did not get aboard and attack our scanty provisions. He cooked and hunted for us. He told us the legends of his people, and gave us regular lectures on the habits of arctic animals. More men fell sick, and that tireless boy with the figure of an India-rubber doll and the face of a Chinese idol found time to nurse them, to pat them on the back, and to bid them keep their courage up through all the ghastly gloom of that arctic night.

"'Byme-by lights'—he meant the aurora—'go out in sky,' he would say; 'bears go 'way an' birds fly. Den soon daylight come 'long, an' byme-by he sun come up. Den crack! de ice break, an' we get away. Dat be spring.'

"Boys, I once read about a prisoner who was shut up in a tower in France for twenty years, and I began to feel like that fellow. I guess we all did, for when the light did begin to dawn again, and there were signs of spring, we were all so utterly hopeless that we didn't have spirit enough to get up and set to work. We knew that the ship was a wreck underneath, and we hadn't courage for the struggle in boats to the southward. But Toko never rested till he had got some of us on our feet and set us moving. Action breeds activity, I've been told; and it's a fact that the more we worked the more we wanted to work. Finally one day we heard a series of reports like the firing of great guns.

"'De ice! De ice! Him break!' cried Toko, dancing about. 'See! Dere water! Water!'

"'All hands to the boats!' shouted the Captain."