[Illustration:  They ran by the side of the komatiks to keep warm]

“Glorious!  Isn’t it glorious!” exclaimed Bobby, dropping by Jimmy’s side upon the komatik, and removing a hand from its mitten for a moment to pick small particles of ice from his eyelashes.

Jimmy for answer drew his right hand from its mitten, and clapping it over Bobby’s nose began to rub the member vigorously.

“There, now it’s all right,” said he, donning his mitten again after a minute or two of rubbing.  “Your nose was going dead.[E] The end of it was white.”

[E] Freezing.

“I never felt it,” laughed Bobby.  “Just look at the Skipper back there.  He’s a perfect image of Santa Claus!”

“Exactly!” exclaimed Jimmy, looking back at Skipper Ed.  “He’s exactly like the picture of Santa Claus in that old magazine you and I used to look at so much, only a good deal more real.”

“If he was driving reindeers, now, instead of dogs,” laughed Bobby, “and I met him with all that ice on his beard, and his netsek white and glistening with the frost that way, I’d think he had stepped right out of the old picture book.”

“Good old Partner!” said Jimmy.  “I think I’ll drop back with him a while and keep him company.”

And, dropping lightly from the moving komatik, he waited to run along for a while with Skipper Ed, while Bobby ran alone with his own sledge.

Once a lonely raven coming from somewhere out of the blank spaces alighted on the ice a quarter of a mile in advance of Bobby’s team and directly in its track.  The dogs saw it immediately, and in an instant they were after it at a mad gallop.  Bobby threw himself upon the sledge, in high glee at the wild pace, and Skipper Ed’s team, quite sure they were missing something very much worth while, set out in hot pursuit.

In seeming disregard for his safety, the raven, cocking his head first on one side, then on the other, surveyed the approaching dogs with interest, and to Bobby it seemed that the dogs would surely catch him.  Old Tucktu, the leader, was apparently of the same mind and very sure of a tasty morsel, and they were almost upon him before the raven, too dignified to hurry, rose leisurely on his wings, tantalizingly near to Tucktu’s nose, and flapped away another quarter of a mile to repeat, with evident enjoyment, the episode, and then, unscathed, he disappeared again into the blank spaces.

When the raven had gone and the excitement was at an end, Bobby and Skipper Ed shouted “Ah!” at their teams, and ran ahead with their long whips as the dogs stopped, to compel the panting animals to lie down and remain quiet while they straightened out the tangled traces and made merry over the rapid ride they had enjoyed.  Then, extracting some hardtack biscuits from their bags, they sat on the sledges and ate their dry luncheon while the dogs jogged leisurely on again.