in one side, she
placed it on the ice with the perforated side up and put a strip of
blubber within. This she lighted. It gave forth a smoky fire, with
little heat, but much oil collected in the can. Seeing this, she began
fraying out the silk ribbon of her pajamas. When she had secured a
sufficient amount of fine fuzz she dropped it along the edge of the oil
which saturated it at once. She lighted this, which had formed itself
into a sort of wick, and at once she had a clear and steady flame.

She had solved the problem. In her seal oil oven, meat toasted
beautifully. In half an hour she was enjoying a bountiful repast. After
the feast, she sat down to think. She was fed for the moment and
apparently safe enough, but where was she and whither was she being
carried by this drifting ice floe?

* * * * *

For a second, after seeing the face of the Russian on the ice, Johnny
Thompson stood motionless. Then he turned and ran, ran madly out among
the ice piles. Heedless of direction he ran until he was out of breath
and exhausted, until he had lost himself and the Russian completely.

No, Johnny was not running from the Russian. He was running from
himself. When he saw the Russian's face, lit up as it was by the flare
of the flames that had burst forth from that abandoned igloo, there had
been something so crafty, so cruel, so remorselessly terrible about it
that he had been seized with a mad desire to kill the man where he
stood.

But Johnny felt, rather than knew, that there were very special reasons
why the Russian must not be killed, at least not at that particular
moment. Perhaps some dark secret was locked in his crafty brain, a
secret which the world should know and which would die if he died.
Johnny could only guess this, but whatever might be the reason he must
not at this moment kill the man whom he suspected of twice attempting
his life. So he fled.

By the last flickering flames of the grand spree that had burned, Johnny
figured out his approximate location and began once more his three miles
east, one mile south journey to Cape Prince of Wales. Some hours later,
having landed safely at the Cape, and having displayed the postmarked
one dollar bill to the post mistress and given it to her in exchange for
a sumptuous meal of reindeer meat, hot biscuits and doughnuts, he
started sleeping the clock round in a room that had been arranged for
the benefit of weary travelers.