up.

******

"What are you in such a state about, Alec?" asked his mother.

"Nothing very particular, mamma," answered Alec, ashamed of his want of
self-command.

"You've looked out at the window twenty times in the last half-hour,"
she persisted.

"Curly promised to burn a blue light, and I wanted to see if I could
see it."

Suspecting more, his mother was forced to be content with this answer.

But that night was also passed without sight or sound. Juno kept safe
in her barrel, little thinking of the machinations against her in the
wide snow-covered country around. Alec finished the Esquimaux hut, and
the snow falling all night, the hut looked the next morning as if it
had been there all the winter. As it seemed likely that a long spell of
white weather had set in, Alec resolved to extend his original plan,
and carry a long snow passage, or covered vault, from the
lattice-window of a small closet, almost on a level with the ground, to
this retreat by the flag-staff. He was hard at work in the execution of
this project, on the third night, or rather late afternoon: they called
it _forenight_ there.

CHAPTER XVII.

"What can that be, mem, awa ower the toon there?" said Mary to her
mistress, as in passing she peeped out of the window, the blind of
which Alec had drawn up behind the curtain.

"What is it, Mary?"

"That's jist what I dinna ken, mem. It canna be the rory-bories, as
Alec ca's them. It's ower blue.--It's oot.--It's in agin.--It's no
canny.--And, preserves a'! it's crackin' as weel," cried Mary, as the
subdued sound of a far-off explosion reached her.

This was of course no other than the roar of Curly's gun in the act of
bursting and vanishing; for neither stock, lock, nor barrel was ever
seen again. It left the world like a Norse king on his fire-ship. But,
at the moment, Alec was too busy in the depths of his snow-vault to
hear or see the signals.

By-and-by a knock came to the kitchen door, Mary went and opened it.

"Alec's at hame, I ken," said a rosy boy, almost breathless with past
speed and present excitement.

"Hoo ken ye that, my man?" asked Mary.

"'Cause the flag's fleein'. Whaur is he?"

"Gin ye ken sae muckle aboot him already, ye can jist fin' him to
yersel'!"

"The bick's oot!" panted Linkum.

But Mary shut the door.

"Here's a job!" said Linkum to himself. "I canna gang throu a steekit
door. And there's Juno wi' the rin o' the haill toun. Deil tak her!"