It has a back to lean against and hold by, for the child will go over some very rough places, and might easily fall from it.  And then, you see, if she fell, it would be no easy matter to jump up again and climb back to her seat, for the little sled would have run away from her before she should have time to pick herself up.  How could it run?  Yes, that is the wonderful thing about it.  When her father made the sled he said to himself, “By the time this is finished, the two little brown dogs will be old enough to draw it, and Agoonack shall have them; for she is a princess, the daughter of a great chief.”

Now you can see that, with two such brisk little dogs as the brown puppies harnessed to the sled, Agoonack must keep her seat firmly, that she may not roll over into the snow and let the dogs run away with it.

You can imagine what gay frolics she has with her brother who runs at her side, or how she laughs and shouts to see him drive his bone ball with his bone bat or hockey, skimming it over the crusty snow.

Now we will creep into the low house with the child and her mother, and see how they live.

Outside it is very cold, colder than you have ever known it to be in the coldest winter’s day; but inside it is warm, even very hot.  And the first thing Agoonack and her mother do is to take off their clothes, for here it is as warm as the place where the brown baby lives, who needs no clothes.

It isn’t the sunshine that makes it warm, for you remember I told you it was as dark as night.  There is no furnace in the cellar; indeed, there is no cellar, neither is there a stove.  But all this heat comes from a sort of lamp, with long wicks of moss and plenty of walrus fat to burn.  It warms the small house, which has but one room, and over it the mother hangs a shallow dish in which she cooks soup; but most of the meat is eaten raw, cut into long strips, and eaten much as one might eat a stick of candy.

They have no bread, no crackers, no apples nor potatoes; nothing but meat, and sometimes the milk of the reindeer, for there are no cows in the far, cold northern countries.  But the reindeer gives them a great deal:  he is their horse as well as their cow; his skin and his flesh, his bones and horns, are useful when he is dead, and while he lives he is their kind, gentle, and patient friend.

There is some one else in the hut when Agoonack comes home,—­a little dark ball, rolled up on one corner of the stone platform which is built all around three sides of the house, serving for seats, beds, and table.  This rolled-up ball unrolls itself, tumbles off the seat, and runs to meet them.  It is Sipsu, the baby brother of Agoonack,—­a round little boy, who rides sometimes, when the weather is not too cold, in the hood of his mother’s jumper, hanging at her back, and peering out from his warm nestling-place over the long icy plain to watch for his father’s return from the bear-hunt.