Part 27 (2/2)

”He's gone! Deserted us!”

”What does it matter now?” Lucile covered her face with her hands

”But look!” cried Marian

The boy had hopped out into the howling, dancing circle The howling had ceased He had tu and ed foot Twice he put his hands to hisnimbly upon his one foot and would have leaped toward the now raging fire, but the one who had been first i, restrained hi at the fire, threw it hither and yon, staun eating its way into the building

It was all over in a irls sank down upon the floor, dizzy and sick, wondering what it was all about

Phi found that to rouse the native fro the man's forehead with snow, he stood hi this i artificial respiration

At last his efforts were rewarded; the man opened his eyes and stared dully up at him For soht of terror in his eye, he struggled to his feet and attes would not support hiain Rover ran barking after hi as he is not in danger of har as much as we could do for him He'll work it out of his system”

In spite of his muddled state the fellow appeared to possess a sense of direction, for the boy soon found that he had co the cliff at a safe distance froe

As he stumbled forward, the native's falls beca up,” was Phi's mental comment ”We'll soon strike a place where the path leads down the side of the cliff I wonder if he can make that alone or will he break his neck?”

Suddenly the , ” directly down, probably to soe there are natives there--perhaps hundreds of them They have seen white men at one time or another They may have been badly treated by thee by the action of this fellow he must conclude that they are

”But that cannot influence our action in any way If we stay up here and live on birds they'll find us sooner or later Might as well go down; the quicker the better, too, for this drunken felloill doubtless give a weird and terrible account of us”

At that he raced along the cliff-top path and the nexttrail which led down the hillside

He was halfway down before he caught the first glie

Beneath him lay some brown cubes which he knew to be boxlike upper stories to the houses of the natives

”That settles one thing,” he murmured ”They're islanders The natives of Russia build their homes of poles, deerskin and walrus-skin, tepee fashi+on; the As and sod Only islanders build thee failed him He was a boy on an island somewhere in the Arctic, his only co knife; and he was about to enter a village filled with natives

”Perhaps,” he said slowly, looking down into the trusting eyes of the dog, ”we had better wait They rand spree And if they are it won't be safe Whatever they h when drunk”

But the peaceful quiet of the village, as it lay there some hundreds of feet below, reassured him

”Come on, old boy,” he said at last, ”we'll chance it”