were engaged in characteristic occupations. Phil, looking anxious and careworn, was standing close to the fire, warming and cleaning his rifle. Serge was making a stew of the last of their moose meat, which would afterwards be frozen and taken with them into untimbered regions where camp-fires would be unknown. Jalap Coombs was thoughtfully mending a broken snow-shoe, and at the same time finding his task sadly interrupted by Nel-te, who, nestled between his knees, was trying to attract the sailorman's undivided attention.

The little chap, with his great sorrow forgotten, was now the life and pet of the party. So firmly was his place established among them that they wondered how they had ever borne the loneliness of a camp without his cheery presence, and could hardly realize that he had only recently come into their lives. Now, too, half the anxiety with which they regarded the perilous way before them was on his account.

"I'm worrying most about the dogs," said Phil, continuing a conversation begun some time before, "and I am afraid some of them will give out before we reach the summit."

"Yes," agreed Serge; "To-day's pull up from the lake has told terribly on them, and Amook's feet have been badly cut by the crust ever since he ate his boots."

"Poor old dog!" said Phil. "It was awfully careless of me to forget and leave them on him all night. I don't wonder a bit at his eating them, though, considering the short rations he's been fed on lately."

The dogs were indeed having a hard time. Worn by months of sledge-pulling over weary leagues of snow and ice, their trials only increased as the tedious journey progressed. The days were now so long that each offered a full twelve hours of sunlight, while the snow was so softened by the growing warmth that in the middle of the day it seriously clogged both snow-shoes and sledges. Then a crust would form, through which the poor dogs would break for an hour or more, until it stiffened sufficiently to bear their weight. Added to these tribulations was such a scarcity of food that half-rations had become the rule for every one, men as well as dogs, excepting Nel-te, who had not yet been allowed to suffer on that account. Of the many dogs that had been connected with the expedition at different times only nine were now left, and some of these would evidently not go much further.

As the boys talked of the condition of their trusty servants, and exchanged anxious forebodings concerning the crossing of the mountains, their attention was attracted by an exclamation from Jalap Coombs. Nel-te had been so insistent in demanding his attention that the sailorman was finally obliged to lay aside his work and lift the child to his knees saying,

"Waal, Cap'n Kid, what's the orders now, sir?"

"C'ap'n Kid" was the name he had given to the little fellow on the occasion of the latter's début as pilot; for, as he said, "Every branch pilot answers to the hail of C'ap'n, and this one being a kid becomes 'Cap'n Kid' by rights."

For answer to his question the child held out a small fur-booted foot, and intimated that the boot should be pulled off.

"Bad foot, hurt Nel-te," he said.

"So! something gone wrong with your running rigging, eh?" queried Jalap Coombs, as he pulled off the offending boot. Before he could investigate it the little chap reached forward, and, thrusting a chubby hand down to its very toe, drew forth in triumph the object that had been annoying him. As he made a motion to fling it out into the snow, Jalap Coombs, out of curiosity to see what had worried the child, caught his hand. The next moment he uttered the half-terrified exclamation that attracted the attention of Phil and Serge.

As they looked they saw him holding to the firelight between thumb and finger, and beyond reach of Nel-te, who was striving to regain it, an object so strange and yet so familiar that for a moment they regarded it in speechless amazement.

"The fur-seal's tooth!" cried Phil. "How can it be?"

"It can't be our fur-seal's tooth," objected Serge, in a tone of mingled incredulity and awe. "There must be several of them."

"I should think so myself," replied Phil, who had taken the object in question from Jalap Coombs for a closer examination, "if it were not for a private mark that I scratched on it when it was in our possession at St. Michaels. See, here it is, and so the identity of the tooth is established beyond a doubt. But how it ever got here I can't conceive. There is actually something supernatural about the whole thing. Where did you say you found it, Mr. Coombs?"

"In Cap'n Kid's boot," replied the mate, who had just restored that article to the child's foot. "But blow me for a porpus ef I kin understand how ever it got there. Last time I seen it 'twas back to Forty Mile."

"Yes," said Serge, "Judge Riley had it."

"I remember seeing him put it into a vest pocket," added Phil, "and meant to ask him for it, but forgot to do so. Now to have it appear from the boot of that child, who has never been to Forty Mile, or certainly not since we left there, is simply miraculous. It beats any trick of spiritualism or conspiring I ever heard of. The mystery of the tooth's appearing at St. Michaels after my father lost it, only a short time before at Oonalaska, was strange enough; but that was nothing to this."

"There must be magic in it," said Serge, who from early associations was inclined to be superstitious. "I don't care, though, if there is," he added, stoutly. "I believe the tooth has come to us at this time of our despondency as an omen of good fortune, and now I feel certain that we shall pull through all right. You remember, Phil, the saying that goes with it: 'He who receives it as a gift receives good luck.'"

"Who has received it as a gift this time?" inquired the Yankee lad.

"We all have, though it seems to have been especially sent to Nel-te, and you know he is the one we were most anxious about."

"That's so," assented Phil, "and from this time on Nel-te shall wear it as a charm, though I suppose it won't stay with him any longer than suits its convenience. I never had a superstition in my life, and haven't believed in such things, but I must confess that my unbelief is shaken by this affair. There isn't any possible way, that I can see, for this tooth to have got here except by magic."

"It beats the Flying Dutchman and Merrymaids," said Jalap Coombs, solemnly, as he lighted his pipe for a quieting smoke. "D'ye know, lads, I'm coming to think as how it were all on account of this 'ere curio being aboard the steamer Norsk that she stopped and picked you up in Bering Sea that night."

"Nonsense!" cried Phil. "That is impossible!"

Thus purely through ignorance this lad, who was usually so sensible and level-headed, declared with one breath his belief in an impossibility, and with the next his disbelief of a fact. All of which serves to illustrate the folly of making assertions concerning subjects about which we are ignorant. There is nothing so mysterious that it cannot be explained, and nothing more foolish than to declare a thing impossible simply because we are too ignorant to understand it.

[to be continued.]

BOB, AND BIMBER, AND THE BEAR.

Bob Torrey was cantering slowly over the mesa, returning from an errand to a neighboring cattle ranch, when he caught sight of a hawk's nest in the top of a large cedar, and determined to learn whether it contained any eggs. So he rode up to the tree and dismounted, the pony understanding by the dropped bridle-rein that he was not to stray away. His dog Bimber at once began a diligent investigation of the premises of a badger, the front door of whose burrow opened between two large roots.

Bob had just reached the nest, after some hard scrambling, and was intent upon its four