of my
little boy Meltik and the small one, (referring to baby), but when
Meltik and the small one grow older and wiser, they will see that it is
not so."

While Chingatok was speaking, a gust of wind more furious than ever
struck the hut and shook it to its foundations. At the same time a loud
rumbling sound was heard outside. Most of the men leaped up, caught
hold of spears or knives, and rushed out. Through the driving drift
they could just see that the observatory, which was a flimsy structure,
had been swept clean away, and that the more solid hut was following it.
Even as they gazed they saw its roof caught up, and whirled off as if
it had been a scroll of paper. The walls fell immediately after, and
the stones rolled down the rocky cone with a loud rattling, which was
partially drowned by the shrieking of the tempest.

For three days the storm lasted. During that time it was almost
impossible to show face in the open air. On the night of the third day
the fury of the wind abated. Then it suddenly became calm, but when
Butterface opened the door, and attempted to go out, he found himself
effectually checked by a wall of snow. The interior of the hut was
pitch dark, and it was not until a lamp had been lighted that the party
found they were buried alive!

To dig themselves out was not, however, a difficult matter. But what a
scene presented itself to their view when they regained the upper air!
No metamorphosis conceived by Ovid or achieved by the magic lantern; no
pantomimic transformation; no eccentricity of dreamland ever equalled
it! When last seen, the valley was clothed in all the rich luxuriance
of autumnal tints, and alive with the twitter and plaintive cry of
bird-life. Now it was draped in the pure winding-sheet of winter, and
silent in the repose of Arctic death. Nothing almost was visible but
snow. Everything was whelmed in white. Only here and there a few of
the sturdier clumps of bushes held up their loads like gigantic
wedding-cakes, and broke the universal sameness of the scene. One raven
was the only living representative of the birds that had fled. It
soared calmly over the waste, as if it were the wizard who had wrought
the change, and was admiring its work.

"Winter is upon us fairly now, friends," said Captain Vane as he
surveyed the prospect from the Pole, which was itself all but buried in
the universal drift, and capped with the hugest wedding-cake of all; "we
shall have