Part 26 (1/2)

Lucile did not reply She was too deeply perplexed for words But the boy, see of the purport of Marian's words, tore a splinter fro held it in the blaze of the seal-oil laan to draw on the floor

First he drew a large circle, then a se circle he drew lines to represent ht line for the back and one each for an ar, with a circle for a head When he had drawn many of these, he drew a square within the smaller circle, and within the square dreo characters to represent persons He next drew, between the two circles, ular figures he drew a character for a person

He ures between the circles were in motion Next he made a motion with his charcoal pencil to indicate that the lone person was ures between the circles This , as if the person, many times, stumbled and fell The course of the charcoal at last reached the edge of the square, and there it drew the reclining figure of a person

Lucile had watched everyus?” she cried excitedly ”It is the old native way of telling stories by drawings He has said, by the two circles, that there are two islands, one large, one se one are many people--his people--on the small one, a house--the house we are in Between the two islands there is floeing ice A figure is atte to cross the ice He is that one He falls many times, but at last reaches the island and this house”

”And,” said Marian, ”probably the people, many of them, live on this island They were probably over there when the ice came They did not dare to attempt to cross When the floe is steady and solid, as it will be after this storm, then they will cross And then--” she paused

”Yes, and then?” said Lucile, huskily

With the setting of the sun, the wind fell The snow-fog drifted away and the moon came out Lucile crept out of the cabin and went in search of soing over a pole on one of the caches It see over the seal-oil lairls stood by theas the food cooked They were looking out over the sea, which was now a solid mass of ice

”I almost believe I can catch the faint outline of that other island,”

said Lucile

”Yes, I think you can,” said Marian ”But as that?” She gripped her coht--yes, there it is; out there to the right So the ice-cakes”

”Yes, now I see it And there's another and another Yes, perhaps twenty or s,” said Marian, slowly ”The tribe is co home”

There was a little catch in her voice Every muscle in her body was tense They were far fro where they were; and these people, a strange, perhaps wild, tribe of savages

Then there careat bishop: ”Humanity is very ht co in full view in the uished fros; until the whole coan to clie

But now they all stopped They were pointing at the cabin, so wildly

After a tiain, but this time much more slowly In their lead was a wild-haired h the weird dance motions of these native tribes; weird, wild calisthenics they were, a thrusting out of both hands on this side, then that, a bowing, bending backward, leaping high in air And now they caught the sound of the witch song they were all chanting:

”I--I--am--ah! ah! ah!

I--I--I ah! ah! ah!”

As they neared the cabin Lucile turned away

”I--I think,” she said unsteadily, ”we had better bar the door”

At that she lifted the heavy bar and propped it against the door