t was in delicate health, and
could not speak so long as his messmates would have wished. The rough
life they led, and the frequent exposure to intense cold, had
considerably weakened a frame which had never been robust, and an
occasional cough, when he told a long story, sometimes warned him to
desist. Games, too, were got up. "Hide-and-seek" was revived with all
the enthusiasm of boyhood, and "fox-chase" was got up with tremendous
energy. In all this the captain was the most earnest and vigorous, and
in doing good to others he unconsciously did the greatest possible
amount of good to himself; for his forgetfulness of self, and the
activity of his mind in catering for the wants and amusements of his
men, had the effect of imparting a cheerfulness to his manner, and a
healthy tone to his mind, that tended powerfully to sustain and
invigorate his body. But despite all this, the men grew worse, and a
few of them showed such alarming symptoms that the doctor began to fear
there would soon be a breach in their numbers.

Meanwhile Saunders and his fifteen men trudged steadily to the
southward, dragging their sledge behind them. The ice-floes, however,
turned out to be very rugged and hummocky, and retarded them so much
that they made but slow progress until they passed the Red Snow Valley,
and doubled the point beyond it. Here they left the floes, and took to
the natural highway afforded by the ice-belt, along which they sped more
rapidly, and arrived at the Esquimaux village in the course of about
five hours.

Here all was deserted and silent. Bits of seal and walrus, hide, and
bones and tusks were scattered about in all directions, but no voices
issued from the dome-shaped huts of snow.

"They're the likest things to bee-skeps I ever saw," remarked Saunders,
as he and his party stood contemplating the little group of huts. "And
they don't seem to care much for big doors."

Saunders referred here to the low tunnels, varying from three to twelve
feet, that formed the entrance to each hut.

"Mayhap there's some o' them asleep inside," suggested Tom Green, the
carpenter's mate; "suppose we go in and see?"

"I dare say ye're no far wrong," replied the second mate, to whom the
idea seemed to be a new one. "Go in, Davie Summers, ye're a wee chap,
and can bend your back better than the most o' us."

Davie laughed as he went down on his hands and knees, and, creeping in
at the mouth of one of the tunnels, which ba