But as he shook himself back into reality, a startling question had come to him.  His lips put it in words.

“How are we going to tell that schooner when we see it?” he barked through the Major’s telephone.  “Won’t she be buried in snow?”

“Probably will,” admitted the Major, “but there’s sure to be a native village near by, and though their houses are built of snow, they always have a litter of black things about—­sleds, hunting implements, skins, and the like.  We can’t miss it.”

“Natives.  M-m-m,” Bruce mumbled.  “Nagyuktogmiut, or something like that.  Hope the white man happens to be about when we land.  I’ve read Stefansson’s account of them.  They treated him all right, but when old Thunderbird, his own self, brings them some white men, they may not be so glad to see them, and those chaps have copper-pointed spears and arrows, not to speak of rifles.”

“The Indians didn’t bother us,” phoned back the Major.

“That’s right.  Well, I hope this is our lucky day.”  Bruce again gave his whole attention to driving.  Then, as they made out in the distance some high elevations, that might be land or might be clouds, he dropped to a lower level and scanned the surface of the ice for a black spot which would tell of human habitations.  The village, he knew, might be fifty miles from land, for these Eskimos lived on the ocean’s roof during the entire winter and hunted seal and great-seal, moving only now and again when game became scarce.

“There they are, over to the right,” he exclaimed presently.  He set his machine in the general direction indicated.  Soon a black patch began to appear among the lights and shadows.  Surely here was the village they sought.  The realization set his heart thumping violently.

“Drop in close and look for a landing.”

The Major twisted in his seat and scanned the ice narrowly as he spoke.  “Just beyond them seems to be a broad flat pan.  Looks safe.  Try it”

Bruce cut off his engines and began circling down.  It was the dead of night.  Apparently every person about the village was asleep.  Now he could distinguish sleds and skins hung on ice-piles to dry.  Now he located the double rows of dome houses.  They were going to pass right over these, but high enough to miss them.

Then, rapidly, things happened.  A vagrant current of wind seized them and they “bumped” in air.  The next instant it was evident that a crash was inevitable.  They were swooping straight down upon a row of snow-domes.  But the machine was heavy, the snow-houses, mere shells, without the sign of a shock, yielding to the compact, went spinning away in little bits, revealing scores of sleepers snug beneath their deerskins.  They had awakened Bedlam.  Men shouted, women and children screamed, dogs barked.

“Like knocking over a bee-hive,” chuckled Barney.

Bruce, with a remarkably cool head, brought his machine to the smooth surface beyond.  In a moment she was slowing up to a perfect landing.  “Quick!  The machine-gun!” exclaimed Barney.