Night after night the wonderful beauties of the aurora borealis were flashed across the northern heavens with ever increasing brilliancy.

Every one predicted a hard winter, and everything pointed to its early coming.
Nearly two months had elapsed since the little schooner "Sea Bee," manned by a couple of plucky lads, sailed out of Battle Harbour on a trading venture to the northern missions, and from that day no tidings had been received concerning her.

The few who remembered her, occasionally speculated as to what success she had met and why she had not put in ah appearance on her return voyage, but generally dismissed the subject by saying that she must have been in too great a hurry to get south, as any one having a chance to leave that forsaken country naturally would be.

But the "Sea Bee" had not gone to the southward, nor was there any likelihood of her doing so for many long months to come.
On one of the mildest of these October days, when the sunshine still held a trace of its summer warmth, a solitary figure stood on the crest of a bald headland, some hundreds of miles to the north of Battle Harbour, gazing wistfully out over the lead-coloured waters that came leaping and snarling towards the red rocks far beneath him.

He had on great sea boots that stood sadly in need of mending, and was clad in heavy woollens, faded and worn, that showed many a rent and patch.