the walls and making land before the inevitable
break came. Presently Aluktook shouted,

"Emuk! Emuk!"--the water! the water!

Bob and Netseksoak looked, and a ribbon of black water lay between
them and the shore.

They lashed the dogs and shouted at them until they were hoarse, in a
vain effort to urge them on. The poor brutes lay to the ice and did
their best, but it was quite hopeless. In an incredibly short time the
ribbon had widened into a gulf a quarter of a mile wide. Then it grew
to a mile, and presently the shore became a thin black line that was
soon lost to view entirely. They were adrift on the wide Atlantic!

They stopped the dogs when they realized that further effort was
useless and sat down on the komatik in impotent dismay.

The weather had grown intensely cold and the perspiration that the
excitement and exertion had brought out upon their faces was freezing.
Snow squalls were already beginning and before nightfall a blizzard
was raging in all its awful fury and at any moment the ice pack was
liable to go to pieces.

XXII

THE MAID OF THE NORTH

"The's no profit in this trade any more," said Captain Sam Hanks, as
he sat down to supper with his mate, Jack Simmons, in the little cabin
of his schooner, _Maid of the North_. "I won't get a seaman's wages
out o' th' cruise, an' I'm sick o' workin' fer nothin'. Now there was
a time before th' free traders done th' business t' death that a man
could make good money on th' Labrador, but that time's past They pays
so much fer th' fur they's spoiled it fer everybody, an' I'm goin' t'
quit."

"Th' free traders don't go north o' th' Straits much. Why don't ye try
it there, sir?" suggested the mate.

"Ice. Too much ice. I've been thinkin' it over. Th' trouble is we
couldn't get through th' ice in th' spring until after th' Hudson's
Bay people had gobbled up everything. Th' natives down that coast is
poor as Job's turkey, an' they has t' sell their fur soon's th'
furrin' season's over. I hears th' company gets th' fur from 'em fer
a song. Them natives'll give ye a silver fox fer a jackknife an' a
barrel o' flour, an' a marten fer a gallon o' molasses. But the's
money in it if a feller could get there in time," he added
thoughtfully.

"What's th' matter with goin' down in th' fall before th' ice blocks
th' coast? Th' _Maid o' th' North_ is sheathed fer ice, an' we could
freeze her in, some place down th' coast, an' be on hand t' sail when
th'