, in terror. "I am
resigned to die." Ootah stubbornly invoked the spirits of his
ancestors for succor. He called to the dogs.

Thereupon a terrific shock caused both men to reel. The ice field
trembled under them--then stopped.

Ootah realized that a section of it had swept against one of the many
land-adhering glaciers. There was hope--and greater danger.

With a rumbling crash that reverberated above the storm the field
separated into countless tossing fragments. The cake on which the
terror-stricken party cowered swirled dizzily in an eddy of the
released foaming waters. On all sides the inky waves seethed up among
the crevices of the sundering floes. To the south Ootah heard the
breakers booming against the ice cliffs, which perilously barred the
currents of the angry sea. The caps of the curling waves took on a
pale white and appalling luminesence.

"The faces of the dead!" cried Maisanguaq in superstitious terror.
"From the bosom of _Nerrvik_ they come to greet us."

Ootah, however, felt no fear. For once he felt unheedful of those in
the other world. His mind was occupied with a more immediate
interest--that of saving the life of the woman he loved.

With quick presence of mind, Ootah grasped the rear upstander of the
sled, which had begun to slide to and fro, and planted his harpoon in
the ice.

"Thy axe!" he shouted. Maisanguaq passed the axe. Ootah grappled for
it in the darkness. "Hold the harpoon," he directed. Mechanically
Maisanguaq groped for the harpoon and held it while Ootah, with his one
free hand, lifted the axe and drove it into the ice. With the other
hand he still gripped the unconscious woman. Her hair swished about
his legs in the howling wind. Maisanguaq planted his own weapon in the
ice on the opposite side of the sledge, and Ootah, with unerring
strokes, hardly able to see it in the darkness, pounded it firmly into
the ice.

"Thy lashings," he called. Maisanguaq passed a coil of skin rope.

About the improvised stakes which secured the sled Ootah whipped the
lashings, then he passed them under and over the sled until it was
securely pinioned. Very gently he placed Annadoah upon the mass of
walrus meat and lashed her body in turn to the sled and about the
stakes. With Maisanguaq's assistance he tied the cowering dogs to the
harpoons. This done, the two men, benumbed and dazed, clung to the
anchor for support.

As the severed ice cakes dispersed, a curling wav