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280 laps of his enormous cap, and marched outdoors. The mate trotted behind him down the windswept road, dangling a brace of fat overshoes, which he begged the captain to put on.

Puffs of light breeze chased thin snow-veils along the petrified ruts, twirled them upward in faint spirals, strewed them suddenly broadcast. A white hill that bared its smooth contour beyond the town smoked with vapors of snow that—clinging close as the steam about the body of a sweating horse—rose slowly, and shifted against the lemon glare of an arctic sun. Beyond the foot of the slope, where the dead vista of the street broke wide upon the harbor, a brigantine lay motionless, in stays, her scant canvas sagging in black-shadowed wrinkles.

A knot of men watched her from the verge of the yellow beach ice.

"What d' ye think, cap'n?" called Bunty, as the two approached. "What kind o' didos they cuttin' up aboard her? See, there they go ag'in!"

The brigantine fell off on a short, aimless