The wife of Kroo was quite an old woman, and she did not take kindly to the innovations in cooking. Finally, however, she was given some rice, and persuaded to boil it for Kroo’s dinner. She retired to the forecastle, and started a fire in the little stove there, that she might not be observed in her work. Not long afterward cries of alarm were heard, and Kroo’s wife rushed frantically from the forecastle, crying that she had the devil in the pot. She had filled the kettle far too full of rice; and as it swelled and continued to pour out over the rim, she concluded that an evil spirit was in the white man’s food, pushing it out continually. But the matter of the explosive doughnuts was the most exciting, and indeed came near being serious, not only in its immediate effects, but in the setback which it gave the white man’s food in the opinion of the Eskimos. Joe, who was the cook for the boys, had frequently made doughnuts and fried them in oil for the delectation of the community, the natives having a great fondness for them. Then he taught Atchoo how to mix them up, and she seemed to learn very rapidly. One day, however, she undertook to make them without supervision, and used water from melted ice which had chunks of ice still in it. These chunks she incorporated in the doughnuts, no doubt thinking, Eskimo fashion, that it was just as good that way. The doughnuts fried, but the chunks of ice turned to steam within, and about the time Atchoo was forking the doughnuts out into a pan they began to blow up, scattering oil and the wildest consternation among those waiting for the feast. The first one popped on the fork as Atchoo was handing it to Harluk, that he first might see how good a cook she was. The largest chunk of it landed square in Harluk’s eye, causing him to dance with astonishment and alarm. “Hold on!” he cried. “No want to see him; want to eat him.” Others blew up in the kettle, scattering hot oil, and sending the crowd in a wild plunge for the doorway. Out they scrambled, Harluk well in advance, as he had had the first warning. He plunged head first from the outer end of the entrance and butted Joe, who was about to enter, into a sitting position on the snow. “Huh!” said Joe, partly because that is what one usually says when suddenly butted in the stomach, but partly in surprise at this exodus from the galley. “What is the matter?” he asked, as soon as he could get breath. The answer came from Pickalye, who was fat, and who scrambled out on his knees and one hand, holding a hot wad of half-fried doughnut to the back of his neck with the other. Finding himself outside, he ducked until his head was well under one arm and he could lay his burnt neck gently in the snow. From this contortionist’s position he looked up solemnly sidewise at Joe. “White man’s grub too much shoot,” he said.