, when he caught an old, familiar odor.

Just then the dog came limping up. "Rover, old boy," Phi smiled a
queer sort of smile, "we're not beyond the reaches of the civilized
white man. This fellow's drunk. Hooch. In other words, moonshine; I
smell it on his breath. That's why he was throwing stones at us.
Crazy drunk, that's all. Now he's gone dead on us, like a flivver run
out of gas."

The dog smelled of the man and growled.

"Don't like it, do you? Most honest men and dogs don't. Moonshine's
no good for anybody. And now, just for that, we're in for something of
a task. This fellow'd lie here until he froze stiff as a mastodon tusk
if we'd let him, but we can't afford to let him, even if he did pelt us
with rocks. We've got to get him on his feet somehow and make him
'walk the dog' till he sweats some of that hooch out of him."

As he looked the man over for a knife which might prove dangerous once
he was roused from his stupor. Phi realized that he was not on the
mainland of America. This man's costume was quite unlike that of the
Diomeders. He wore a shirt of eiderduck skins such as was never seen
on the Little Diomede, and his outer garments of short-haired deerskin,
instead of being composed of parka and trousers were all of one piece.

"Wherever we are," he said to the dog, "we'll know what's what in an
hour or two."

* * * * * *

After witnessing the strange actions of the group of natives as they
clustered in about the boarded-up house, with wildly beating hearts
Lucile and