"Hallo, sir! Mr.Ellice! Wake up, sir! d'ye hear me ?" and he felt himself shaken so violently that his teeth rattled together.

Opening his eyes reluctantly, he found that he was stretched at full length on the snow, and Joseph West was shaking him by the shoulder as if he meant to dislocate his arm.
"Hallo, West! is that you?
Let me alone, man, I want to sleep." Fred sank down again instantly: that deadly sleep produced by cold, and from which those who indulge in it never awaken, was upon him.
"Sleep!" cried West frantically; "you'll die, sir, if you don't rouse up .-- Hallo! Meetuck! O'Riley! help! here.' "I tell you," murmured Fred faintly, "I want to sleep--only a moment or two--ah! I see; is the hut finished?
Well, well, go, leave me.

I'll follow--in--a--" His voice died away again, just as Meetuck and O'Riley came running up.
The instant the former saw how matters stood, he raised Fred in his powerful arms, set him on his feet, and shook him with such vigour that it seemed as if every bone in his body must be forced out of joint.
"What mane ye by that, ye blubber-bag ?" cried the Irishman wrathfully, doubling his mittened fists and advancing in a threatening manner towards the Esquimau; but seeing that the savage paid not the least attention to him, and kept on shaking Fred violently with a good-humoured smile on his countenance, he wisely desisted from interfering.
In a few minutes Fred was able to stand and look about him with a stupid expression, and immediately the Esquimau dragged and pushed and shook him along towards the snow-hut, into which he was finally thrust, though with some trouble, in consequence of the lowness of the tunnel.

Here, by means of rubbing and chafing, with a little more buffeting, he was restored to some degree of heat, on seeing which, Meetuck uttered a quiet grunt and immediately set about preparing supper.
"I do believe I've been asleep," said Fred, rising and stretching himself vigorously as the bright flame of a tin lamp shot forth and shed a yellow lustre on the white walls.
"Aslaap is it! be me conscience an' ye have jist.

Oh, then, may I niver indulge in the same sort o' slumber!" "Why so ?" asked Fred in some surprise.
"You fell asleep on the ice, sir," answered West, while he busied himself in spreading the tarpaulin and blanket-bags on the floor of the hut, "and you were very near frozen to death." "Frozen, musha! I'm not too sure that he's melted yit!" said O'Riley, taking him by the arm and looking at him dubiously.
Fred laughed.