driver much
concerned to steer clear of the softened snow and keep to that part of
the river ice windswept and firm, if roughest of all. Nicholas regarded
the stockade with a cold and beady eye.

No, he hadn't time to look at it. He had promised to "mush." He wasn't
even hungry.

It did little credit to his heart, but he seemed more in haste to leave
his new friends than the least friendly of them would have expected.

"Oh, wait a sec.," urged the deeply disappointed Boy. "I wanted awf'ly
to see how your sled is made. It's better 'n Father Wills'."

"Humph!" grunted Nicholas scornfully; "him no got Innuit sled."

"Mac and I are goin' to try soon's the stockade's done--"

"Goo'-bye," interrupted Nicholas.

But the Boy paid no attention to the word of farewell. He knelt down in
the snow and examined the sled carefully.

"Spruce runners," he called out to Mac, "and--jee! they're shod with
ivory! _Jee!_ fastened with sinew and wooden pegs. Hey?"--looking up
incredulously at Nicholas--"not a nail in the whole shebang, eh?"

"Nail?" says Nicholas. "Huh, no _nail!_" as contemptuously as though
the Boy had said "bread-crumbs."

"Well, she's a daisy! When you comin' back?"

"Comin' pretty quick; goin' pretty quick. Goo'-bye! _Mush!_" shouted
Nicholas to his companion, and the dogs got up off their haunches.

But the Boy only laughed at Nicholas's struggles to get started. He
hung on to the loaded sled, examining, praising, while the dogs, after
the merest affectation of trying to make a start, looked round at him
over their loose collars and grinned contentedly.

"Me got to mush. Show nex' time. Mush!"

"What's here?" the Boy shouted through the "mushing"; and he tugged at
the goodly load, so neatly disposed under an old reindeer-skin
sleeping-bag, and lashed down with raw hide.

That? Oh, that was fish. _"Fish!_ Got so much fish at starving Pymeut
you can go hauling it down river? Well, sir, _we_ want fish. We _must_
have fish. Hey?" The Boy appealed to the others.

"Yes."

"R-right y'arre!"

"I reckon we just do!"

But Nicholas had other views.

"No, me take him--" He hitched his body in the direction of Ikogimeut.

"Bless my soul! you've got enough there for a regiment. You goin' to
sell him? Hey?"

Nicholas shook his head.

"Oh, come off the roof!" advised the Boy genially.

"You ain't carryin' it about for your health, I suppose?" said Potts.

"The people down at Ikogimeut don't need it like