_Adventure Stories for Girls_

The Blue Envelope

By

ROY J. SNELL

Chicago

The Reilly & Lee Co. 

Copyright, 1922

by

The Reilly & Lee Co. 

All Rights Reserved

The Blue Envelope

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

 I A MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCE II A BOLD STROKE REWARDED III THE MYSTERIOUS PHI BETA KI IV FOR HE IS A WHITE MAN'S DOG V CAST ADRIFT VI THE DREAD WHITE LINE VII THE BLUE ENVELOPE DISAPPEARS VIII THE VISIT TO THE CHUKCHES IX A CLOSE CALL X FINDING THE TRAIL XI "WITHOUT COMPASS OR GUIDE" XII "WHAT IS THAT?" XIII STRANGE DISCOVERIES XIV A LONESOME ISLAND XV TWO RED RIDING HOODS XVI A FORTUNATE DISCOVERY XVII OUT OF THE NIGHT XVIII A NEW PERIL XIX MYSTERIES EXPLAINED

FOREWORD

When considering the manuscript of "The Blue Envelope" my publisherswrote me asking that I offer some sort of proof that the experiences ofMarian and Lucile might really have happened to two girls so situated. My answer ran somewhat as follows:

Alaska, at least the northern part of it, is so far removed from therest of this old earth that it is almost as distinct from it as is themoon. It's a good stiff nine-day trip to it by water and you sightland only once in all that nine days. For nine months of winter youare quite shut off from the rest of the world. Your mail comes once amonth, letters only, over an eighteen-hundred-mile dog trail; twomonths and a half for letters to come; the same for the reply to goback. Do you wonder, then, that the Alaskan, when going down toSeattle, does not speak of it as going to Seattle or going down to theStates but as "going outside"? Going outside seems to just exactlyexpress it. When you have spent a year in Alaska you feel as if youhad truly been inside something for twelve months. 

People who live "inside" of Alaska do not live exactly as they mightwere they in New England. Conventions for the most part disappear. Life is a struggle for existence and a bit of pleasure now and again. If conventions and customs get in the way of these, away with them. And no one in his right senses can blame these people for living thatway. 

One question we meet, and probably it should be answered. Would twolone girls do and dare the things that Lucile and Marian did? My onlyanswer must be that girls of their age--girls from "outside" atthat--have done them. 

Helen C----, a sixteen-year-old girl, came to Cape Prince of Wales tokeep house for her father, who was superintendent of the reindeer herdat that point. She lived there with her father and the natives--nowhite woman about--for two years. During that time her father oftenwent to the herd, which was grazing some forty miles from the Cape, andstayed for a week or two at a time, marking deer or cutting them out tosend to market. Helen stayed at the Cape with the natives. At times, in the spring, unattended by her father, she went walrus hunting withthe natives in their thirty-foot, sailing skin-boat and stayed out withthem for thirty hours at a time, going ten or twelve miles from landand sailing into the very midst of a school of five hundred or more ofwalrus. This, of course, was not necessary; just a part of the fun ahealthy girl has when she lives in an Eskimo village. 

Beth N----, a girl of nineteen, came to keep house for her brother, thegovernment teacher on Shishmaref Island--a small, sandy island off theshore of Alaska, some seventy-five miles above Cape Prince of Wales. She had not been with her brother long when a sailing schooner anchoredoff shore. This schooner had on board their winter supply of food. Her brother went on board to superintend the unloading. The work hadscarcely begun when a sudden storm tore the schooner from her mooringsand sent her whirling southward through the straits. 

For some ten or twelve days Beth was on that barren, sandy islandentirely alone. The natives were, at this time of the year, offfishing up one of the rivers of the mainland. She did not have as muchas a match to light a fire. She had no sort of notion as to how orwhen her brother would return. The fact of the matter was that had nother brother had in his possession a note from the captain asking him tocome aboard, and had he not known the penalty for not returning alandsman to his port under such conditions, the unprincipled seamanwould have carried him to Seattle, leaving Beth to shift for herself. He reached home on a gasoline schooner some ten days after hisdeparture. 

This same Beth, when spring came and she wished to go "outside, "engaged a white guide to take her by dog team to Cape Prince of Wales, where the mail steamer might be caught. It was late in the spring andthe ice was soft. They had been traveling for some time on the roughshore ice when they discovered, much to their horror, that their icepan had broken loose from the shore and was drifting out to sea. Theyhurried along the edge of it for some distance in the hope of finding abridge to shore. In this they were disappointed. Beth could not swim. Fortunately the guide could. Leaping into the stinging water he swamfrom one cake to the next one, leading the dogs. Beth clung to theback of the sled and was thus brought ashore. After wading manyswollen torrents, they at last reached Cape Prince of Wales in safety. This sounds very much like fiction but is fact and can be verified. 

As to crossing Bering Straits and living with the Chukches in Siberia. I did that very thing myself--went with a crew of Chukches I had neverseen, too. I was over there for only three days but might have stayedthe summer through in perfect safety. While there I saw a characterknown as the French Kid, a white man who had crossed the Straits withthe natives late in the year and had wintered there. 

Crossing twenty or more miles of floe ice might seem a trifleimprobable but here, too, actual performance bears me out. I sent themail to Thompson, the government teacher on the Little Diomede Island, across 22 miles of floe ice by an Eskimo. This man had made the tripmany times before. It is my opinion that what an Eskimo can do, anywhite man or hearty young woman can do. 

Well, there you have it. I don't wish to make my fiction story seemtame, or I might tell you more. As it is I hope I may have convincedyou that all the adventures of Lucile and Marian are probable and thatthe author knows something about the wonderland in which the story isset. 

THE AUTHOR. 

THE BLUE ENVELOPE

CHAPTER I

A MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCE

At the center of a circular bay, forming a perfect horseshoe with asandy beach at its center and a rocky cliff on either side, two girlswere fishing for shrimps. The taller of the two, a curly-haired, red-cheeked girl of eighteen, was rowing. The other, short and ratherchubby, now and again lifted a pocket net of wire-screening, and, shaking a score or more of slimy, snapping creatures into one corner ofit, gave a dexterous twist and neatly dropped the squirming mass into atin bucket. 

Both girls had the clear, ruddy complexion which comes from cleanliving and frequent sallies into the out-of-doors. Lucile Tucker, thetall one of curly hair, was by nature a student; her cousin, MarianNorton, had been born for action and adventure, and was something of anartist as well. 

"Look!" exclaimed Lucile suddenly. "What's that out at the entrance ofthe bay--a bit of drift or a seal?"

"Might be a seal. Watch it bob. It moves, I'd say. "

Without further comment Lucile lifted a light rifle from the bow andpassed it to her cousin. 

Marian stood with one knee braced on the seat and steadied herself fora shot at the object which continued to rise and fall with the low rollof the sea. 

Born and reared at Nome on the barren tundra of Alaska, Marian hadhunted rabbits, ptarmigan and even caribou and white wolves with herfather in her early teens. She was as steady and sure a shot as mostboys of her age. 

"Boat rocks so, " she grumbled. "More waves out there, too. Watch thething bob!"

"It's gone under!"

"No, there it is!"

"Try it now. "

Catching her breath, Marian put her finger to the trigger. For asecond the boat was quiet. The brown spot hung on the crest of awavelet. It was a beautiful target; Marian was sure of her aim. 

Just as her finger touched the trigger, a strange thing happened; asomething which sent the rifle clattering from nerveless fingers andset the cold perspiration springing to her forehead. 

A flash of white had suddenly appeared close to the brown spot, a slimwhite line against the blue-green of the sea. It was a human arm. 

"Who--who--where'd you suppose he came from?" she was at last able tosputter. 

"Don't ask me, " said Lucile, scanning the sea. Never a mist nor acloud obscured the vision, yet not a sail nor coil of smoke spoke ofnear-by craft. "What's more important is, we must help him, " she said, seizing the oars and rowing vigorously. Marian, having hung the shrimptrap across the bow, drew a second pair of oars from beneath the seatsand joined her in sending the clumsy craft toward the brown spot stillbobbing in the water, and which, as they drew nearer, they easilyrecognized as the head of a man or boy. Lucky for him that he hadchanced to throw a white forearm high out of the water just as Marianwas prepared unwittingly to send a bullet crashing into his skull. 

Realizing that this person, whoever he might be, must have drifted inthe water for hours and was doubtless exhausted, the two girls now gaveall their strength to the task of rowing. With faces tense andforearms flashing with the oars, they set the boat cutting the waves. 

The beach and cliffs back of the bay in which the girls had beenfishing were part of the shore line of a small island which on thisside faced the open Pacific Ocean and on the other the waters of PugetSound, off the coast of the state of Washington. 

Nestling among a group of giant yellow pines on a ridge well up fromthe beach, two white tents gleamed. This was the camp of Marian andLucile. The rock-ribbed and heavily wooded island belonged to Lucile'sfather, a fish canner of Anacortes, Washington. There was, so far asthey knew, not another person on the island. They had expected amaiden aunt to join them in their outing. She was to have come downfrom the north in a fishing smack, but up to this time had not arrived. Not that the girls were much concerned about this; they had lived muchin the open and rather welcomed the opportunity to be alone in thewilds. It was good preparation for the future. They had pledgedthemselves to spend the following winter in a far more isolated spot, Cape Prince of Wales, on Bering Straits in Alaska. Lucile, who, thoughbarely eighteen years of age, had finished high school and had spentone year in normal school, was to teach the native school and tosuperintend the reindeer herd at that point. Marian had lived thegreater part of her life in Nome, Alaska, but even from childhood shehad shown a marked talent for drawing and painting and had now justfinished a two-year course in a Chicago art school. Her drawings ofAlaskan life and the natives had been exhibited and had attracted theattention of a society of ethnology. In fact, so greatly had they beenimpressed that they had asked Marian to accompany her cousin to CapePrince of Wales to spend the winter sketching the village life of thatvanishing race, the Eskimo. 

