bscurity.

"Oh, great!" mocked Shelby. "You can have mine. I'm going to stay on the
boat and go back."

"Yes, you are!" grinned Peter, knowing full well how little importance
to attach to that speech; "inside of a week, you'll be crazy about it."

"I am now," said Blair, slowly. "Most weird sight I ever saw. The rocks
seem like sentient giants ready to eat each other. Termagant Nature,
unleashed and rampant."

"Idea all right," said Crane, lazily, "but your verbiage isn't
hand-picked, seems to me."

"You can put it more poetically, if you like, but it's the thing itself
that gets me, not the sand-papered description of it."

"Nobody wants you to sand-paper it, but you ought to hew to the line a
little more nearly----"

"Lines be bothered! Free verse is the thing for this place!"

"I want free verse and I want fresh air," bantered Peter, "and Lasca,
down by the Brandywine,--or wherever it was that Friend Lasca hung out."

"You're harking back to your school days and Friday afternoon
declamation," put in Shelby, "and Lasca was down by the Rio Grande."

"Only Alaska isn't down there at all," Blair informed them, quite
seriously, and the others roared.

* * * * *

After delays, changes and transfers made necessary by the uncertainties
of Labrador travel, they came at last to Hamilton Inlet, and the little
steamer approached the trading post at Rigolet.

"Reminds me of Hamilton Harbor, Bermuda," observed Shelby, shivering as
he drew his furs round him.

"Oh, how can you!" exclaimed Blair; "that heavenly Paradise of a
place,--and this!"

"But you'd rather be here?" and Crane shook a warning fist at him.

"Yes,--oh, yes! This is the life!" and if Blair wasn't quite sincere he
gave a fair imitation of telling the truth.

"Will you look at the dogs!" cried Crane. "I didn't know there were so
many in the world!"

The big Eskimo dogs were prowling about, growling a little, and
appearing anything but friendly. Not even to sunny-faced and
kindly-voiced Peter Boots did they respond, but snarled and pawed the
ground until Joshua advised Crane to let them alone.

"They're mighty good things to keep away from," the guide informed, and
his advice was taken.

"I'm glad we have a trusty canoe instead of those villainous looking
creatures," Blair admitted, and when, later on, they heard tales of the
brutality and treachery of the pack dogs, the others agreed.

At Rigolet final arrang