Part 10 (1/2)

He lay down on his stomach and peeped into the hole to see what it was like. He could not see a thing!

Then he stuck his lance down. His lance touched something soft that wiggled! Menie stood up. He was so excited that he trembled. He knew he had found a seal-hole with a live seal in the snow house!

With all his strength he struck his lance down through the snow. The snow house fell in and Menie fell with it, but he kept hold of his lance. The end of the lance was buried in the snow, but it was moving.

Menie knew by this that he had stuck it into the seal!

He lay still and kept fast hold of his lance, and pressed down on it with all his might.

Nip and Tup were crazy with excitement. They jumped round and barked and tried to dig a hole in the snow with their forefeet.

At last the spear stopped wiggling. Then Menie carefully dug the snow away. There lay a little white seal! It was too young to swim away with its mother. That was why such a small boy as Menie had been able to kill it.

He dragged it out on the ice. He was so excited and so busy he did not notice how near he was to the open water.

IV.

All of a sudden there was a loud cracking noise, and Menie felt the ice moving under him! He looked back. There was a tiny strip of blue water between him and the sh.o.r.e!

The strip grew wider while he looked at it! Menie knew that he was adrift on an ice raft, and he was terribly frightened. Nip and Tup cuddled close to him and whined with fear.

Menie understood perfectly well that he might be carried far out to sea and never come back any more. He put his hands to his mouth and yelled with all his might!

Koko was still following the birds, and did not hear Menie's cries.

Menie could see him running up the beach after the birds, and he could see his father working over his kyak near his home.

He even saw Monnie come out of the tunnel and go to watch her father at his work. They seemed very far away, and every moment the distance between them and the raft grew greater.

Menie screamed again and again. At the third scream he saw his father straighten up, shade his eyes with his hand, and look out to sea.

”Oh,” Menie thought. ”What if he shouldn't see me!” He shouted louder than ever! He waved his arms! He even pinched the tails of Nip and Tup and made them bark. Then he saw his father wave his hand and dive into the tunnel.

In another instant he was out again and pulling on his skin coat. Then he took the kyak on his shoulders and ran with it to the beach. Monnie and Koolee came running after him.

They were doing the screaming now! Every one in the village heard the screams and came running down to the beach, too.

When Menie saw his father coming with the kyak, he wasn't afraid any more, for he was sure his father would save him. He wasn't even afraid about the cakes of ice that were floating in the water, though there is nothing more dangerous than to go out in a kyak among ice floes. One b.u.mp from a floating cake of ice is enough to upset any boat, and I don't like to think of what might happen if a kyak should get between two big cakes of ice.

Kesshoo ran with his kyak as far as he could on the ice. Then he got in and fitted the bottom of his skin jacket over the kyak hole and carefully slid himself into the open water.

Once in the water, how his paddle flew!

It seemed to Menie as if his father would never reach him! He sat very still on the ice pan with the dead seal beside him, and Nip and Tup huddled up against him.

At last Kesshoo came near enough so he could make Menie hear everything he said. ”Menie,” he cried, ”if you do exactly what I tell you to, I can save you.

”I will throw you my harpoon. You must drive it way down into the ice.

Then by the harpoon line I will tow your ice pan back toward sh.o.r.e.