So this month of camping, hunting and fishing was but a preparatory oneto fit them the more perfectly for the more important adventure. 

When they reached the mysterious swimmer they were surprised to findhim a mere boy, some fourteen years of age. 

"What a strange face!" whispered Marian, when they had assisted thedripping stranger into the boat. 

They studied him for a moment in silence. His hair and eyes wereblack, his face brown. He wore a single garment, cleverly piecedtogether till it seemed one skin, but made of many bird skins, eiderduck, perhaps. This garment left his arms and legs free forswimming. 

He said nothing, simply stared at them as if in bewilderment. 

"We must get him ashore at once, " said Lucile. "He must have swum along way. "

Fifteen minutes later, after tying up the boat, Lucile came upon Marianpicking the feathers from a duck they had shot that morning. 

"Goin' to make him some broth, " she explained, tossing a handful offeathers to the wind. "Must be pretty weak. "

Lucile stole a glance at the stranger's face. 

"Do you think he's oriental?" she whispered. 

"Might be, " said Marian. "You don't have to be so careful to whisperthough; he doesn't speak our language, it seems, nor any other that Iknow anything about. Very curious. I tried him out on everything Iknow. "

"Chinese, trying to smuggle in?"

"Maybe. "

"He doesn't seem exactly oriental, " said Lucile, looking closely at hisface. 

With his eyes closed as if in sleep, the boy did not, indeed, seem toresemble very closely any of the many types Lucile had chanced to meet. There was something of the clean brown, the perfect curve of theclassic young Italian; something of the smoothness of skin native tothe Anglo-Saxon, yet there was, too, the round face, the short nose, the slight angle at the eyes which spoke of the oriental. 

"He looks like the Eskimos we have on the streets of Nome, " suggestedMarian, "only he's too light-complexioned. Couldn't be, anyway. "

"Not much likelihood of that, " laughed Lucile. "Come two thousandmiles in a skin kiak to have his craft wrecked in a calm sea. Thatcouldn't happen. "

"Whoever he is, he's a splendid swimmer, " commented Marian. "When wereached him he was a mile from any land, with the sea bearingshoreward, and there wasn't a sail or steamer in sight. "

The two of them now busied themselves with preparing the evening meal, and for a time forgot their strange, uninvited guest. 

When Lucile next looked his way she caught his eyes upon her in awondering stare. They were at once shifted to the kettle from whichthere now issued savory odors of boiling fowl. 

"He's hungry all right, " she smiled. 

When the soup was ready to serve they were treated to a slight shock. The bird had been carefully set on a wooden plate to one side. Theirguest was being offered only the broth. This he sniffed for a moment, then, placing it carefully on the ground, seized the bird and holdingit by the drumsticks began to gnaw at its breast. 

Marian stared at him, then smiled. "I don't know as a full meal isgood for him, but we can't stop him now. "

She set a plate of boiled potatoes before him. The boy paused tostare, then to point a finger at them, and exclaimed something thatsounded like: "Uba canok. "

"Do you suppose he never ate potatoes?" exclaimed Lucile in surprise. "What sort of boy must he be?"

She broke a potato in half and ate one portion. 

At once a broad smile spread over the brown boy's face as he proceededto add the potatoes to his bill of fare. 

"Guess we'll have to start all over getting this meal, " smiled Lucile;"our guest has turned into a host. "

When at last the strange boy's hunger was assuaged, Lucile brought twowoolen blankets from one of the tents and offered them to him. Wrapping himself in these, he sat down by the fire. Soon, with handscrossed over ankles, with face drooped forward, he slept. 

"Queer sort of boy!" exclaimed Lucile. "I'd say he was an Indian, ifIndians lived that way, but they don't and haven't for somegenerations. Our little brown boy appears to have walked from outanother age. "

Night crept down over the island. Long tree shadows spread themselveseverywhere, to be at last dissolved into the general darkness. Stillthe boy sat by the fire, asleep, or feigning sleep. 

Not feeling quite at ease with such a stranger in their camp, the girlsdecided to maintain a watch that night. Marian agreed to stand thefirst watch until one o'clock, Lucile to finish the night. In themorning they would take their small gasoline launch, which was at thismoment hidden around the bend in a small creek, and would carry the boyto the emigration office at Fort Townsend. 

They had worked and played hard that day. When Lucile was wakened atone o'clock in the morning, she found herself unspeakably drowsy. Abrisk walk to the beach and back, then a dash of cold spring water onher face, roused her. 

As she came back to camp she thought she caught a faint and distantsound. 

"Like an oarlock creaking, " she told herself, "yet who would be outthere at this time of night?"

She retraced her steps to the beach to scan the sea that glistened inthe moonlight. Not hearing or seeing anything, she concluded that shehad been mistaken. 

Back at the camp once more, she glanced at the motionless figure seatedby the bed of darkening coals. Then, creeping inside the tent, shedrew a blanket over her shoulders and sat down, lost at once in deepthought. 

As time passed her thoughts turned into dreams and she slept. How longshe slept she could not tell. She awoke at last with a start; she feltgreatly disturbed. Had she heard a muffled shout? Or was that part ofa dream?

Lifting the flap of the tent, she stared at the boy's place by thefire. It was vacant. He was gone!

"Marian, " she whispered, shaking her cousin into wakefulness. "Marian!He's gone. The brown boy's gone!"

"Let him go. Who wants him?" Marian murmured sleepily. 

At that instant Lucile's keen ears caught the groan of oarlocks. 

"But I hear oars, " she whispered hoarsely. "They've come for him. Someone has carried him away. I heard him try to cry for help. Wemust stop them if we can find a way. "

Catching up their rifles they crept stealthily from their tents. Nothing was to be seen save the camp and the forest. 

"Think we better try to follow them?" asked Lucile, as she struggledinto her shoes, wrapping the laces round and round her ankles for thesake of speed. 

"I don't know, " said Marian. "They're probably rough men and we'reonly girls. But we must try to find out what has happened. "

In a moment they were creeping stealthily, rifles in hand, toward thebeach. As they paused to listen they heard no sound. Either theintruders had rounded the point or had stopped rowing. 

Lucile threw the circle of her flashlight out to sea. 

"Stop that!" whispered Marian in alarm. "They might shoot. "

"Look!" exclaimed Lucile suddenly; "our boat's gone!"

Hastening down the beach, they found it was all too true; the rowboathad disappeared. 

"There weren't any men, " exclaimed Marian with sudden conviction. "That boy's taken our boat and rowed away. "

"Yes, there were men, " insisted Lucile. "I just saw a track in thesand. There it is. " She pointed to the beach. 

An inspection of the sand showed three sets of footprints leading tothe water's edge where a boat had been grounded. These same footprintswere about the spot where the stolen boat had been launched. 

"There's one queer person among them, " said Lucile, after studying themarks closely. "He limps; one step is long and one short, also oneshoe is smaller than the other. We'd know that man if we ever saw him. "

"Listen!" said Marian suddenly. 

Out of the silence that ensued there came the faint pop-pop-pop of amotorboat. 

"Behind the point, " said Lucile. 

"Our motorboat!" whispered Marian. 

Without a word Lucile started down the beach, then up the creek. Shewas followed close by Marian. Tripped by creeping vines, torn at byunderbrush, swished by wet ferns, they in time arrived at the pointwhere the motorboat had been moored. 

"Gone!" whispered Lucile. 

"We've been deceived and robbed, " said Marian mournfully. "Deceived bya boy. His companions left him swimming in the sea so we would findhim. As soon as we were asleep, he crept away and towed the schoonerdown the river, then he flashed a signal and the others came in forhim. Probably Indians and half-breeds. They might have left us arowboat, at least!" she exclaimed in disgust. 

With early dawn streaking the sky they sat down to consider. The lossof their motorboat was a serious matter. They had but a scant supplyof food, and while their aunt might arrive at any moment, again shemight not. If she did not, they had no way of leaving the island. 

"We'd better go down the beach, " said Marian. "They might have enginetrouble, or something, and be obliged to land, then perhaps we couldsomehow get our boat. "

"It's the only thing we can do, " said Lucile. "It's a good thing wehad our food supply in our tent, or they would have taken that. "

"Speaking of food, " said Marian, "I'm hungry. We'd better have ourbreakfast before we start. "

CHAPTER II

A BOLD STROKE REWARDED

Bacon grease was spilled and toast burned in the preparation ofbreakfast, which was devoured in gulps. Then, with some misgivings butmuch determination, the two girls hurried away up the beach in thedirection from whence had come the pop-popping of their stolenmotorboat. 

Coming at last to the place where sandy shore was replaced by raggedbowlders, they began making their way through the tangled mass ofunderbrush, fallen tree-trunks and ferns, across the point of landwhich cut them off from the next sandy beach. 

"This would be splendid if it wasn't so serious, " said Marian as theyreached the crest of the ridge and prepared to descend. "I always didlike rummaging about in an unexplored wilderness. Look at that fallenyellow-pine; eight feet through if it is an inch; and the ferns arealmost tall enough to hide it. And look at those tamaracks down inthat gully; they look like black knights. Wouldn't they make apicture?"

"Not just now; come on, " exclaimed Lucile, who was weary of battlingwith the jungle. "Let's get down to the beach and see what's there. There's a long stretch of beach, I think, maybe half a mile. But wemust be careful how we make our way down. We might discoversomething--and we might be discovered first. "

To descend a rock-ribbed hill, overgrown with tangled underbrush andburied in decaying tree-trunks, is hardly easier than to ascend it. Both girls were thoroughly out of breath as they finally parted thebranches of a fir tree and peered through to where the beach, a yellowribbon of sand, circled away to the north. 

"Not there, " whispered Marian. 

Lucile gripped her cousin's arm. 

"What's that thing two-thirds of the way down, at the water's edge?"

