This, last exclamation was caused by the reckless driver dashing over a piece of rough ice that nearly capsized the sledge.  Meetuck did not answer, but he looked over his shoulder with a quiet smile on his oily countenance.

“Ah, then, ye may laugh,” said O’Riley with menacing look, “but av ye break a bone o’ me body I’ll—­”

Down went the dogs into a crack in the ice as he spoke, over went the sledge and hurled them all out upon the ice.

“Musha! but ye’ve done it!”

“Hallo, West! are you hurt?” cried Fred anxiously, as he observed the sailor fall heavily on the ice.

“Oh no, sir; all right, thank you,” replied the man, rising alertly and limping to the sledge.  “Only knocked the skin off my shin, sir.”

West was a quiet, serious, polite man, an American by birth, who was much liked by the crew in consequence of a union of politeness and modesty with a disposition to work far beyond his strength.  He was not very robust, however, and in powers of physical endurance scarcely fitted to engage in an Arctic expedition.

“An’ don’t ye think it’s worth makin’ inquiries about me?” cried O’Riley, who had been tossed into a crevice in the hummock, where he lay jammed and utterly unable to move.

Fred and the Esquimau laughed heartily while O’Riley extricated himself from his awkward position.  Fortunately no damage was done, and in five minutes they were flying over the frozen sea as madly as ever in the direction of the point at the opposite side of Red-Snow Valley, where a cloud of frost-smoke indicated open water.

“Now, look you, Mr. Meetuck, av ye do that again ye’ll better don’t, let me tell ye.  Sure the back o’ me’s brack entirely,” said O’Riley, as he re-arranged himself with a look of comfort that belied his words.  “Och, there ye go again,” he cried, as the sledge suddenly fell about six inches from a higher level to a lower, where the floe had cracked, causing the teeth of the whole party to come together with a snap.  “A man durs’n’t spake for fear o’ bitin’ his tongue off.”

“No fee,” said Meetuck, looking over his shoulder with a broader smirk.

“No fee, ye lump of pork! it’s a double fee I’ll have to pay the dacter an ye go on like that.”

No fee was Meetuck’s best attempt at the words no fear. He had picked up a little English during his brief sojourn with the sailors, and already understood much of what was said to him; but words were as yet few, and his manner of pronouncing them peculiar.

“Holo! look! look!” cried the Esquimau, suddenly checking the dogs and leaping off the sledge.

“Eh! what! where?” ejaculated Fred, seizing his musket.

“I think I see something, sir,” said West, shading his eyes with his hand, and gazing earnestly in the direction indicated by Meetuck.

“So do I, be the mortial,” said O’Riley in a hoarse whisper.  “I see the mountains and the sky, I do, as plain as the nose on me face!”