THE ANCIENT ONE 43

dancing, crackling shafts of flame which frightened
me at first but which I learned to love.

There came a time when all my food was gone and
I could find no more. Not an animal did I see in all
that trackless waste. The rivers were frozen so deeply
that I could not fish. There were no villages, no trees,
no wood of any kind with which to build a fire. It did
not seem possible that people could live in that dark
cold land, and yet the seal had said they did.

On and on I journeyed, until I became so weak and
tired and numb with cold that I could walk no farther
and sank down behind a tall ice hummock, unable
longer to resist the desire to sleep.

Scarcely had I closed my eyes, however, when a
dog team came racing around a low hill ahead and
drew up, barking fiercely, by my side. The driver,
a fat little fellow clad in furs like these I am wear-
ing, ran over to my side and shook me roughly, beat-
ing and slapping me with both hands until the blood
raced through my veins, warming me, before he
pulled me upon the sled and fastened me securely
with stout thongs. At his sharp command, the eager
dogs leaped forward and I was borne swiftly over
the ice-fields, with my rescuer running easily by my
side.

After a long time we came to a village of queer
little houses built of ice cakes, even as the seal had
said, and my heart was glad, for I knew that I was
at last in the land of the Ancient Ones! When the