October had come, and with the middle of it a few brief days of mild weather. The sun slanted upward in a low sweep from the southern horizon, then down, after scarcely three hours, leaving behind it, as it set, a running fire of beams that swept along the horizon like a prairie fire, then the dancing splendor of the aurora and a full moon that swung the circuit of the sky without setting. The refraction in the air, first cousin to the mirage, gave this moon odd shapes that were indescribably weird. Sometimes it was cubical, sometimes an elongated oval, and often there were rainbows in the frost about it that made mock moons, two or three ranged in irregular order, with encircling fires that were as beautiful as ghostly. The boys, warmly wrapped in furs chosen from their stock, would, on these calm nights, often promenade the deck for an hour, viewing these phenomena and listening to the crash and grind of the pack against the shore ice beyond the headland. This night they had done so, then retired to the glow of their evening lamp, with books from their stock. They were studying navigation, and a book on engineering and seamanship from the engineer’s locker, that they might be better able to handle the vessel if the chance came to them in the summer. Weariness overcame them there, and Joe had already turned in, while Harry dozed in the chair over his book. He started up once, thinking he heard footsteps, then settled down again, sure that it had been only imagination. There he slept while the footsteps came along the deck, hesitated at the deerskin curtain, and then something tore it down. Harry stirred uneasily, but did not wake. The steps, padded but scratchy, came along the ice tunnel and hesitated again at the closed door to the galley. Then something clawed at this door and shook it, sniffling. Harry came to his feet with a bound and listened, uncertain whether he had heard or dreamed. Then the sound went round the side of the galley, as if something were crowding through the ice passage to the window. “Joe!” cried Harry; “Joe, there’s something here!” Joe roused sleepily, then tumbled out of his bunk with a rush, for there was a crash of glass and a great white forearm came through the little window with a black palm and long, hooked nails. Then the lamp went out. Darkness, and the sound of heavy breathing, with a terrifying recollection of that great arm and the palm with long nails! The two boys crowded together in the corner of the galley, quivering and terrified. The thought of the winter ghosts that the Eskimo had said they would find at Icy Cape came to both, and did not seem like a foolish superstition now. “What is it? What is it?” cried Harry in terror. His voice sounded faint and far away to him. “Can’t you find a match?” replied Joe between his set teeth. He was trying hard to conquer this superstitious terror, but he only partly succeeded.