"Don't know. Rock maybe. Anyway, it's not our motorboat. "

"No, it's not. It's worth looking into, though. Let's go. "

Eagerly they hurried along over the hard-packed sand. The tide wasebbing; the beach was like a floor. Their steps quickened as theyapproached the object. At last, less than half-conscious of what theywere doing, they broke into a run. The thing they had seen was a boat. And a boat to persons in their position was a thing to be prized. 

Arrived at its side, they looked it over for a moment in silence. 

"It's pretty poor and very heavy, but it will float, I think, " wasMarian's first comment. 

"It's theirs. Thought it wasn't worth risking a stop for. "

"But how did they get into our camp? We haven't seen their tracksthrough the brush. "

"Probably took up one small stream and down another. "

The boat they had found was a wide, heavy, flat-bottomed affair, such acraft as is used by fishermen in tending pond-nets. 

For a time the two girls stood there undecided. The chances of theirrecovering the motorboat seemed very poor indeed. To go forward inthis heavy boat meant hours of hand-blistering rowing to bring themback to camp. Yet the thought of returning to tell Lucile's brotherthat they had lost his motorboat was disheartening. To go on seemeddangerous. True, they had rifles but they were, after all, but twogirls against three rough men. In spite of all this, they decided inthe end to go on. Pushing the boat into the sea they rowed out a fewfathoms, then set the sail and bore away before the brisk breeze. Thefact that the oar-locks, which were mere wooden pegs, were worn smoothand shiny, told that the boat had not been long unused. 

In a short time they found themselves well out from shore in a gentlyrippling sea, while the point, behind which lay their camp, grewsmaller and smaller in the distance. 

Presently they cleared a wooded point of land and came in view of ashort line of beach. Deep set in a narrow bay, it might have escapedthe eye of a less observant person than Marian; so, too, might thewhite speck that shone from the brown surface of that beach. 

"What's that in the center?" she mumbled, reaching for the binocularsby her side. "It's our schooner, " she exclaimed after a moment'ssurvey. "Yes, sir, it is! Anyway, it's a motor-boat, and if not ours, whose then?"

"We'd better pull in behind the point, drag our boat up on the rocksand come round by land, " whispered Lucile. 

"Yes, if we dare, " said Marian, overcome for a moment with fear. "Ifthey have seen us and come out to meet us, what then?"

"I hardly think they'd see us without a field glass, " said Lucile. 

Bending to the oars they set their boat cutting across the waveletsthat increased in size with the rising wind. 

Ten minutes of hard pulling brought their boat in behind the point, where it was quieter water and better rowing. This took them to aposition quite out of sight of the white spot on the distant beach. Ifthe pirate robbers were truly located in the bay and had not seen thegirls they were safe to steal up close. 

"Well, suppose they have. If the worst comes to the worst we canescape into the brush, " said Marian. "We won't be worse off then thanwe are now. "

"If only we can catch them off guard and get away with our motorboat!"said Lucile fervently. 

Two hours of fighting the wilderness brought them at last to thebeginning of the short, sandy beach. By peering through the branchesthey discovered that a clump of young tamaracks, growing close down tothe shore, still hid the white spot they had taken for their boat. 

Lucile stepped out upon the sand, then bent down to examine afootprint. Quickly she dodged back into the brush. 

"They're here, all right, " she whispered. "That's the track of thefellow with the mis-mate feet. "

"Listen!" said Marian. 

"Sounds like shouting, " said Lucile, after a moment's silence. 

"What do you suppose?"

"We'd better move around to a better position. "

Cautiously they worked their way through the dense undergrowth. Pausing now and again to listen, they laid their course by the sounds. These sounds resolved themselves into bursts of song and boisterouslaughter. 

"They're drinking, " said Lucile with a shudder. 

"If they are, we daren't get near them, " whispered Marian. 

Closer and closer they crept until at last they expected at any momentto come into view of the camp. 

"It's no use, " said Lucile at last, shrinking back into the brush. "Ican't go on. They're drunk, and all drunken men are dangerous. It isno use risking too much for a motorboat. "

Wearily then they made their way back through the brush. So sore weretheir muscles by this time that every step gave them pain. Missingtheir way, they came out upon the beach a hundred yards from theirboat. There, behind the sheltering boughs of a dwarf fir tree theythrew themselves upon the bed of pine needles to rest. 

"Look!" exclaimed Lucile suddenly. "What's that out there?"

"Our motorboat, " Marian gasped. "It's broken loose and is going outwith the tide. They must not have seen it. Quick! Our rowboat! Wemay beat them yet!"

With wildly beating hearts they raced up the beach. Having reached theheavy rowboat they pushed it off. Wading knee-deep in the sea to givethe boat a good start, they at last leaped to their seats and graspedthe oars, and with strong, deft, strokes set her cutting the water. Length by length they lessened the distance between them and thedrifting prize. 

Now they were two hundred yards away, now one hundred, now fifty, now--

There came a shout from the shore. With a quick glance over hershoulder Lucile took in the situation. 

"We'll make it, " she breathed. "Pull hard. They're a long way off. "

Moments seemed hours as they strained at the oars, but at last theybumped the side of the motorboat and the next second found themselveson board. 

Marian clung to the tiller of the rowboat while she swung round to thewheel. Lucile gave the motor a turn and to their great joy the noblelittle engine responded with a pop-pop-pop. 

There came another shout, a hopeless one, from the robbers. 

"We beat them. We--" Marian broke short off. "Look, Lucile. Lookover there!"

To the right of them, bobbing up and down as they had seen it oncebefore, was the head of the strange brown boy. 

"Do you suppose they did kidnap him?" said Lucile. 

"We can go by where he is, " said Marian. "They can't catch us now. "

The boat swung round and soon they were beside the swimmer. 

"Look, " cried Lucile, "his feet are tied tightly together! He mustn'thave been their friend. They carried him off. They had him bound andhe rolled down to the beach to escape by swimming. "

They dragged the boy on board. Then they were away again, full speedonce more. 

"Well, that's done, " sighed Lucile, as she settled herself at thewheel. "They've our rowboat and we have theirs. I hope that afterthis they will let us alone. "

"The person who is bothering me, " said Marian with a frown, "is thislittle brown visitor of ours. Who is he? Where did he come from?Where does he want to go? Where should he go? What are we going to dowith him?"

"That, " said Lucile, wrinkling her brow, "is more than I know. Neitherdo I know how those men came to steal him. They probably kidnapped himfrom his home, wherever that is, and have been making a slave of him. "

"I think you are right, " said Marian, "and probably the problem willsolve itself in time. "

The problem did solve itself, at least part of it, that very night; theremaining part of the problem was to be solved months later underconditions so strange that, had the girls been able to vision themlying away, like a mirage on the horizon of the future, they would havebeen tempted to change their plans for the year just before them. 

The first question, what was to be done with the little brown stranger, was solved that night. He solved it himself. The girls had decidedupon maintaining a watch. Lucile was on the second watch at somethinglike one o'clock in the morning, when she saw the brown boy stirring inhis place by the fire. She was seated far back in the shadowy depthsof the tent with a rifle across her knee. He could not see her, thoughshe could catch his every move in the moonlight. 

With a gliding motion he carried his two blankets to a shadowy spot andthere folded each one, laying one upon the other. He then proceeded togather up certain articles about camp. A small ax, a knife, fishingtackle and matches were hurriedly thrown upon the blanket. Now andagain, like some wild thing of the forest, he paused to cock his headto one side and listen. 

"Should I call Marian and stop him?" Lucile asked herself. Thequestion was left all undecided. The little drama being enacted wastoo fascinating to suffer interruption. It was like something that hadhappened in her earlier childhood when she had lain in a garretwatching a mother mouse carry away her five children, Lucile therebysuffering a loss of six cents, for she would have been paid a centapiece for the capture of those mice. 

The brown boy next approached the kitchen tent. He entered, to appeara moment later with a modest armload of provisions. 

When these had been placed on the blanket, with marvelous speed andskill he converted the whole into a convenient pack. 

"Shall I stop him?" Lucile asked herself. 

She was about to call out from her dark corner, when a peculiar actionof the boy arrested her. He appeared to be taking some small objectfrom beneath the collar of his strange suit of bird-skin. 

"I wonder what it is?" she puzzled. 

Whatever it was, he walked with it to a broad, flat rock, and placingit in the very center, turned and left it there. The object gave forthsuch a startling lustre in the moonlight, and Lucile was so intent uponwatching it, she did not realize that the brown boy had thrown his packover his shoulder and disappeared into the woods. 

When she did discover it, she merely shrugged her shoulders and smiled:

"Probably for the best, " she told herself. "He's taken nothing of anygreat value and nothing we will need badly, and, unless I miss myguess, he'll be quite able to take care of himself in a wood that isfull of game and berries and where there are fish for throwing in thehook. Let's see what he left, though. "

Cautiously she crept out into the moonlight. A low exclamation escapedher lips as her hand closed upon the glistening object. As sheexamined it closely, she found it to be three teeth, apparently elkteeth. They were held together with a plain leather thong, but set inthe center of each was a ring of blue jade and in the center of each oftwo of the rings was a large pearl. The center of the third was beyonddoubt a crudely cut diamond of about two carats weight. Lucile turnedit over and over in her palm. 

"Why, the poor fellow, " she murmured. "He's given us a king's ransomfor a few trinkets and a little food! And I thought he was stealing, "she reproached herself. 

Her first instinct was to attempt to call him back. "But, " she toldherself, "my voice would not carry far in that dense woods. Besides, he wouldn't understand me and would only be frightened. "

Returning to her tent, she hid the strange bit of jewelry, which, toits wearer, had doubtless been a charm, then waited the end of herwatch to tell of the strange occurrence to her cousin. When Marianawoke Lucile told her story. 

Together, in that early hour of the morning, they exclaimed over therare treasure that had come into their hands; together agreed that, somehow, it must be returned to the original owner, and at last, aftermuch talk on the subject, agreed that, on the whole, the departure ofthe brown boy reduced the possible complications to a considerabledegree. 

