of the tree, kept his eye watchfully on the branches.

"Come here--quick!" he cried--"the stem is our safeguard. Look out!"

As he spoke his voice was drowned in a crash which mingled with the
shrieking blast, and a great branch fell to the ground. Fortunately the
wind blew it sufficiently to one side to clear the camp. The air was so
charged with snow particles that the captain and his son seemed to
stagger out of a white mist as they returned to their comrades who were
clinging to the weather-side of the tree.

"D'ye think it will go by the board?" asked the captain, as he observed
Hendrick's anxious gaze fixed on the swaying tree.

"It is a good stout stick," replied his friend, "but the blast is
powerful."

The captain looked up at the thick stem with a doubtful expression, and
then turned to Hendrick with a nautical shake of the head.

"I never saw a stick," he said, "that would stand the like o' that
without fore an' back stays, but it may be that shoregoin' sticks are--"

He stopped abruptly, for a terrific crash almost stunned him, as the
tree by which they stood went down, tearing its way through the adjacent
branches in its fall, and causing the whole party to stagger.

"Keep still!" shouted Hendrick in a voice of stern command, as he
glanced critically at the fallen tree.

"Yes," he added, "it will do. Come here."

He scrambled quickly among the crushed branches until he stood directly
under the prostrate stem, which was supported by its roots and stouter
branches. "Here," said he, "we are safe."

His comrades glanced upwards with uneasy expressions that showed they
did not quite share his feelings of safety.

"Seems to me, Master Hendrick," roared the captain, for the noise of the
hurly-burly around was tremendous, "that it was safer where we were.
What if the stem should sink further and flatten us?"

"As long as we stood to windward of it" replied Hendrick, "we were safe
from the tree itself, though in danger from surrounding trees, but now,
with this great trunk above us, other trees can do us no harm. As for
the stem sinking lower, it can't do that until this solid branch that
supports it becomes rotten. Come now," he added, "we will encamp here.
Give me the axe, Oliver, and the three of you help to carry away the
branches as I chop them off."

In little more than an hour a circular space was cleared of snow and
branches, and a hut was thus formed, with the great tree-stem for a
r