was
reached. Having rested here a few minutes, Edith once more got into the
sledge, and Chimo set off. But as there was now a long piece of level
ground over which for some miles they could travel in the direction of
the coast, Frank took the sled-line in his hand, and held the dog at a
quick walking pace. Afterwards they turned a little farther inland, and
came into a more broken country, where they had sometimes to mount and
sometimes to descend the hills. There were many gorges and narrow
fissures in the ground here, some of which were covered over and so
concealed with snow that the travellers ran some risk of falling into
them. Indeed, at one place, so narrow was their escape that Chimo fell
through the crust of snow, and disappeared into a fissure which
descended a hundred feet sheer down; and the sledge would certainly have
followed had not Frank held it back by the line; and Chimo was not
hauled up again without great difficulty. After this, Frank went in
front with a pole, and sounded the snow in dangerous-looking places as
he went along.

Towards the afternoon they arrived at the lake where they intended to
encamp, and, to their great delight, found Maximus there already. He
had only arrived a few minutes before them, and was just going to
commence the erection of a snow-house.

"Glad to see you, Maximus," cried Frank, as he drove up. "How's the old
woman, eh?"

"She small better," replied Maximus, assisting Edith to alight. "Dis
goot for fish."

Maximus was a remarkably intelligent man, and, although his residence at
the fort had been of short duration as yet, he had picked up a few words
of English.

"A good lake, I have no doubt," replied Frank, looking round. "But we
need not search for camping ground. There seems to be very little wood,
so you may as well build our hut on the ice. We shall need all our
time, as the sun has not long to run."

The lake, on the edge of which they stood, was about a mile in
circumferenee, and lay in a sort of natural basin formed by
savage-looking hills, in which the ravines were little more than narrow
fissures, entirely devoid of trees. Snow encompassed and buried
everything, so that nothing was to be seen except, here and there, crags
and cliffs of gray rock, which were too precipitous for the snow to rest
on.

"Now, Eda, I will take a look among these rocks for a ptarmigan for
supper; so you can amuse yourself watching Maximus build our house till