un. Make basket, catch trout, shoot flover. Go hevery Sunday to
mass,--that same place,--take squaw, papoose, boy, girl, all folks. Know
that bell, sure. To-day Sunday, and folks going into chapel."

"He must be right," said La Salle, "but we are now near the berg, and
from its top we shall see if we are indeed near the North Cape. Make
haste, Peter; perhaps we may get near enough to-day to make our way to
the shore."

A broad, level floe was all that intervened between the party and the
berg which they sought. Running across it; although with some little
difficulty, for the ice was covered with slush concealed by a crust
insufficient to bear the weight of a man, they soon reached the berg. It
was evidently of Arctic origin, for it was much larger than any of the
many "pinnacles" in sight. It was composed of ice, which, wherever the
snow had failed to lodge, appeared hard, transparent, and prismatic in
the rays of the sun. Its sides were steep and precipitous, and at first
the members of the party began to fear that they should be unable to
mount the steep escarpment of eight or ten feet high, which formed its
base, which was further defended by a moat of mingled sludge and rounded
fragments, cemented by young ice.

Had the opposite bank been attainable, any of the party would have
readily leaped across, trusting to their speed to save themselves from
immersion among the rolling fragments; but no one cared to risk the
treacherous footing beneath that inaccessible wall.

"I'm afraid we shall have to go back to our own lookout, and trust to a
shift of the ice," said La Salle. "Can you think of any way of climbing
that pinnacle, Peter?"

"No way do that, unless cut a way into that hice, and then no safe
place to stan' on, sartain, this time," answered the Indian.

"Let me have that rope," said Regnar, quietly.

Taking the light Manilla painter, he proceeded to form a large loop, and
grasping it near the running knot, laid half a dozen turns across his
hand. Then swinging the coil around his head, he launched the rope at a
group of jagged points, which projected just above the edge of the
lowest part of the cliff. Again and again the noose came back unreeved,
and again and again the patient boy, with rare strength and skill, flung
the ample noose over the slippery spires of ice. At last, however,
success rewarded his efforts, and a strong pull, with the united weight
of all three, failed to start the closely-drawn bo