f / 
GABRIEL CONROY. 
“ ’Bout the dinner at St. Jo ? ” asked the 
person addressed — a gentleman whose fac- 
ulty of alimentary imagination had been at 
once the bliss and torment of his present 
social circle. 
“Yes.” 
They all gathered eagerly around Mr. 
McCormick; even Mr. Dumphy, who was 
still moving away, stopped. 
“ Well,” said Mr. March, “ it began with 
beefsteak and injins — beefsteak, you know, 
juicy and cut very thick, and jess squashy 
with gravy and injins.” There was a very 
perceptible watering of the mouth in the 
party, and Mr. March, with the genius of a 
true narrator, under the plausible disguise 
of having forgotten his story, repeated the 
last sentence — “jess squashy with gravy and 
injins. And taters — baked.” 
“You said fried before! — and dripping 
with fat ! ” — interposed Mrs. Brackett, hast- 
fly. 
“ For them as likes fried — but baked goes 
furder — skins and all — and sassage and 
coffee and — flapjacks ! ” 
At this magical word they laughed, not 
mirthfully perhaps, but eagerly and expect- 
antly, and said, “ Go on ! ” 
“And flapjacks!” 
“You said that afore” — said Mrs. Brackett 
with a burst of passion. “ Go on, d — n you ! ” 
The giver of this Barmacide feast, saw his 
dangerous position, and looked around for 
Dumphy. But he had disappeared. 
CHAPTER II. 
WITHIN. 
The hut into which Ashley descended 
was, like a Greenlander’s “iglook,” below 
the surface of the snow. Accident rather 
than design had given it this Arctic resem- 
blance. As snow upon snow had blocked 
np its entrance, and reared its white ladders 
against its walls, and as the strength of its 
exhausted inmates slowly declined, commu- 
nication with the outward world was kept 
up only by a single narrow passage. Ex- 
cluded from the air, it was close and stifling, 
but it had a warmth that perhaps the thin 
blood of its occupants craved more than 
light or ventilation. 
A smoldering fire in a wooden chimney 
threw a faint flicker on the walls. By its 
light, lying upon the floor, were discernible 
four figures — a young woman and a child 
of three or four years wrapped in a single 
blanket, near the fire ; nearer the door two 
men separately enwrapped lay apart. They 
might have been dead, so deep and motion- 
less were their slumbers. 
Perhaps some fear of this filled the mind 
of Ashley as he entered, for after a moment’s 
hesitation, without saying a word, he passed 
quickly to the side of the young woman, and, 
kneeling beside her, placed his hand upon 
her face. Slight as was the touch, it awak- 
ened her. I know not what subtile mag- 
netism was in that contact, but she caught 
the hand in her own, sat up, aiid before her 
eyes werq scarcely opened, uttered the sin- 
gle word : 
“ Philip!’* 
“ Grace — hush ! ” 
He took her hand, kissed it, and pointed 
warningly toward the other sleepers. 
“ Speak low. I have much to say to you.” 
The young girl seemed to be content to 
devour the speaker with her eyes. 
“ You have come back,” she whispered, 
with a faint smile, and a look that showed 
too plainly the predominance of that fact 
above all others in her mind. “ I dreamed 
of you— -Philip.” 
“ Dear Grace,” he kissed her hand again. 
“ Listen to me, darling ! I have come back, 
but only with the old story — no signs of 
succor, no indications of help from without ! 
My belief is, Grace,” he added, in a voice 
so low as to be audible only to the quick 
ear to which it was addressed, “ that we 
have blundered far south of the usual trav- 
eled trail. Nothing but a miracle or a mis- 
fortune like our own would bring another 
train this way. We are alone and helpless 
— in an unknown region that even the sav- 
age and brute have abandoned. The only 
aid we can calculate upon is from within — 
from ourselves. What that aid amounts to,” 
he continued, turning a cynical eye toward 
the sleepers, “ you know as well as I.” 
She pressed his hand, apologetically, as 
if accepting the reproach herself, but did 
not speak. 
“As a party we have no strength — no 
discipline,” he went on. “ Since your father 
died we have had no leader — I know what 
you would say, Grace, dear,” he continued, 
answering the mute protest of the girl’s hand, 
“ but even if it were true— if /were capable of 
leading them, they would not take my coun- 
sels. Perhaps it is as well. If we kept to- 
gether, the greatest peril of our situation 
would be ever present — the peril from our- 
selves /” 
He looked intently at her as he spoke, 
but she evidently did not take his meaning. 
“Grace,” he said, desperately, “when 
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