Next day their aunt arrived and with her a school-teacher friend. Withtheir forces increased by two the girls were not afraid to maintaintheir camp. In fear of the return of the robbers they established anightly watch. That this fear was not unfounded was proved by theevents of the third night of vigil. It was again in the early morningwhen Marian was on guard, that heavy footsteps could be heard in theunderbrush about the camp. 

She had left the tent flap open, commanding a view of the shore line. The gasoline schooner lay high and dry on the sandy beach, within herline of vision. This she watched carefully. A man who dared touchthat boat was in danger of his life, for a rifle lay across her kneesand, with the native hardihood of an Alaskan, she would not fail toshoot quick and sure. 

But the man did not approach the boat. He merely prowled about thetents as if seeking information. Marian caught one glimpse of him overthe cooking tent. Though he was gone in an instant, she recognized himas one of the men who had stolen their motorboat. 

After a time his footsteps sounded far down the beach. Nothing morewas heard from him. 

"Guess he was looking for the brown boy, but became satisfied that hewas not here, " explained Marian next morning. 

"Perhaps they'll let us alone after this, " said Lucile. 

This prophecy came to pass. After a few nights the vigil was droppedand the remaining days on the island were given over to the pleasuresof camp life. 

The discovery of a freshly abandoned fire on the beach some miles fromcamp proved that Lucile's belief that the brown boy could take care ofhimself was well founded. His footprints were all about in the sand. Feathers of a wild duck and the heads of three good-sized fishes showedthat he had fared well. 

"We'll meet him again somewhere, I am sure, " said Lucile withconviction, "and until we do, I shall carry his little present as asort of talisman. "

The weeks passed all too quickly. One day, with many regrets, theypacked their camp-kit in the motorboat and went pop-popping to Lucile'shome. 

Three weeks later saw them aboard the steamship _Torentia_ bound forCape Prince of Wales by way of Nome. They were entering upon a new andadventure-filled life. This journey, though they little guessed it, brought them some two thousand miles nearer the spot where, once againunder the strangest of circumstances, they were to meet the brown boywho had come swimming to them from the ocean. 

CHAPTER III

THE MYSTERIOUS PHI BETA KI

It was some months later that Marian stood looking down from asnow-clad hill. From where she stood, brushes and palette in hand, shecould see the broad stretch of snow-covered beach, and beyond that theunbroken stretch of drifting ice which chained the restless Arctic Seaat Cape Prince of Wales, Alaska. She gloried in all the wealth oflight and shadow which lay like a changing panorama before her. Shethrilled at the thought of the mighty forces that shifted the massiveice-floes as they drifted from nowhere to nowhere. Now for thethousandth time she stood spellbound before it. 

As she gazed out to sea, her mind went back over the year and a halfthat had passed since she and Lucile had spent that eventful month onMutineer's Island. But her thoughts were cut short. Throwing up herhands in wild glee, she exclaimed:

"The mail! The mail!"

The coming of the mail carrier was, indeed, a great event in thisout-of-the-way spot. Once a month he came whirling around the point, behind a swift-footed dog-team. He came unheralded. Conditions ofsnow and storm governed his time of travel, yet come he always did. 

No throng greeted his coming. No eager crowd hovered about thelatticed window waiting for the mail to be "made up. " If a dozenletters were in the sack, that was what might be expected. 

But these letters had come eighteen hundred miles by dog-team. Precious messages they were. Tomorrow, perhaps, a bearded miner woulddrop in from Tin City, which was a city only in name. This lone minerwould claim one of the letters. Two, perhaps, would go to anotherminer on Saw Tooth Mountain. Next week, an Eskimo happening down fromShishmaref Island, seventy-five miles north, would take three lettersto Ben Norton and his sister, the government teachers for the Eskimos. Two would go in a pigeon-hole, for Thompson, the teacher on LittleDiomede Island, twenty-two miles across the drifting ice. Later anative would be paid ten sacks of flour for attempting to cross thatfloe and deliver the contents of that box. There might be a scrawlednote for some Eskimo, a stray letter or two, and the rest would be forMarian. At the present moment, she was the only white person at CapePrince of Wales, a little town of three hundred and fifty Eskimos. 

"Pretty light this time, " smiled the grizzled mail carrier as hereached the cabin at the top of the hill; "mebby ten letters. "

"Uncle Sam takes good care of his people, " smiled Marian, "the teachersof his native children and the miners who search for his hiddentreasures. "

"I'll say he does! Must have cost all of ten dollars apiece to deliverthem letters, " chuckled the carrier. "And the people that mailed 'emstuck on a measly red two-cent stamp. I git fifty dollars for bringin''em the last sixty miles. "

"And it's worth it, too. "

"You're just right. Pretty tough trail. Pretty tough! Say!" heexclaimed, suddenly remembering a bit of gossip, "did ye hear aboutTootsie Silock?"

"No. " Marian was busy with the mail. 

"Jist gossip, I reckon, but they say she's left her Eskimo husband--"

Marian did not answer. Gossip did not interest her. Besides, she hadfound a letter that did interest her even more than those addressed toher. A very careful penman had drawn the Greek letters, Phi Beta Ki, on the outside of an envelope, and beneath it had written, "Cape Princeof Wales, Alaska. "

"Wha--"

She was on the point of sharing the mystery with the carrier, butchecked herself. Just some new gossip for him, was her mental comment. 

"Here's the sack, " she said, noting that he had finished drinking thecoffee she had prepared for him. "I hope there'll be more mail nexttime. Letters mean so much to these people up at the top of the world. Spring thaw'll be here pretty soon, then they can't get mail for two orthree months. "

"That's right; it's fierce, " said the carrier, taking the sack andturning toward the door. 

"Phi Beta Ki, " Marian pronounced the letters softly to herself as thedoor closed. "Now who could that be?"

She was still puzzling over the mysterious letter when, after a hastyluncheon, she again took up her palette and brushes and wound her wayaround the hill to a point where stood a cabinet, ten feet square andmade of fiber-board. 

She returned to her painting. She was doing a mass of ice that waspiling some two hundred yards out to sea. The work was absorbing, yet, eager as she was to work, her mind went back to that letter in thepigeon-hole up in the cabin. 

She was deep in the mystery of it when a voice startled her. It camefrom back of the cabinet. 

"I say, " the voice sang cheerily, "have you any letters in your littleP. O. On the hill?"

The voice thrilled her. It was new and sounded young. 

"Yes, " she said, throwing open the back of the cabinet and standing up, "we have, quite--quite a variety. "

The visitor was young, not more than twenty, she thought. 

"What color?" she said teasingly, as she stepped from her cabinet. 

"Blue, " he said seriously. 

"Blue?" She started. The mysterious letter was blue; the only blueone she had seen for months. 

"What name?"

"Well, you see, " the young man flushed, "not--not any real name; justthe Greek letters, Phi Beta Ki. "

He stepped into the cabinet and, with deft fingers, drew with charcoalthe characters. 

"Like that, " he smiled. 

"Yes, " she smiled back, "there is one. "

"Grand!" he exclaimed. "Let's get it at once, shall we?"

They hastened up the hill. Marian wondered at herself, as she handedout the letter; wondered that she did not question him further to makesure he was really the rightful owner. But there was something freeand frank about his bearing. It disarmed suspicion. 

After he had read the letter, she thought she caught a look ofdisappointment on his face. If she did, it quickly vanished. 

While she was dispensing the accustomed hospitality of the Northland, asteaming plate of "mulligan" and a cup of coffee, she felt his eyesresting upon her many times. 

When at last he had finished eating, he turned and spoke hesitatingly:

"I--I'd like to ask a favor of you. "

"All right. "

"If another letter like that comes to me here, you keep it for me, willyou?"

"Why, yes, only I won't be here much longer. I'm going to Nome afterthe break-up. "

"I'm going north. I'll be back before then. But if I'm not, you keepit, will you?" There was a tense eagerness about him that stirred herstrongly. 

"Why, yes--I--I--guess so. But what shall I do if you don't get backbefore I leave?"

"Take it with you. Leave word where I can find you and take it. "

"You see, " he half-apologized, after a moment's thought, "thesenorthern P. O. 's change hands so much, so many people handle the mail, that I--I'm afraid I might lose one of these letters, and--and--they'remighty important; at least, one of them is going to be. Will you doit? I--I think I'd trust you--though I don't just know why. "

"Yes, " Marian said slowly, "I'll do that. "

Three minutes later she saw him skillfully disentangling his dogs andsending them on their way:

"One of those college boys, " she whispered to herself. "They comeNorth expecting to find gold shining in the sand of the beach. I'veseen so many come up here as he is, happy and hopeful, and in three orfour years I've seen them go 'outside, ' old beyond their years, half-blind with snow-blindness, or worse; broken in body and spirit. Ionly hope it does not happen to him. But what's all the mystery, I'dlike to know?"

She gave a sudden start. For the first time she realized that he hadnot given her his name. 

"And I promised to personally conduct that mysterious mail of his!" sheexclaimed under her breath. 

CHAPTER IV

FOR HE IS A WHITE MAN'S DOG

Two months had elapsed since the mysterious college boy had passed onnorth with his dog-team. 

Many things could have happened to him in those months. As Marian satlooking away at the vast expanse of drifting ice which had beenrestless in its movements of late, telling of the coming of the springbreak-up, she wondered what had happened to the frank-eyed, friendlyboy. He had not returned. Had a blizzard caught him and snatched hislife away? The rivers were overflowing their banks now, though thickand rotten ice was still beneath the milky water. Had he completed hismission north, and was he now struggling to make his way southward? Orwas he securely housed in some out-of-the-way cabin, waiting for openwater and a schooner?

A letter had come, a letter in a blue envelope, and addressed as theother to Phi Beta Ki. That was after Lucile's return. Lucile had beenaway to the Nome market with her deer herd when the first letter hadcome, but had now been home for a month. The two of them had laughedand wondered about that letter. They had put it in the pigeon-hole, and there it now was. But Marian had not forgotten her promise to takeit with her in case the boy did not return before she left the Cape. 

