frosty air. How lovely the world was! How glorious it was
just to live! What an Odyssey of adventures he would have to relate
when he reached home! And still, he mused, as wonderful as these
adventures appeared to him they were a part of the routine of life in
the country, and not one of them unusual. Toby looked upon them as a
part of the day's work, and experiences that were to be expected.

Lost in retrospection, Charley was surprised by Toby's return with the
rope much sooner than he had expected him. The rope was fastened to the
seal, and the two boys, their hearts light with the certainty of food to
sustain them and end their long fast, hauled the carcass back to their
bivouac.

It was not easy to be abstemious in their eating. The broth from the owl
had aroused the full vigour of the appetite of both boys, which had to
some extent become dormant with long fasting. But they heeded the
warning Toby had borrowed from the Indians, and practicing self-denial
ate sparingly, though often.

Toby busied himself at once in removing the seal's entrails, before the
carcass could freeze, and this he did without skinning it, explaining to
Charley that if the ice formed before they had eaten the flesh, as he
expected it would, they could haul it home over the ice, at the end of
the rope, much more easily than they could carry the dismembered joints.
Extracting the liver, and laying it back under the lean-to on a piece of
bark, Toby remarked:

"We'll be eatin' the liver fried in a bit o' seal fat for breakfast. If
we just eats the owl to-day, I'm thinkin' by marnin' we can stand the
liver, or a piece of un. 'Tis stronger meat than the owl. After the
liver's gone, we'll be tryin' the flippers."

"All right," agreed Charley, happily. "Anything you say goes with me.
I'm going to have a good time here now until we get away."

"So'll I," said Toby, "and we'll not be startin' till the ice is strong
enough, whatever, so's not to be takin' any risk o' breakin' through.
'Tis never as thick outside as 'tis near shore."

When they awoke the next morning, a new and strange silence had fallen
upon the world. Toby sat up excitedly, and shaking Charley into
wakefulness, asked:

"Does you hear un? Does you hear un?"

"Hear what?" asked Charley, sleepily. "I don't hear a thing."

"Hear the stillness!" explained Toby. "The water's not lappin'! The bay
has fastened over! By to-morrow, whatever, we'll be leavin' here for
Double Up Cove