the
open sea with nothing but hummocks and bergs to shelter him. Being
acquainted, by hearsay at least, with some of the methods of the
Eskimos, he avoided the bergs, for there was the danger of masses
falling from their sides and from overhanging ice-cliffs, and selected a
small hummock--a heap of masses that had been thrown or crushed up
earlier in the winter, covered with snow, and formed into a solid mound.
The light air that blew over the frozen plain was scarcely worth taking
into account, nevertheless the Indian chose the lee side of the hummock
and then began to try his "prentice hand" at the erection of a snow-hut.

Nazinred had indeed some doubts as to the value of such a cold
habitation without fire, but he knew that Eskimos sometimes used such,
and what they could do he could dare. Besides, love is strong as
death--and he meant to find Adolay or die!

His hut, as might have been expected, was not such as an Eskimo
architect would have praised, but it was passable for a first attempt.
He knew that the northern masons built their winter dwellings in the
form of a dome, therefore he essayed the same form; but it fell in more
than once before the keystone of the arch was fixed.

"Never mind," thought Nazinred; "they have done it--I can do it."

Nothing is impossible to men of this stamp. He persevered, and
succeeded after a couple of hours in producing a sort of misshapen
bee-hive about six feet in diameter, and four feet high. The slabs of
snow of which it was composed were compact and solid, though easily cut
with his scalping-knife, and formed bricks that could resist the
influence of the fiercest gale. At one side of the hut he cut a hole
for a doorway, and reserved the piece cut out for a door. It was just
big enough to let his broad shoulders pass through, and when he got
inside and lay down at length to test it, he gave a slight "humph!" of
satisfaction. Not that the chamber was cheerful--far from it, for it
was intensely dark,--but our Indian was a practical man. He did not
require light to enable him to sleep or rest.

While engaged in constructing the hut, he observed that the four dogs
were sitting on their tails doing nothing except gazing in curiosity, if
not surprise, at his unwonted proceedings. Being a busy man, he
naturally disliked idlers, and therefore unlashed some food from his
sledge and served out their supper by way of giving them something to
do. They ceased idling at onc