Now, as she watched-the restless ocean, she realized that it would notbe many days before it would break its bonds. The ice would then floataway to points unknown. Little gasoline schooners would go flittinghere and there like sea-gulls, and then would come the hoarse voice ofthe _Corwin_, mail steamer for Arctic. She would take that steamer toNome. Would the boy be back by then, or would she carry the mysteriousletter with her? For a long time Marian gave herself up to speculation. 

As she sat dreaming of these things, she started suddenly. Somethinghad touched her foot. 

"Oh;" she exclaimed, then laughed. 

The most forlorn-looking dog she had ever seen had touched her footwith his nose. His hair was ragged and matted. His bones protruded atevery possible point. His mouth was set awry, one side hanginghalf-open. 

"So it's you, " she said; "you're looking worse than common. "

The dog opened his mouth, allowing his long tongue to loll out. 

"I suppose that means you're hungry. Well, for once you are in luck. The natives caught a hundred or more salmon through the ice. I havesome of them. Fish, Old Top, fish! What say?"

The dog stood on his hind legs and barked for joy. He read the sign inher eyes if he did not understand her lip-message. 

In another moment he was gulping down a fat, four-pound salmon, whileMarian eyed him, a curious questioning look on her face. 

"Now, " she said, as the dog finished, "the question is what are wegoing to do with you? You're an old dog. You're no good in a team. Too old. Bad feet. No, sir, you can't be any good, or you wouldn't beback here in five days. We gave you to Tommy Illayok to lead his team. You were a leader in your day all right, and you'd lead 'em yet if youcould, poor old soul!"

There was a catch in her voice. To her dogs were next to humans. Inthe North they were necessary servants as well as friends. 

"The thing that makes it hard to turn you out, " she went on huskily, "is the fact that you're a white man's dog. Yes, sir! a white man'sdog. And that means an awful lot; means you'd stick till death to anywhite person who'd feed you and call you friend. Mr. Jack London haswritten a book about a white man's dog that turned wild and joined awolf-pack. It's a wonderful book, but I don't believe it. A whiteman's dog wants a white man for a friend, and if he loses one he'llkeep traveling until he finds another. That's the way a white man'sdog is, and that's why you come back to us, poor old dear. " Shestooped and patted the shaggy head. 

"I'll tell you what, " she murmured, after a moment's reflection. "Ifthe fish keep running, if the wild ducks come north, or the walrus comebarking in from Bering Sea, then you can stay with us and get sleek andfat. You can sleep by our door in the hallway every night, and ifanyone comes prowling around, you can ask them what they want. How'szat?"

The dog howled his approval. 

Marian smiled, and turning went into the cabin. The dog did not belongto them. He was an old and decrepit leader, deserted by a faithlessmaster. He had adopted their cabin as his home. When food had becomescarce, they had been forced to give him to an Eskimo traveling up thecoast. Now, in five days he was back again. Marian was not sure thatLucile would approve of the arrangement she had made with the dog, butwhen her heart prompted her, she could only follow its promptings. 

She had hardly entered the cabin than she heard a growl from the dog, followed by the voice of a stranger. 

"Down, Rover!" she shouted, as she sprang to the door. 

The man who stood before her was badly dressed and unshaven. His eyesbore a shifty gleam. 

"Get out, you cur!" He kicked at the dog with his heavy boot. 

Marian's eyes flashed, but she said nothing. 

"This the post office?" The man attempted a smile. 

"Yes, sir. "

"'S there a letter here for me?"

"I don't know, " she smiled. "Won't you come in?"

The man came inside. 

"Now, " she said, "I'll see. What is your name?"

"Ben--" he hesitated. "Oh--that don't matter. Won't be addressed tomy name. Addressed like that. "

He drew from his pocket a closely-folded, dirt-begrimed envelope. 

Marian's heart stopped beating. The envelope was blue--yes, the veryshade of blue of that other in the pigeon-hole. And it was addressed:Phi Beta Ki, Nome, Alaska. 

"Is there a letter here like that?" the man demanded, squinting at herthrough blood-shot eyes. 

It was a tense moment. What should she say? She loathed the man;feared him, as well. Yet he had asked for the letter and had offeredbetter proof than the mysterious college boy had. What should she say?

"Yes, " she said, and then hesitated. Her heart beat violently. Hissearching eyes were upon her. "Yes, there was one. It came two monthsago. A young man called for it and took it away. "

"You--you gave it to him!"

The man lifted a hand as if to strike Marian. She did not flinch. 

There came a growl from the door. Looking quickly, Marian caught thequestioning gleam in the old leader's eye. 

The man's arm fell. 

"Yes, " she said stoutly, "I gave it to him. Why should I not? Heoffered no real proof that he was the right person, it is true--"

"Then why--"

"But neither have you, " Marian hurried on. "You might have picked thatenvelope up in the street, or taken it from a wastepaper basket. Howdo I know?"

"What--what sort of a boy was it?" the man asked more steadily. 

"A good-looking, strapping young fellow, with blue eyes and an honestface. "

"That's him! That's him!" the man almost raved. "Honest-lookin', yes, honest-lookin'. They ain't all honest that looks that way. "

Again came the growl from the door. 

Marian's eyes glanced uneasily toward the pigeon-hole where the latestblue envelope rested. She caught an easy breath. A large white legalenvelope quite hid the blue one. 

"Well, if another one comes, remember it's mine! Mine!" growled theman, as he went stamping out of the room. 

"Old Rover, " Marian said, taking the dog's head between her hands. "I'm glad you're here. When there are such men as that about, we needyou. "

And yet, as she spoke her heart was full of misgivings. What if thisman's looks belied his nature? What if he were honest? And what ifher good-looking college boy was a rascal? There in the pigeon-holewas the blue envelope. What was her duty?

Pulling on her calico parka, she went for a stroll on the beach. Thecool, damp air of Arctic twilight by the sea was balm to her troubledbrain. She came back to the cabin with a deep-seated conviction thatshe was right. 

She was not given many days to decide whether she should take theletter with her or leave it. A sudden gale from the south sent theice-floes rushing through the Straits. They hastened away to seasunknown, not to return for months. The little mail steamer camehooting its way around the Point. It brought a letter of the utmostimportance to Marian. 

While in Nome the summer before she had made some hasty sketches of theChukches, natives of the Arctic coast of Siberia, while they camped onthe beach there on a trading voyage in a thirty-foot skin-boat. Thesesketches had come to the notice of the ethnological society. They nowwrote to her, asking that she spend a summer on the Arctic coast ofSiberia, making sketches of these natives, who so like the Eskimos areyet so unlike them in many ways. The pay, they assured her, would beample; in fact, the figures fairly staggered her. Should she completethis task in safety and to the satisfaction of the society, she wouldthen be prepared to pay her way through a three years' course in thebest art school of America. This had long been a cherished dream. Marian's eyes shone with happiness. 

When she had read the letter through, she went for a five-mile walkdown the beach. 

Upon returning she burst in on her companion. 

"Lucile, " she exclaimed, "how would you like to spend the summer inSiberia?"

"Fine! Salt mine, I suppose, " laughed Lucile. "But I thought allpolitical prisoners had been released by the new Russian government?"

"I'm not joking, " said Marian. 

"Explain then. "

Marian did explain. At the end of her explanation Lucile agreed to goas Marian's traveling companion and tent-keeper. In two weeks herschool work would be finished. It would be a strange, a delightfulsummer. Their enthusiasm grew as they talked about it. Long afterthey should have been asleep they were still making plans for this, their most wonderful adventure. 

"But how'll we go over?" exclaimed Lucile suddenly. 

"Gasoline schooner, I suppose. "

"I'd hate to trust any men I know who run those crafts, " said Marianthoughtfully. 

Lucile considered a moment. 

"Native skin-boat, then. "

"That would be rather thrilling--to cross from the new world into theold in a skin-boat. "

"And safe enough too, " said Marian. "Did you ever hear of a nativeboat being lost at sea?"

"One. But that one turned up at King's Island, a hundred and fiftymiles off its course. "

"I guess we could risk it. "

"All right, let's go. "

Marian sprang to her feet, threw back the blankets to her couch, andfifteen minutes later was dreaming of a tossing skin-boat on a wild seaof walrus monsters and huge white bears. 

Her wild dreams did not come true. When the time came to cross thethirty-five miles of water which separates the Old World from the New, they sailed and paddled over a sea as placid as a mill-pond. Here abrown seal bobbed his head out of the water; here a spectacledeiderduck rode up and down on the tiny waves, and here a great mass oftubular seaweed drifted by to remind them that they were really on thebosom of the briny ocean. 

Only one incident of the voyage caused them a feeling of vague unrest. A fog had settled down over the sea. They were drifting and paddlingslowly forward, when the faint scream of a siren struck their ears. Itcame nearer and nearer. 

"A gasoline schooner, " said Marian. 

The natives began shouting to avert a possible collision. 

Presently the schooner appeared, a dark bulk in the fog. It tookshape. Men were seen on the deck. It came in close by. The wavesfrom it reached the skin-boat. 

They were passing with a salute, when a strange thing happened. Rover, the old dog-leader, who had been riding in the bow standing wellforward, as if taking the place of a painted figurehead, suddenly beganto bark furiously. At the same time, Marian caught sight of a beardedface framed in a porthole. 

Involuntarily she shrank back out of sight. The next instant theschooner had faded away into the fog. The dog ceased barking. 

"What was it?" asked Lucile anxiously. 

"Only a face. "

"Who?"

"The man who wanted the blue envelope; Rover recognized him first. "

"You don't suppose he knew, and is following?"

"How could he know?"

"But what is he going to Siberia for?"

"Perhaps to trade. They do that a great deal. Let's not talk of it. "Marian shivered. 

