lows, this is a sort of northern paradise!" cried Raed. "But
what sticks me is how to cook those eggs and geese. I never could suck
eggs."

"Just build a fire, and I'll show you how to cook 'em," Weymouth said.

"But what shall we have for fuel?" Kit demanded.

That was a staggerer.

_Boom!_ It seemed as if those far-borne echoes would never die with
the distance. A low, dismal, sullen sound! They gave us queer
sensations. As each came rolling on the sea, our hearts would bound.
Up to that moment, "The Curlew" had not been taken; but perhaps that
shot had struck down her sails.

It was now half-past two. The vessels could hardly be less than twenty
or twenty-five miles off. But there is nothing to absorb or deaden
sound along those straits.

"Yes; where's your fuel?" demanded Wade.

We looked around: plenty of rocks, ice, and water, with a little
coarse dirt, or gravel.

"Might burn the boat," Kit suggested.

"That seems too bad," said Raed. "Besides, how are we to get off the
island here, supposing 'The Curlew' should not come back? or even
suppose she should? She has no other boat."

"And we may want to go off to the other islands," I said.

"Well, if anybody can suggest anything better, I should like to hear
it," replied Kit. "I don't want to burn the boat, I'm sure; but I
can't see anything else that looks inflammable."

Neither could any of us, though we looked all around us very
earnestly; till Donovan suddenly cried out,--

"Why not burn the old sea-horse?"

"Why, that's our victuals!" laughed Kit.

"I know it; but fire comes before victuals, unless you eat 'em raw
like the Huskies."

"Will it burn?" Raed asked.

"Burn? yes. Why, on a sealer, they do all their trying-out the oil
with a fire of seal-refuse. Why shouldn't it burn as well as a
candle?"

"There's our wood-pile, then!" cried Raed, giving the carcass a kick.
"Let's have a fire forthwith. Don, you slash out a hundred-weight or
so."

"Don't cut the hide to pieces," Kit interposed: "we may want that to
make a tent of."

Donovan whipped out his butcher-knife, and, stripping back the tough
skin, cut out a pile of huge slices. Kit, meanwhile, got a piece of
old thwart from the boat, and whittled up a heap of pine slivers. Two
of the fat slices were then slit up into thin strips, and laid on the
slivers. With great caution, Donovan struck a match on his
jacket-sleeve. We all hovered around to keep off the wicked puffings
of the wi