appeared to be
sad news, for on hearing it, his face grew very grave. The Doctor asked
him what was wrong. And Long Arrow said he had just been informed
that the chief of the tribe, an old man of eighty, had died early that
morning.

"That," Polynesia whispered in my ear, "must have been what they went
back to the village for, when the messenger fetched them from the
beach.--Remember?"

"What did he die of?" asked the Doctor.

"He died of cold," said Long Arrow.

Indeed, now that the sun was setting, we were all shivering ourselves.

"This is a serious thing," said the Doctor to me. "The island is still
in the grip of that wretched current flowing southward. We will have to
look into this to-morrow. If nothing can be done about it, the Indians
had better take to canoes and leave the island. The chance of being
wrecked will be better than getting frozen to death in the ice-floes of
the Antarctic."

Presently we came over a saddle in the hills, and looking downward on
the far side of the island, we saw the village--a large cluster of grass
huts and gaily colored totem-poles close by the edge of the sea.

"How artistic!" said the Doctor--"Delightfully situated. What is the
name of the village?"

"Popsipetel," said Long Arrow. "That is the name also of the tribe. The
word signifies in Indian tongue, The Men of The Moving Land. There are
two tribes of Indians on the island: the Popsipetels at this end and the
Bag-jagderags at the other."

"Which is the larger of the two peoples?"

"The Bag-jagderags, by far. Their city covers two square leagues. But,"
added Long Arrow a slight frown darkening his handsome face, "for me, I
would rather have one Popsipetel than a hundred Bag-jagderags."

The news of the rescue we had made had evidently gone ahead of us. For
as we drew nearer to the village we saw crowds of Indians streaming out
to greet the friends and relatives whom they had never thought to see
again.

These good people, when they too were told how the rescue had been the
work of the strange white visitor to their shores, all gathered round
the Doctor, shook him by the hands, patted him and hugged him. Then they
lifted him up upon their strong shoulders and carried him down the hill
into the village.

There the welcome we received was even more wonderful. In spite of the
cold air of the coming night, the villagers, who had all been shivering
within their houses, threw open their doors and came out in hundred