The incident was soon forgotten. They were nearing the Siberian shorewhich was to be their summer home. A million nesting birds cameskimming out over the sea, singing their merry song as if to greetthem. They would soon be living in a tent in the midst of a city oftents. They would be studying a people whose lives are as little knownas were those of the natives in the heart of Africa before the days ofLivingstone. 

As she thought of these things Marian's cheeks flushed with excitement. 

"What new thrill will come to us here?" her lips whispered. 

CHAPTER V

CAST ADRIFT

There was a shallow space beneath a tray of color-tubes in the verybottom of Marian's paint-box. There, on leaving Cape Prince of Wales, she had stowed the blue envelope addressed to Phi Beta Ki. She had notdone this without misgivings. Disturbing thoughts had come to her. Was it the right thing to do? Was it safe? The latter question hadcome to her with great force when she saw the grizzled miner's faceframed in the porthole of that schooner. 

But from the day they landed at Whaling, on the mainland of Siberia, all thoughts of the letter and the two claimants for its possessionwere completely crowded from her mind. 

Never in all her adventurous life had Marian experienced anything quiteso thrilling as this life with the Chukches of the Arctic coast ofSiberia. 

In Alaska the natives had had missionaries and teachers among them forthirty years. They had been Americanized and, in a sense, Christianized. The development of large mining centers to which theyjourneyed every summer to beg and barter had tended to rob them of theromantic wildness of their existence. But here, here where nomissionaries had been allowed nor teachers been sent, where goldgleamed still ungathered in the beds of the rivers, here the nativesstill dwelt in their dome-like houses of poles and skins. Here theyfared boldly forth in search of the dangerous walrus and white bear andthe monstrous whale. Here they made strange fire to the spirits of themonsters they had slaughtered, and spoke in grave tones of the greatspirit that had come down from the moon in the form of a raven with abeak of old ivory. 

It is little wonder that Marian forgot all thought of fear amid suchsurroundings, as she worked industriously at the sketches which were tofurnish her with three years of wonderful study under great masters. 

But one day, after six weeks of veritable dream life, as she lifted thetray to her paint-box her eyes fell on that blue envelope. Instantly aflood of remembrance rushed through her mind; the frank-faced collegeboy, the angry miner, old Rover, the dog, who, sleek and fat on whalemeat, lay curled up beside her, then again the grizzled face of theminer framed in a port-hole; all these passed before her mind's visionand left her chilled. 

Her hand trembled. She could not control her brush. The sketch of twonative women in deerskin unionsuits, their brown shoulders bared, working at the task of splitting walrus skins, went unfinished whileshe took a long walk down the beach. 

That very evening she had news that caused her blood to chill again. Anative had come from East Cape, the next village to the south. He hadseen a white man there, a full-bearded man of middle age. He had saidthat he intended coming to Whaling in a few days. He had posed amongthe natives as a spirit-doctor and had, according to reports, workedmany wonderful cures by his incantations. Three whales had come intothe hands of the East Cape hunters. This was an excellent catch andhad been taken as a good omen; the bearded stranger was doubtlesshighly favored by the spirits of dead whales. 

"I wish our skin-boat would come for us, " said Lucile suddenly, as theytalked of it in the privacy of their tent. 

"But it won't, not for three weeks yet. That was the agreement. "

"I know. "

"And we haven't a wireless to call them with. Besides, my sketches arenot nearly complete. "

"I know, " said Lucile, her chin in her hands. "But, all the same, thatman makes me afraid. "

"Well, I'll hurry my sketches, but that won't bring the boat anysooner. "

Had Marian known the time she would have for sketching, she might nothave done them so rapidly. As it was, she worked the whole longeighteen-hour days through. 

In the meantime, chill winds began sweeping down from the north. Stillthe bearded white man did not come to Whaling, but every day broughtfresh reports of the good fortune of the people of East Cape. They hadcaptured a fourth whale, then a fifth. Their food for the winter wassecured. Whale meat was excellent food. They would have an abundanceof whale-bone to trade for flour, sugar and tea. 

But if the East Capers were favored, the men of Whaling were not. Onelone whale, and that a small one, was their total take. Witch-doctorsbegan declaring that the presence of strange, white-faced women intheir midst was displeasing to the spirits of dead whales. The makingof the images of the people on canvas was also sure to bring disaster. 

As reports of this dissatisfaction came to the ears of the girls, theybegan straining their eyes for a square sail on the horizon. Stilltheir boat did not come. 

Then came the crowning disaster of the year. The walrus herd, on whichthe natives based their last hope, passed south along the coast ofAlaska instead of Siberia. Their caches were left empty. Only thewinter's supply of white bear and seal could save them from starvation. 

"Dezra! Dezra!" (It is enough!) the natives whispered among themselves. 

The day after the return of the walrus canoes Marian and Lucile wentfor a long walk down the beach. 

Upon rounding a point in returning Marian suddenly gave a gasp. "Look, Lucile! It's gone--our tent!"

"Gone!" exclaimed Lucile unbelievingly. 

"I wonder what--"

"Look, Marian; the whole village!"

"Let's run. "

"Where to? We'd starve in two days, or freeze. Come on. They won'thurt us. "

With anxious hearts and trembling footsteps they approached the solidline of fur-clad figures which stretched along the southern outskirtsof the village. 

As they came close they heard one word repeated over and over: "Dezra!Dezra!" (Enough! Enough!)

And as the natives almost chanted this single word, they pointed to asled on which the girls' belongings had been neatly packed. To thesled three dogs were hitched, two young wolf-hounds with Rover asleader. 

"They want us to go, " whispered Lucile. 

"Yes, and where shall we go?"

"East Cape is the only place. "

"And that miner?"

"It may not be he. "

Three times Marian tried to press her way through the line. Each timethe line grew more dense at the point she approached. Not a hand waslaid upon her; she could not go through, that was all. The situationthrilled as much as it troubled her. Here was a people kind at heartbut superstitious. They believed that their very existence dependedupon getting these two strangers from their midst. What was there todo but go?

They went, and all through the night they assisted the little dog-teamto drag the heavy load over the first thin snow of autumn. Over andover again Marian blessed the day she had been kind to old Roverbecause he was a white man's dog, for he was the pluckiest puller ofthem all. 

Just as dawn streaked the east they came in sight of what appeared tobe a rude shack built of boards. As they came closer they could seethat some of the boards had been painted and some had not. Some werepainted halfway across, and some only in patches of a foot or two. They had been hastily thrown together. The whole effect, viewed at adistance, resembled nothing so much as a crazy-quilt. 

"Must have been built from the wreckage of a house, " said Lucile. 

"Yes, or a boat. "

"A boat? Yes, look; there it is out there, quite a large one. It'sstranded on the sandbar and half broken up. "

The girls paused in consternation. It seemed they were hedged in onall sides by perils. To go back was impossible. To go forward was tothrow themselves upon the mercies of a gang of rough seamen. To passaround the cabin was only to face the bearded stranger, who, they hadreason to believe, was none other than the man who had demanded theblue envelope. 

A few minutes' debate brought them to a decision. They would gostraight on to the cabin. 

"Mush, Rover! Mush!" Marian threw her tired shoulders into theimprovised harness, and once more they moved slowly forward. 

It was with wildly beating hearts that they eventually rounded thecorner of the cabin and came to a stand by the door. At once anexclamation escaped their lips:

"Empty! Deserted!"

And so it proved. Snow that had fallen two days before lay piledwithin the half-open doorway. No sign of occupation was to be foundwithin save a great rusty galley range, two rickety chairs, animprovised table, two rusty kettles and a huge frying-pan. 

"They have given the ship up as a total loss, and have left in doriesor skin-boats, " said Marian. 

"Yes, " agreed Lucile. "Wanted to get across the Straits before thecoming of the White Line. "

The "coming of the White Line. " Marian started. She knew what thatmeant far better than Lucile did. She had lived in Alaska longer, hadseen it oftener. Now she thought what it would mean to them if it camebefore the skin-boat came for them. And that skin-boat? What wouldhappen when it came to Whaling? Would the Chukches tell them in whichdirection they had gone? And if they did, would the Eskimo boatmen settheir sail and go directly to East Cape? If they did, would they missthis diminutive cabin standing back as it did from the shore, andseeming but a part of the sandbar?

"We'll put up a white flag, a skirt or something, on the peak of thecabin, " she said, half talking to herself. 

"Do you think we ought to go right on to East Cape?" said Lucile. 

"We can't decide that now, " said Marian. "We need food and sleep andthe dogs need rest. "

Some broken pieces of drift were piled outside the cabin. These made aready fire. They were soon enjoying a feast of fried fish and cannedbaked beans. Then, with their water-soaked mucklucks (skin-boots) andstockings hanging by the fire, they threw deerskin on the rude bunkattached to the wall and were soon fast asleep. 

Out on the wreck, some two hundred yards from shore, a figure emergedfrom a small cabin aft. The stern of the ship had been carriedcompletely about by the violence of the waves. It had left this littlecabin, formerly the wireless cabin, high and dry. 

The person came out upon the deck and scanned the horizon. Suddenlyhis eyes fell upon the cabin and the strange white signal which thegirls had set fluttering there before they went to sleep. 

Sliding a native skin-kiak down from the deck, he launched it, thenleaping into the narrow seat, began paddling rapidly toward land. 

Having beached his kiak, he hurried toward the cabin. His hand was onthe latch, when he chanced to glance up at the white emblem of distresswhich floated over his head. 

His hand dropped to his side; his mouth flew open. An expression ofamazement spread over his face. 

"Jumpin' Jupiter!" he muttered beneath his breath. 

He beat a hasty retreat. Once in his kiak he made double time back tothe wreck. 

Marian was the first to awaken in the cabin. By the dull light thatshone through the cracks, she could tell that it was growing dark. 

Springing from her bunk, she put her hand to the latch. Hardly had shedone this than the door flew open with a force that threw her backagainst the opposite wall. Fine particles of snow cut her face. Thewind set every loose thing in the cabin bobbing and fluttering. Theskirt they had attached to a stout pole as a signal was boomingoverhead like a gun. 

