to retrace her steps; but she found
to her horror that the ice on which she stood was floating, and that the
wind, having shifted a point to the eastward, was driving it across to
the west side of the bay. Here, in the course of the next day, it
grounded, and the poor child, benumbed with cold and faint with hunger,
crept as far as she could on to the firm land, and then lay down, as she
thought, to die.

But it was otherwise ordained. In less than half an hour afterwards she
was found by a party of Esquimaux. These wild creatures had come from
the eastward in their dog-sledges, and having passed well out to the
seaward in order to avoid the open water off the mouth of False River,
had missed seeing their countrymen there, and therefore knew nothing of
the establishment of Fort Chimo. In bending towards the land again
after passing the bay they came upon Edith's tracks, and after a short
search they found her lying on the snow.

Words cannot convey an adequate impression of the unutterable amazement
of these poor creatures as they beheld the fair child, so unlike
anything they had ever seen or imagined; but whatever may have been
their thoughts regarding her, they had sense enough to see that she was
composed of flesh and blood, and would infallibly freeze if allowed to
lie there much longer. They therefore lifted her gently upon one of the
large sleighs, and placed her on a pile of furs in the midst of a group
of women and children, who covered her up and chafed her limbs
vigorously. Meanwhile the drivers of the sledges, of which there were
six, with twenty dogs attached to each, plied their long whips
energetically; the dogs yelled in consternation, and, darting away with
the sledges as if they had been feathers, the whole tribe went hooting,
yelling, and howling away over the frozen sea.

The surprise of the savages when they found Edith was scarcely, if at
all, superior to that of Edith when she opened her eyes and began to
comprehend, somewhat confusedly, her peculiar position. The savages
watched her movements, open-mouthed, with intense curiosity, and seemed
overjoyed beyond expression when she at length recovered sufficiently to
exclaim feebly,--"Where am I? where are you taking me to?"

We need scarcely add that she received no reply to her questions, for
the natives did not understand a word of her language, and with the
exception of the names of one or two familiar objects, she did not
understand