CHAPTER VIII.
The Husky Chief .-- Palmleaf Indignant .-- A Gun .-- Sudden Apparition of the Company's Ship .-- We hold a Hasty Council .-- In the Jaws of the British Lion .-- An Armed Boat .-- Repel Boarders!--Red-Face waxes wrathful .-- Fired on, but no Bones Broken.
By the time we had fairly parted from our Esquimau friends it was near eleven o'clock, P.M.,--after sunset.

Instead of standing out into the straits, we beat up for about a mile along the ice-field, and anchored in thirteen fathoms, at about a cable's length from the island, to the east of the ice-island.

The weather had held fine.

The roadstead between the island and the main was not at present much choked with ice.

It was safe, to all appearance.