extracted grass slippers light as silk.
Then, standing on tip toe with arms outspread, like a bird about to fly,
she bent her supple body forward, backward and to one side. Waving her
arms up and down she chanted in a low, monotonous and dreamy tone.

All eyes were upon her. All ears were alert to every note of the chant.
Great was the Chukche who learned some new chant, introduced some
unfamiliar dance. Great would he be who remembered this song and dance
when this woman was dead.

The tones of the singer became more distinct, her voice rose and fell.
Her feet began to move, slowly at first, then rapidly and yet more
rapidly. Now she became an animated voice of stirring chant, a whirling
personification of rhythm.

And now, again, the song died away; the motion grew slower and slower,
until at last she stood before them motionless and panting.

"Ke-ke! Ke-ke!" (More! More!) they shouted, in their excitement,
forgetting that this was a dance of death.

Tearing the deer skin parka from her shoulders and standing before them
in her purple pajamas, she began again the motion and the song. Slow,
dreamy, fantastic was the dance and with it a chant as weird as the song
of the north wind. "Woo-woo-woo." It grew in volume. The motion
quickened. Her feet touched the floor as lightly as feathers. Her
swaying arms made a circle of purple about her. Then, as she spun round
and round, her whole body seemed a purple pillar of fire.

At that instant a strange thing happened. As the natives, their minds
completely absorbed by the spell of the dance, watched and listened,
they saw the purple pillar rise suddenly toward the ceiling. Nor did it
pause, but mounting straight up, with a vaulting whirl disappeared from
sight.

Overcome by the hypnotic spell of the dance, the natives sat motionless
for a moment. Then the bark of a dog outside broke the spell. With a mad
shout: "Pee-le-uk-tuk Pee-le-uk-tuk!" (Gone! Gone!) they rushed to the
entrance, trampling upon and hindering one another in their haste.

* * * * *

When Johnny reached the piling ice, on his way across the Strait, he at
first gave his entire attention to picking a pathway. Indeed this was
quite necessary, for here a great pan of ice, thirty yards square and
eight feet thick, glided upon another of the same tremendous proportions
to rear into the air and crumble down, a ponderous avalanche of ice
cakes and snow. He must leap nimbly fro