e had passed the last of these bergs, however, he began to
hesitate in his movements, and Attim, trotting quietly by his side,
looked inquiringly up into his face once or twice with the obvious
question, "What's the matter?" in his soft brown eyes--or some Dogrib
idiom equivalent thereto.

"I'm afraid to go on," murmured the Indian gravely.

To this Attim replied with a reassuring wag of his tail.

"Without stars it won't be easy to keep the straight line," continued
the chief, stopping altogether and looking up at the clouds.

Attim also looked up, but evidently could make nothing of it, for he
turned his eyes again on his master and wagged his tail dubiously.

At the moment a rift in the clouds revealed some of the stars, and the
Indian, regaining his direction again, hurried forward--all the more
rapidly that a pretty stiff fair wind was blowing, to speak nautically,
right astern of him.

By degrees the breeze increased to a gale, and then to a regular
hurricane, which whirled among the bergs and hummocks, shrieked round
the ice-pinnacles, and went howling over the plain of the solid sea as
if all the Hyperborean fiends had been let loose and told to do their
worst. Its violence was so great that the Indian was forced to scud
before it, and more than once Attim's little bundle caught the blast and
whirled him round like a weathercock, while the drifting snow at last
became so thick that it was impossible to see anything more than a few
yards ahead. In these circumstances to advance was madness.

"It won't do, pup," cried Nazinred, turning suddenly to his right round
a mass of ice, and taking shelter in the lee of a towering berg; "come,
we will encamp here."

He had scarcely uttered the words when a tremendous rending sound was
heard above the noise of the hurricane. The Indian looked up quickly,
but nothing was to be seen anywhere save that wild confusion of whirling
snow, which in more southerly lands is sometimes called a blizzard, and
the back-whirl of which nearly suffocated man and dog. Suddenly there
came a crash as if a mountain were being shattered near them. Then
Nazinred saw, to his horror, that an ice-pinnacle as big as a church
steeple was bowing forward, like some mighty giant, to its fall. To
escape he saw was impossible. It was too near and too directly above
his head for that. His only hope lay in crushing close to the side of
the berg. He did so, on the instant, promptly followed by