to this wreath
of hoar-frost, which covered the upper parts of each of them; "it's jist
like the ermine that kings and queens wear, so I'm towld, and it's
chaper a long way."

"I don't know that," said Joseph West. "It has cost us a rough voyage
and a winter in the Arctic Regions, if it doesn't cost us more yet, to
put that ermine fringe on our jumpers. I can make nothing of this knot;
try what you can do with it, messmate, will you?"

"Sorra wan o' me'll try it," cried O'Riley, suddenly leaping up and
swinging both arms violently against his shoulders; "I've got two hands,
I have, but niver a finger on them--leastwise I feel none, though it
_is_ some small degrae o' comfort to see them."

"My toes are much in the same condition," said West, stamping vigorously
until he brought back the circulation.

"Dance, then, wid me," cried the Irishman, suiting his action to the
word. "I've a mortial fear o' bein' bit wid the frost--for it's no joke,
let me tell you. Didn't I see a whole ship's crew wance that wos wrecked
in the Gulf o' St. Lawrence about the beginnin' o' winter, and before
they got to a part o' the coast where there was a house belongin' to the
fur-traders, ivery man-jack o' them was frost-bit more or less, they
wor. Wan lost a thumb, and another the jint of a finger or two, and
most o' them had two or three toes off, an' there wos wan poor fellow
who lost the front half o' wan fut an' the heel o' the other, an' two
inches o' the bone was stickin' out. Sure it's truth I'm tellin' ye, for
I seed it wid me own two eyes, I did."

The earnest tones in which the last words were spoken convinced his
comrades that O'Riley was telling the truth, so having a decided
objection to be placed in similar circumstances, they danced and beat
each other until they were quite in a glow.

"Why, what are you at there, Meetuck?" exclaimed Fred, pausing.

"Igloe make," replied the Esquimau.

"Ig--what?" inquired O'Riley.

"Oh, I see!" shouted Fred, "he's going to make a snow-hut--igloes they
call them here. Capital!--I never thought of that. Come along; let's
help him!"

Meetuck was indeed about to erect one of those curious dwellings of snow
in which, for the greater part of the year, his primitive countrymen
dwell. He had no taste for star-spangled bed-curtains, when solid walls,
whiter than the purest dimity, were to be had for nothing. His first
operation in the erection of this hut was to mark out a circle of about
s