ermine fringe on our jumpers. I can make nothing of this knot;
try what you can do with it, messmate, will you?"

"Sorra wan o' me 'll try it," cried O'Riley, suddenly leaping up and
swinging both arms violently against his shoulders; "I've got two hands,
I have, but niver a finger on them--leastwise I feel none, though it
_is_ some small degrae o' comfort to see them."

"My toes are much in the same condition," said West, stamping vigorously
until he brought back the circulation.

"Dance, then, wid me," cried the Irishman, suiting his action to the
word. "I've a mortial fear o' bein' bit wid the frost for it's no joke,
let me tell you. Didn't I see a whole ship's crew wance that wos
wrecked in the Gulf o' Saint Lawrence about the beginnin' o' winter, and
before they got to a part o' the coast where there was a house belongin'
to the fur-traders, ivery man-jack o' them was frost-bit more or less,
they wor. Wan lost a thumb, and another the jint of a finger or two,
and most o' them had two or three toes off, an' there wos wan poor
fellow who lost the front half o' wan fut, an' the heel o' the other,
an' two inches o' the bone was stickin' out. Sure, it's truth I'm
tellin' ye, for I seed it wid me own two eyes, I did."

The earnest tones in which the last words were spoken convinced his
comrades that O'Riley was telling the truth, so, having a decided
objection to be placed in similar circumstances, they danced and beat
each other until they were quite in a glow.

"Why, what are you at there, Meetuck?" exclaimed Fred, pausing.

"Igloe, make," replied the Esquimaux.

"Ig--what?" enquired O'Riley.

"Oh, I see!" shouted Fred, "he's going to make a snow-hut,--igloes they
call them here. Capital!--I never thought of that! Come along; let's
help him!"

Meetuck was indeed about to erect one of those curious dwellings of
snow, in which, for the greater part of the year, his primitive
countrymen dwell. He had no taste for star-spangled bed-curtains, when
solid walls, whiter than the purest dimity, were to be had for nothing.
His first operation in the erection of this hut was to mark out a circle
of about seven feet diameter. From the inside of this circle the snow
was cut by means of a long knife in the form of slabs nearly a foot
thick, and from two to three feet long, having a slight convexity on the
outside. These slabs were then so cut and arranged that, when they were
piled upon each other round the margi