"Wow! A blizzard!" she groaned. 

Seizing the door, she attempted to close it. 

Twice the violence of the storm threw her back. 

When at last her efforts had been rewarded with success, she turned torouse her companion. 

"Lucile! Lucile! Wake up? A blizzard!"

Lucile turned over and groaned. Then she opened her eyes. 

"Wha--wha--" she droned sleepily. 

"A blizzard! A blizzard from the north!"

Lucile sat up quickly. 

"From the north!" she exclaimed, fully awake in an instant. "The ice?"

"Perhaps. "

"And if it comes?"

"We're stuck, that's all, in Siberia for nine months. Won't dare tryto cross the Straits on the ice. No white man has ever done it, letalone a woman. Well, " she smiled, "we've got food for five days, andfive days is a long time. We'd better try to bring in some wood, andget the dogs in here; they'd freeze out there. "

CHAPTER VI

THE DREAD WHITE LINE

Three days the blizzard raged about the cabin where Lucile and Marianhad found shelter. Such a storm at this season of the year had notbeen known on the Arctic for more than twenty years. 

For three days the girls shivered by the galley range, husbanding theirlittle supply of food, and hoping for something to turn up when thestorm was over. Just what that something might be neither of themcould have told. 

The third day broke clear and cold with the wind still blowing a gale. Lucile was the first to throw open the door. As it came back with abang, something fell from the beam above and rattled to the floor. 

She stooped to pick it up. 

"Look, Marian!" she exclaimed. "A key! A big brass key!"

Marian examined it closely. 

"What can it belong to?"

"The wreck, perhaps. "

"Probably. "

"Looks like a steward's pass-key. "

"But what would they save it for? You don't think--"

"If we could get out to the wreck we'd see. "

"Yes, but we can't. There--"

"Look, Marian!" Lucile's eyes were large and wild. 

"The white line!" gasped Marian, gripping her arm. 

It was true. Before them lay the dark ocean still flecked with foam, but at the horizon gleaming whiter than burnished silver, straight, distinct, unmistakable, was a white line. 

"And that means--"

"We're trapped!"

Lucile sank weakly into a chair. Marian began pacing the floor. 

"Anyway, " she exclaimed at last, "I can paint it. It will make awonderful study. "

Suiting action to words, she sought out her paint-box and was soon busywith a sketch, which, developing bit by bit, or rather, seeming toevolve out of nothing, showed a native dressed in furs, shading hiseyes to scan the dark, tossing ocean. And beyond, the object of hisgaze, was the silvery line. When she had finished, she playfullyinscribed a title at the bottom:

"The Coming of the White Line. "

As she put her paints away, something caught her eye. It was onecorner of the blue envelope with the strange address upon it. 

"Ah, there you are still, " she sighed. "And there you will remain fornine months unless I miss my guess. I wish I hadn't kept my promise tothe college boy; wish I'd left you in the pigeon-hole at Cape Prince ofWales. "

Since the air was too chill, the wind too keen for travel, the girlsslept that night in the cabin. They awoke to a new world. The firstglimpse outside the cabin brought surprised exclamations to their lips. In a single night the world appeared to have been transformed. The"white line" was gone. So, too, was the ocean. Before them, as far asthe eye could reach, lay a mass of yellow lights and purple shadows, ice-fields that had buried the sea. Only one object stood out, black, bleak and bare before them--the hull of the wrecked and abandoned ship. 

"Look!" said Lucile suddenly, "we can go out to the ship over theice-floe!"

"Let's do it, " said Marian enthusiastically. "Perhaps there's somesort of a solution to our problem there. "

They were soon threading their way in and out among the ice-piles whichwere already solidly attaching themselves to the sand beneath theshallow water. 

And now they reached a spot where the water was deeper, whereice-cakes, some small as a kitchen floor, some large as a town lot, jostled and ground one upon another. 

"Wo-oo, I don't like it!" exclaimed Lucile, as she leaped a narrowchasm of dark water. 

"We'll soon be there, " trilled her companion. "Just watch your step, that's all. "

They pushed on, leaping from cake to cake. Racing across a broadice-pan, now skirting a dark pool, now clambering over a pile of iceground fine, they made their way slowly but surely toward their goal. 

"Listen!" exclaimed Marian, stopping dead in her tracks. 

"What is it?" asked Lucile, her voice quivering with alarm. 

A strange, wild, weird sound came to them across the floe, a grinding, rushing, creaking, moaning sound that increased in volume as the voiceof a cyclone increases. 

Only a second elapsed before they knew. Then with a cry of terrorMarian dragged her companion to the center of the ice-pan and pulledher flat to its surface. From somewhere, far out to sea, a giant tidalwave was sweeping through the ice-floe. Marian had seen it. Themountain of ice which it bore on its crest seemed as high as the solidridge of rock behind them on the land. And with its weird, wild, rushing scream of grinding and breaking ice, it was traveling towardthem. It had the speed of the wind, the force of an avalanche. Whenit came, what then?

With a rush the wild terror of the Arctic sea burst upon them. Itlifted the giant ice-pan weighing hundreds of tons, tilted it to adangerous angle, then dropped from beneath it. Marian's heart stoppedbeating as she felt the downward rush of the avalanche of ice. Thenext instant she felt it crumble like an egg-shell. It had broken atthe point where they lay. With a warning cry of terror she sprang toher feet and pitched forward. 

The cry was too late. As she rose unsteadily to her knees, she saw adark brown bulk topple at the edge of the cake, then roll like a loginto the dark pool of water which appeared where the cake had parted. That object was Lucile. Dead or alive? Marian could not tell. Butwhether dead or alive she had fallen into the stinging Arctic brine. What chance could there be for her life?

For the time being the ice-field was quiet. The tidal wave had spentits force on the sandy beach. 

That other, less violent disturbances, would follow the first, the girlknew right well. Hastily creeping to the brink of the dark pool, shestrained her eyes for sight of a floating bit of cloth, a waving hand. There was none. Despair gripped her heart. Still she waited, and asshe waited, there came the distant sound, growing ever louder, ofanother onrushing tide. 

When Lucile went down into the dark pool she was not dead. She wasconscious and very much alive. Very conscious she was, too, of theperil of her situation. Should that chasm close before she rose, or asshe rose, she was doomed. In one case she would drown, in the othershe would be crushed. 

Down, down she sank. But the water was salt and buoyant. Now she feltherself rising. Holding her breath she looked upward. A narrow ribbonof black was to the right of her. 

"That will be the open water, " was her mental comment. "Must swim forit. "

She was a strong swimmer, but her heavy fur garments impeded her. Thesting of the water imperiled her power to remain conscious. Yet shestruggled even as she rose. 

Just when Marian had given up hope, she saw a head shoot above thewater, then a pair of arms. The next instant she gripped both hercompanion's wrists and lifted as she never lifted before. There waswild terror in her eye. The roar of the second wave was drumming inher ears. 

She was not a second too soon. Hardly had she dragged thehalf-unconscious girl from the pool than it closed with a grindingcrash, and the ice-pan again tilted high in air. 

The strain of this onrush was not so great. The cake held together. Gradually it settled back to its place. 

Marian glanced in the direction of the wreck. They were very muchnearer to it than to the shore. She thought she saw a small cabin inthe stern. Lucile must be relieved of her water soaked andfast-freezing garments at once. 

"Can you walk?" she asked as Lucile staggered dizzily to her feet. "I'll help you. The wreck--we must get there. You must struggle oryou'll freeze. "

Lucile did try. She fought as she had never fought before, against thestiffening garments, the aching lungs and muscles, but most of allagainst the almost unconquerable desire to sleep. 

Foot by foot, yard by yard, they made their way across the treacheroustangle of ice-piles which was still in restless motion. 

Now they had covered a quarter of the distance, now half, nowthree-quarters. And now, with an exultant cry, Marian dragged herhalf-unconscious companion upon the center of the deck. 

"There's a cabin aft, " she whispered, "a warm cabin. We'll soon bethere. "

"Soon be there, " Lucile echoed faintly. 

The climbing of the long, slanting, slippery deck was a terribleordeal. More than once Marian despaired. At last they stood beforethe door. She put a hand to the knob. A cry escaped her lips. Thecabin door was locked. 

Dark despair gripped her heart. But only for an instant. 

"Lucile, the key! The key we found in the cabin! Where is it?"

"The key--the key?" Lucile repeated dreamily. 

"Oh, yes, the key. Why, that's not any good. "

"Yes, it is! It is!"

"It's in my parka pocket. "

The next moment Marian was prying the key from a frozen pocket, and thenext after that she was dragging Lucile into the cabin. 

In one corner of the cabin stood a small oil-heater. Above it was amatch-box. With a cry of joy Marian found matches, lighted one, triedthe stove, found it filled with oil. A bright blaze rewarded herefforts. There was heat, heat that would save her companion's life. 

She next attacked the frozen garments. Using a knife where nothingelse would avail, she stripped the clothing away until at last she fellto chafing the white and chilled limbs of the girl, who still struggledbravely against the desire to sleep. 

A half-hour later Lucile was sleeping naturally in a bunk against theupper wall of the room. She was snuggled deep in the interior of amammoth deerskin sleeping-bag, while her garments were drying besidethe kerosene stove. Marian was drowsing half-asleep by the fire. 

Suddenly, she was aroused by a voice. It was a man's voice. She wasstartled. 

"Please, " the voice said, "may I come in? That's supposed to be mycabin, don't you know? But I don't want to be piggish. "

Marian stared wildly about her. For a second she was quite speechless. Then she spoke:

"Wait--wait a minute; I'm coming out. "

CHAPTER VII

THE BLUE ENVELOPE DISAPPEARS

When Marian heard the voice outside the cabin on the wreck, sherealized that a new problem, a whole set of new problems had arisen. Here was a man. Who was he? Could he be the grizzled miner who haddemanded the blue envelope? If so, what then? Was there more than oneman? What was to come of it all, anyway?

