home."
There was a little catch in her voice. Every muscle in her body was
tense. They were far from their homes, not knowing where they were;
and these people, a strange, perhaps wild, tribe of savages.

Then there came to Marian the words of the great bishop: "Humanity is
very much the same everywhere," and for a time the thought comforted
her.

They remained there standing in full view in the moonlight, watching
until the men could be distinguished from the dogs; until the whole
company, some fifty or more people, left the ice and began to climb the
slope that led to the village.

But now they all stopped. They were pointing at the cabin, some of
them gesticulating wildly.

After a time they came on again, but this time much more slowly. In
their lead was a wild-haired man, who constantly went through the weird
dance motions of these native tribes; weird, wild calisthenics they
were, a thrusting out of both hands on this side, then that, a bowing,
bending backward, leaping high in air. And now they caught the sound
of the witch song they were all chanting:

"I--I--am--ah! ah! ah!
I--I--I ah! ah! ah!"

As they neared the cabin Lucile turned away.

"I--I think," she said unsteadily, "we had better bar the door."

At that she lifted the heavy bar and propped it against the door.

CHAPTER XVIII

A NEW PERIL

Long hours in the cranny of the cliff Phi was wrapped in heavy slumber.
Dressed as he was in deerskin and sealskin garments, he did not feel
the cold. The bed was soft, his "house" well sheltered from the wind.

He awoke at last to start and stare. The sun was painting the peaks of
distant ice-piles with a touch of pink and gold. He experienced a
strange sensation. For one brief moment he fancied himself on the
mainland of Alaska. This, he realized, was not entirely impossible;
the ice-floe might have circled about to carry him near to the coast
again.

So possessed was he with the idea that he grew impatient at the slow
broiling of their one remaining bird. Once the meal was over, having
hidden the bird net in the crevice, that he might return to it in case
of necessity, he hurried away. With Rover at his heels, he crossed the
uneven surface of the plateau, keeping well toward the edge of the
rocky cliff that he might discover a path, if there should be one,
leading down to a village or a miner's cabin.

In his mind's eye he pictured himself sitting down to a meal of
"mulli