Other problems now claimed her attention.  She was alone in the world without food or shelter.  She dared not return to the village.  Where should she go?

Again she shrugged her shoulders.  She was warmly clad, but she was tired and sleepy.  Seeking out a cubby hole made by tumbled cakes of ice, she plastered up the cracks between the cakes with snow until only one opening remained.  Then, dragging her deer skin after her, she crept inside.  She half closed the opening with a cake of snow, spread the deer skin on the ice and curled up to sleep as peacefully as if she were in her own home.

One little thing she had not reckoned with; she was now on the drifting ice of the ocean, and was moving steadily northward at the rate of one mile an hour.

CHAPTER XI

A FACE IN THE NIGHT

When Johnny left the igloo of the native girl he made his way directly up the hill for a distance of a hundred yards.  Then, turning, he took three steps to the right and found himself facing the entrance to a second stone igloo.  That it was an old one and somewhat out of repair was testified to by the fact that light came streaming through many a crevice between the stones.

Keeping well away from the entrance, Johnny took his place near one of these crevices.  What he saw as he peered within would have made John Barleycorn turn green with envy.  A moonshine still was in full operation.  Beneath a great sheet iron vat a slow fire of driftwood burned.  Extending from the vat was the barrel of a discarded rifle.  This rifle barrel passed through a keg of ice.  Beneath the outer end of the rifle barrel was a large copper-hooped keg which was nearly full of some transparent liquid.  The liquid was still slowly dripping from the end of the rifle barrel.

That the liquid was at least seventy-five per cent alcohol Johnny knew right well.  That it would soon cease to drip, he also knew; the fire was burning low and no more driftwood was to be seen.

Johnny sized up the situation carefully.  Aside from some crude benches running round its walls and a cruder table which held the moonshine still, the room was devoid of furnishings.  Ranged round the wall, with the benches for seats, were some thirty men and perhaps half as many hard-faced native women.  On every face was an expression of gloating expectancy.

Now and again, a hand holding a small wooden cup would steal out toward the keg to be instantly knocked aside by a husky young fellow whose duty it appeared to be to guard the hooch.

Johnny tried to imagine what the result would be were he suddenly to enter the place.  He would not risk that.  He would wait.  He counted the moments as the sound of the dripping liquid grew fainter and fainter.  At last there came a loud: 

“Dez-ra” (enough), from an old man in the corner.

Instantly the tank was lifted to one side, the fire beaten out, the keg of ice flung outside and the keg of hooch set on the table in the center of the room.