“Give him something hot,” cried the practical Joe. “If we only had some brandy! But we haven’t. I’ll tell you—you chafe his hands and I’ll make some hot tea.” So Harry fell to chafing the cold, skeleton-like hands, while Joe eagerly lighted the little oil lamp and soon had a pot of hot tea made, sheltered from the wind in the forward locker of the dingey. He poured this between the clenched teeth of the unconscious man, who choked a bit as it went down and opened his eyes. “There!” said Joe; “I thought that would fetch him. It’s strong enough to raise the dead and—well, I guess it’s pretty hot, too. Lucky we stocked the dingey this way, ain’t it? Whew! how it does snow. We’ll have to wait till it quits before we think of getting back to the ship again. It’s kind of risky to get too far away from your ship when the ice is coming in. Guess we’ll make it all right, though.” For the first time Harry looked around him and thought of his surroundings. The snow was pelting in on them in great flakes, and he could hardly see across the ice cake they were on. He did not realize that the wind had changed, but he noticed that it blew strongly, and he felt singularly lonely and distant from shelter and aid. Something of the eerie wildness of the Arctic came over him, as it had that night in the storm in Bering Sea, and he had a sense of desolation that was beyond words. The only link between him and life seemed to be the dingey, and even then an ice cake crushed against it with an alarming crash. He rushed to it and, hauling with all his strength, got it out on the ice. The planking was cracked, and it had barely escaped utter ruin. “Whew!” exclaimed Joe; “they’re after us, aren’t they! We’ll have to mend that a bit before we can start out. But that will be easy. Once we get our friend here fixed up so he can travel, we’ll tend to all those things.” He crumbed a little hard bread into the balance of the tea, making a sort of soup which the Eskimo took eagerly. After a time he spoke briefly in his own language. “No catch seal,” he said; “kayak gone. Nine sleeps and no eat.” “Do you hear that?” said Joe to Harry; “No wonder he’s used up. Guess I’ll give him some more to eat.” The Eskimo answered this in English as he got up, rather waveringly. “No,” he said; “bimeby want.”