rred pleasantly in
both men, and in the younger came forth unabashed in speech:

"I tell you the omens are good! This expedition's goin' to get there."
Then, with the involuntary misgiving that follows hard upon such
boasting, he laughed uneasily and added, "I mean to sacrifice the first
deer's tongue I don't want myself, to Yukon Inua; but here's to the
south wind!" He turned some corn-bread crumbs out of his pocket, and
saw, delighted, how the gale, grown keener, snatched eagerly at them
and hurried them up the trail. The ice-boat careened and strained
eagerly to sail away. The two gold-seekers, laughing like schoolboys,
sat astride the pack; the Colonel shook out the canvas, and they
scudded off up the river like mad. The great difficulty was the
steering; but it was rip-roaring fun, the Boy said, and very soon there
were natives running down to the river, to stare open-mouthed at the
astounding apparition, to point and shout something unintelligible that
sounded like "Muchtaravik!"

"Why, it's the Pymeuts! Pardner, we'll be in Minook by supper-ti--"

The words hadn't left his lips when he saw, a few yards in front of
them, a faint cloud of steam rising up from the ice--that dim
danger-signal that flies above an air-hole. The Colonel, never
noticing, was heading straight for the ghastly trap.

"God, Colonel! Blow-hole!" gasped the Boy.

The Colonel simply rolled off the pack turning over and over on the
ice, but keeping hold of the rope.

The sled swerved, turned on her side, and slid along with a sound of
snapping and tearing.

While they were still headed straight for the hole, the Boy had
gathered himself for a clear jump to the right, but the sled's sudden
swerve to the left broke his angle sharply. He was flung forward on the
new impetus, spun over the smooth surface, swept across the verge and
under the cloud, clutching wildly at the ragged edge of ice as he went
down.

All Pymeut had come rushing pell-mell.

The Colonel was gathering himself up and looking round in a dazed kind
of way as Nicholas flashed by. Just beyond, in that yawning hole, fully
ten feet wide by fifteen long, the Boy's head appeared an instant, and
then was lost like something seen in a dream. Some of the Pymeuts with
quick knives were cutting the canvas loose. One end was passed to
Nicholas; he knotted it to his belt, and went swiftly, but gingerly,
forward nearer the perilous edge. He had flung himself down on his
stomach just