the ice was smooth most of the way, for jolting was not
only injurious to poor Kabelaw, but gave the wizard great additional
pain. It also had the effect of bumping Tumbler and Pussi against each
other, and sometimes strained their lashings almost to the breaking
point.

At night Nunaga selected as comfortable a spot as she could find under
the shelter of the Greenland cliffs, and there--after detaching the
children, re-dressing Ujarak's leg, arranging the couch of the
semi-conscious Kabelaw, and feeding the hungry dogs--she set up her
lamp, and cooked savoury seal and bear cutlets for the whole party.
And, not withstanding the prejudices with which fastidious people may
receive the information, it is an unquestionable fact that the frying of
seal and bear cutlets sends a most delicious influence up the nose,
though perhaps it may require intense hunger and an Eskimo's digestion
to enable one to appreciate to the full the value of such food.

These labours ended, Nunaga put the little ones to bed, made the wizard
and Kabelaw as comfortable as possible for the night, fastened up the
dogs, and, spreading her own couch in the most convenient spot beside
them, commenced her well-earned night's repose. The first night her bed
was a flat rock; the second, a patch of sand; but on both occasions the
cheery little woman softened the place with a thick bear-skin, and,
curling up, covered herself with the soft skin of a reindeer.

And what were the thoughts of the wicked Ujarak as he lay there,
helpless and suffering, silently watching Nunaga? We can tell, for he
afterwards made a partial confession of them.

"She is very pretty," he thought, "and very kind. I always knew that,
but now I see that she is much more. She is forgiving. I took her from
her home by force, and would have made her my wife against her will--yet
she is good to me. I have been harsh, unkind, cruel, sulky to her ever
since we left home--yet she is good to me. I have torn her from all
those whom she loves, with the intention that she should never see them
again--yet she is good to me. She might have left me to die, and might
easily have gone home by herself, and it would have served me right,
but--but she is good to me. I am not a man. I am a beast--a bear--a
fox--a walrus--"

As the wizard thought thus, a couple of tears overflowed their
boundaries, and rolled down the hitherto untried channel of his cheeks.

Do you think, reader, that this