iak, the Boy, O'Flynn, and Potts crowding round
him, Mac ripped open the little bird-skin pouch, and took out three
objects--an ivory mannikin, a crow's feather, and a thing that Father
Wills said was a seal-blood plug.

"What's it for?" "Same as the rest. It's an amulet; only as it's used
to stop the flow of blood from the wound of a captive seal, it is
supposed to be the best of all charms for anyone who spits blood."

"I'll clean 'em all after the Blow-Out," said Mac, and he went out,
buried the charms in the snow, and stuck up a spruce twig to mark the
spot.

Meanwhile, to poor Kaviak it was being plainly demonstrated what an
awful fate descended on a person so unlucky as to part with his amulet.
He stood straight up in the bucket like a champagne-bottle in a cooler,
and he could not have resented his predicament more if he had been set
in crushed ice instead of warm water. Under the remorseless hands of
Nicholas he began to splutter and choke, to fizz, and finally explode
with astonishment and wrath. It was quite clear Nicholas was trying to
drown him. He took the treatment so to heart, that he kept on howling
dismally for some time after he was taken out, and dried, and
linimented and dosed by Mac, whose treachery about the amulet he seemed
to forgive, since "Farva" had had the air of rescuing him from the
horrors he had endured in that water-bucket, where, for all Kaviak
knew, he might have stayed till he succumbed to death. The Boy
contributed a shirt of his own, and helped Mac to put it on the
incredibly thin little figure. The shirt came down to Kaviak's heels,
and had to have the sleeves rolled up every two minutes. But by the
time the reindeer-steak was nearly done Kaviak was done, too, and
O'Flynn had said, "That Spissimen does ye credit, Mac."

Said Spissimen was now staring hungrily out of the Colonel's bunk,
holding towards Mac an appealing hand, with half a yard of shirt-sleeve
falling over it.

Mac pretended not to see, and drew up to the table the one remaining
available thing to sit on, his back to his patient.

When the dogs had been fed, and the other Indians had come in, and
squatted on the buffalo-skin with Nicholas, the first course was sent
round in tin cups, a nondescript, but warming, "camp soup."

"Sorry we've got so few dishes, gentlemen," the Colonel had said.
"We'll have to ask some of you to wait till others have finished."

"Farva," remarked Kaviak, leaning out of the bunk and