r the verse:

"Without compass or guide.
On the crest of the tide.
Oh! Light of the stars,
Pray pilot me home."

Involuntarily, her glance stole skyward. Instantly an exclamation
escaped her lips:

"Oh, Marian! We can see them! We can! We can!"

"What can we see?" asked Marian.

"The stars!"

It was true. The snow-fog, though spread over the vast surface of the
ice, was shallow. The stars gleamed through it as if there were no fog
at all.

Wildly their hearts beat now with hope.

"If we can locate the big dipper," said Lucile, whose astronomical
research had been of a practical sort, "we can follow the line made by
the two stars at the lower edge of the dipper and find the North Star.
All we have to do then is to let the North Star guide us home."

This was quickly done. And in a short while they had mapped out a
course for themselves which would certainly come nearer bringing them
to the desired haven than would the north-ward drift of the ice-floe.

"But Phi?" exclaimed Lucile.

Marian stood for a moment undecided. Should they leave this spot
without him? She believed he would make a faithful attempt to rejoin
them. What if they were gone when he came? Suddenly she laughed.

"Rover!" she exclaimed. "He can follow our trail. If Phi comes, he
will have only to follow us. He can travel faster than we shall. He
may catch up with us."

So with many a backward glance at the gleaming North Star, the two
girls set their course south by east, a course which in time should
bring them in the vicinity of the Diomede Islands.

In their minds, however, were many questions. Would further
tide-cracks impede their progress? Would the snow-fog continue? If it
did, would they ever be able to locate the two tiny islands which were,
after all, mere rocky pillars jutting from a sea of ice?

* * * * * *

Phi did not sit long on the ice-pile under the snow-fog. He was born
for action. Something must be done. Quickly he was on the run.

As he rushed back over the way in which he had come, something caught
his eye.

An immense ice-pan had been up-ended by the press of the drift. It had
toppled half over and lodged across the edge of a smaller cake. Now,
like an ancient drawbridge, it hung suspended over the black moat of
the salt water channel.

The boy's quick eye had detected a very slight movement downward. As
he remembered it now, the cake had made