eight inches thick and two feet square. With some difficulty she pried
this out and stood it on edge. The edge was uneven, the cake tippy.
Rolling it on its side she chipped it smooth with the point of the
harpoon.

The second trial found the cake standing erect and solid. Gripping her
harpoon, she threw herself flat on her stomach and pushing the cake
before her, began to wriggle her way toward the sleeping seal.

Once she paused long enough to bore a peep hole through the cake with
her dagger. From time to time the seal wakened, and raised his head to
look about. Then he sank down again. Now she was but three rods away,
now two, now one. Now she was within ten feet of the still motionless
quarry.

Stretching every muscle for a spring like a cat, she suddenly darted
forward. At the next instant she hurled the harpoon deep into the seal's
side. She had him! Through her body pulsated thrills of wild triumph
which harkened back to the days of her primitive ancestry. Then for a
second she wavered. She was a woman. But she was hungry. Tomorrow she
might be starving.

Her knife flashed. A stream of red began dyeing the ice. A moment later,
the creature's muscles relaxed.

The Japanese girl, Cio-Cio-San, sat up and began to think. Here was
food, but how was it to be prepared? To think of eating raw seal meat
was revolting, yet here on the floe there was neither stove nor fuel.

Slowly and carefully she stripped the skin from the carcass. Beneath