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 1 88 THE FUR COUNTRY. were for centuries, they thought there was no immediate danger, and that it was not worth while to explain themselves." " Very likely you are right," replied Mrs Barnett ; " but I feel sure that Kalumah had no suspicion of her companion's fears, or she would have warned us." Hobson quite agreed with Mrs Barnett, and Sergeant Long observed — "It really seems to have been by a kind of fatality that we settled ourselves upon this peninsula just before it was torn away from the mainland. I suppose, Lieutenant, that it had been con- nected for a very long time, perhaps for centuries." " You might say for thousands and thousands of years, Sergeant," replied Hobson. " Remember that the soil on which we are tread- ing has been brought here by the wind, little by little, that the sand has accumulated grain by grain ! Think of the time it must have taken for the seeds of firs, willows, and arbutus to become shrubs and trees ! Perhaps the sheet of ice on which we float was welded to the continent before the creation of man ! " "Well," cried Long, "it really might have waited a few cen- turies longer before it drifted. How much anxiety and how many dangers we might then have been spared ! " Sergeant Long's most sensible remark closed the conversatioi, and the journey was resumed. From Cape Esquimaux to Walruses' Bay the coast ran almost due south, following the one hundred and twenty-seventh merid»n. Looking behind them they could see one corner of the lagoon its waters sparkling in the sunbeams, and a little beyond the wojded heights in which it was framed. Large eagles soared above their heads, their cries and the loud flapping of their wings breaking the stillness, and furred animals of many kinds, mtrtens, polecats, ermines, <fec., crouching behind some rising ground, or hiding amongst the stunted bushes and willows, gazed inquir- ingly at the intruders. They seemed to understand tlat they had nothing to fear. Hobson caught a glimpse of a few beavers wandering about, evidently ill at ease, and puzzled at tie disap- pearance of the little river. With no lodges to shelter then, and no stream by which to build a new home, they were doomec to die of cold when the severe frost set in. Sergeant Long also siw a troop of wolves crossing the plain. It was evident that specimens of the whole Arctic ?auna were