e flint will hardly strike fire more than four
times out of ten; you are obliged to wrap yourself in the old blanket
full of holes; and you come to me to borrow powder and ball."

"That is true," replied Mozwa, with a look of self-condemnation. "But,"
he added, with a sort of brightly apologetic glance, "sometimes I win,
and then I am well off, and it is Magadar who is the fool."

"Does it make you less of a fool because Magadar is one also? Are you
comforted to-day, in your poverty, by the thought that you were well off
yesterday?"

Mozwa's bright glance faded slowly. He was no match for his friend in
argument, and, possessing an honest spirit, the look of
self-condemnation began to creep again over his visage, but, being of a
sanguine temperament and hopeful nature, the bright glance returned
suddenly.

"Wisdom falls from the lips of my brother," he said. "I was well off
yesterday and I am badly off to-day, but I may be well off again
to-morrow--if I have good luck."

"Yes, and if Magadar has bad luck?" returned his friend. "You cannot
both have good luck. Whatever one gains the other must lose--and so it
goes on. Should wise men act thus?"

Mozwa was silent. His friend had never before spoken to him in this
way. Indeed, no member of the tribe had ever before given utterance to
such curious opinions. He knew not what to reply, and Nazinred relapsed
into the moody silence which had characterised him more or less since he
became aware of his daughter's departure.

The short autumn of those Hyperborean regions having passed away, the
land was speedily locked in a garment of ice and snow, and the long
stern winter began.

It was not long before all the lakes and rivers set fast. At first only
the lakes solidified, then the more sluggish streams, while the rapids
showed out inky black by contrast. Gradually the liquid margins of
these were encroached on by the irresistible frost, until they were
fairly bridged over, and their existence was only recalled to memory by
hollow rumblings below the ice. At last the intensity of the cold
overcame the salt sea itself; the floes, hummocks, and bergs became
united into one universal mass, and every sign of liquid disappeared
from the polar regions.

It was when this condition of things had arrived that the heart-crushed
Nazinred proceeded to carry out a plan over which he had been brooding
ever since his return from Great Bear Lake. His inquiries had led him