Part 19 (2/2)

”Now,” suggested Lucile, ”we'll put your n of distress; then, since the ice isn't piling, I think wewas soon hoisted, and the girls, with the sealskin square beneath them, lay down under the deerskins and atteh to cover theh and sleep was impossible

”Lucile,” said Marian at last, ”I believe we could set the kiak up and bank it solidly into place, then creep into it and sleep there”

”We ht,” said Lucile doubtfully

The kiak was soon set, and, after ed to slide down into it, and there, with two of the deerskins for a mattress and two for covers, they at last fell asleep in one another's arms, as peacefully as children in a trundle-bed

”Oh, Marian, you're too--too chubby!” Lucile laughed, as she attele from the bean-pod-like bed, after they had slept for solance at the break in the floe told them it had widened rather than narrowed A look skyward showed the too had thickened Lucile's brorinkled; her eyes were downcast

”Cheer up!” said Marian ”You can never tell ill happen Things change rapidly in this Arctic world We'd better explore our ice-floe, hadn't we? And don't you think we could eat a bit before we go?”

Cheered by the very thought of so to be done, Lucile munched her half of the pilot biscuit and bit of reindeer meat contentedly

Then, after they had seen to it that their white uide back to ca

Armed with the butcher knife, Lucile led the way Marian carried the fishi+ng tackle, and about her waist ound the strings of the boola ball

”Quite soular Robinson Crusoettes!”

Several wide circles of the ca but ice, the whiteness of which was relieved here and there by spots of water, black as night

”Might be fish in theested Marian

”Yes, but you couldn't catch theh a hole in the ice”

They were beco back, when Marian whispered:

”Down!”

She pulled her companion into the dark side of an ice-pile

A shadow had passed over the ice Now it passed again, and Lucile, looking up, saw a s for a pool of water not twenty yards away

”Wha--what's the idea?” she whispered

”Boola balls Maybe we can catch one They come from the north; not easily scared”

”Can you--”

”Yes, my brother showed me how to handle the boola balls You whirl theo If the string strikes a duck's neck, it winds all about it; then the duck can't fly”