All this sped through her mind while she was drawing on her parka. Thenext moment she had opened the door, stepped out and closed the doorbehind her. 

"Ah! I have the pleasure--"

"You?" Marian gasped. 

For a second she could say no more. Before her, dressed in a jauntyparka of Siberian squirrel-skin, was her frank-faced college boy, he ofthe Phi Beta Ki. 

"Why, yes, " he said rather awkwardly, "it is I. Does it seem sostrange? Well, yes, I dare say it does. Suppose you sit down and I'lltell you about it. "

Marian sat down on a section of the broken rail. 

"Well, you see, " he began, a quizzical smile playing about his lips, "when I had completed my--my--well, my mission to the north of CapePrince of Wales, it was too late to return by dog-team. I waited for aboat. I arrived at the P. O. You used to keep. You were gone. So wasmy letter. "

"Yes, you said--"

"That was quite all right; the thing I wanted you to do. But you seethat letter is mighty important. I had to follow. This craft we'resitting on was coming this way. I took passage. She ran into a messof bad luck. First we were picked up by an ice-floe and carried farinto the Arctic Ocean. When at last we poled our way out of that, wewere caught by a storm and carried southwest with such violence that wewere thrown upon this sandbar. The ship broke up some, but we managedto stick to her until the weather calmed. We went ashore and threwsome of the wreckage into the form of a cabin. You've been stayingthere, I guess. " He grinned. 

Marian nodded. 

"Well, the ship was hopeless. Natives came in their skin-boats fromEast Cape. "

"East Cape? How far--how far is that?"

"Perhaps ten miles. Why?"

He studied the girl's startled face. 

"Nothing; only didn't a white man come with the natives?"

"A white man?"

"I've heard there was one staying there. "

"No, he didn't come. "

Marian settled back in her seat. 

"Well, " he went on, "the captain of this craft traded everything onboard to the natives for furs; everything but some food. I bought thatfrom him. You see, they were determined to get away as soon aspossible. I was just as determined to stay. I didn't know exactlywhere you were, but was bound I'd find you and--and the letter. " Hepaused. 

"By the way, " he said, struggling to conceal his intense interest, "have--have you the letter?"

Marian nodded. "It is in my paint-box over in the cabin. "

The boy sprang eagerly to his feet. "May we not go fetch it?"

"I can't leave my friend. "

"Then may I go?" He was eager as a child. 

Then after a second, "Why, by Jove! I'm selfish. Haven't given you achance to say a thing. Perhaps your friend's in trouble. Of courseshe is, or she'd be out here before this. What is it? Can I help you?"

"She's only chilled and recovering from a trifling shock. The tidalwave threw her into the sea. "

"Oh!" The boy stood thinking for a moment. "Do--do you intend toremain in Siberia all winter?"

"We had no such intentions when we came, but the storm and the whiteline caught us. No more boats now. "

"The white line of ice from the north? No more boats this season?"

Then quickly, "Say, you two can keep my cabin. The shack on the beachis poor, and I dare say you haven't much food. There's a bunk belowthe deck where I can be quite comfortable. We'll be snug as a bug in abushel basket. "

Marian lifted a hand in feeble protest. What was the use? They weretrapped in Siberia. Here was an American who seemed at least to be afriend. 

"I'll go for your things. You stay here. Any dogs?"

"Three. "

"Good! I'll be back quicker than you think. "

He was away. Bounding from ice-cake to ice-cake he soon disappeared. Marian turned to enter the cabin. 

Lucile was still asleep. Marian sat down to think. She was notcertain that their position was at all improved. They knew so littleof the young stranger. She felt almost resentful at his occupation ofthe wireless cabin. They could have been quite cozy there alone. Thenagain, in quite another mood, she was glad the stranger was here; hemight suggest a means of escape from the exile and might assist incarrying it out. At any rate, if they were forced to go to East Capefor food, they would not be afraid to go under his guard. 

She fell to wondering if he had reached the shore safely. Leaving thecabin, she climbed to the highest point on the rail. There she stoodfor some time scanning the horizon. 

"Strange he'd be way down there!" she murmured, at last. "Quarter of amile south of the cabin. Perhaps the ice carried him south. "

The distance was so great she could distinguish a figure, a mere speck, moving in and out among the ice-piles that lined the shore. 

For a moment she rested her eyes by studying the ship's deck. Thenagain she gazed away. 

"Why, " she exclaimed suddenly, "he has reached the cabin! Must haverun every step of the way!"

In the cabin on shore, the young stranger began packing the girl'spossessions preparatory to putting them on the sled. 

"Some careless housekeeper!" he grumbled as he gathered up articles ofclothing from every corner of the room, and, having straightened outMarian's paint-box, closed its cover down with a click. He arrived atthe schooner an hour later. The sled load was soon stowed away in thewireless cabin. 

He brought a quantity of food, canned vegetables, bacon, hardtack, coffee and sugar from his store below. Then he stood by the door. 

Marian was bustling about the cabin, putting things to rights. 

"Wants to make a good impression, " was the young man's mental comment. 

Lucile, a trifle pale, was sitting in the corner. 

Presently Marian caught sight of him standing there. 

"Oh!" she exclaimed, "you are waiting for your reward?"

"Any time, " he smiled. 

"You shall have it right now--the blue envelope. "

She seized her paint-box, and throwing back the cover lifted thepaint-tray. Then from her lips escaped one word:

"Gone!"

He sprang eagerly forward. 

"Can't be, " Lucile breathed. 

"Take a good look, " the boy suggested. 

Marian inspected the box thoroughly. 

"No, " she said with an air of finality, "it's not here. "

"Your--er--the paint-box was a bit disarranged, " he stammered. 

"Disarranged?"

"Well, not in the best of order. Letter might have dropped out in thecabin. I dare say it's on the floor back there. Had you seen itlately?"

"Only this morning. I can't understand about the box. The wind musthave blown it down, or something. "

"I dare say. " The boy smiled good-naturedly as he recalled thedisordered room. 

"I'll hop right back and look for it. " He was away like a flash. 

It was with a very dejected air that he returned. Marian could nottell whether it was genuine or feigned. Had he been in such haste tosecure the letter that he had taken it at once from the box? Was allhis later action mere stage-play?

"No, " he said, bringing forth a forlorn smile, "I couldn't find it. It's not there. "

That evening, after a supper served on a small tip-down table in thewireless cabin, after the boy had gone to his bunk below, and Lucilehad fallen asleep, Marian lay awake a long time puzzling over themysteries of the past and the problems of the future. Where had theblue envelope disappeared to? Did the boy have it? She resolved tosearch the cabin on the beach for herself. She felt half-inclined totalk matters over frankly with him. There were mysteries which mightbe cleared up. She remembered with what astonishing speed he hadreached the cabin once he had sprung upon the shore. She remembered, too, how he had spoken of the disordered paint-box. She prided herselfon neatness. And that paint-box, was it not her work-shop, her mostprized possession? She longed to talk it over with him. But on theother hand, she could not bring herself to feel that her trust in himwas fully warranted. She hated above all things to be "taken in. " Ifshe discussed all these things with him, and if, at the same time, theletter rested in his pocket, wouldn't she be taken in for fair?Wouldn't she, though?

"No, " she pressed her lips tight shut, "no, I won't. "

But even as she said this, she saw again the downhearted expression onhis face, heard his mournful, "I couldn't find it. It's not there. "With that she relented, and ere she slept resolved to take up thematter of the mysterious disappearance with him the first thing in themorning. 

But morning found the boy in quite a different mood. He laughed andchatted gayly over his sour-dough pancakes. 

"Now you know, " he said, as he shoved back his stool, "I like yourcompany awfully well, and I'd like to keep this up indefinitely, buttruth is I can't; I've got to get across the Straits. "

"We'll be sorry to lose you, " laughed Marian; "but just you run along. And when you get there tell the missionary breakfast is ready. Ask himto step over and eat with us. "

"No, but I'm serious. "

"Then you're crazy. No white man has ever crossed thirty-five miles offloeing ice. "

"There's always to be a first. Natives do it, don't they?"

"I've heard they do. "

"I can go anywhere a native can, providing he doesn't get out of mysight. "

"A guide across the Straits! It's a grand idea!" Marian seized Lucileabout the waist and went hopping out on deck. "A guide across theStraits. We'll be home for Christmas dinner yet!"

"What, you don't mean--" The boy stared in astonishment. 

"Sure I do. We can go anywhere you can, providing you don't get out ofour sight. "

"That--why, that will be bully. "

He said this with lagging enthusiasm. It was evident that he doubtedtheir power of endurance. 

"We'll have to go to East Cape to start, " he suggested. 

"East Cape?" Marian exclaimed in a startled tone. 

"Sure. What's wrong with East Cape?"

"Nothing. Only--only that's where that strange white man is. "

"What's so terrible about him?"

Marian hesitated. She had come to the end of a blind alley. Shouldshe tell him of her experience with the miner who demanded the blueenvelope, and of her suspicion that this man at East Cape was that sameman?

She looked into his frank blue eyes for a moment, then said to herself, "Yes, I will. "

She did tell him the whole story. When she had finished, there was anew, a very friendly light in the boy's eyes. 

"I say, " he exclaimed, "That was bully good of you. It really was. That man--"

He hesitated. Marian thought she was going to be told the whole secretof the blue envelope. 

"That man, " he repeated, "he won't hurt you. You need have no fear ofhim. As for yours truly, meaning me, I can take care of myself. Westart for East Cape today. What say?"

"All right. "

Marian sprang to her feet, and, after imparting the news to Lucile, whohad by this time fully recovered from the shock of the previous day, set to work packing their sled for the journey. 

All the time she was packing her mind was working. She had meant todiscuss the mysterious disappearance of the blue envelope with thecollege boy. Even as she thought of this, there flashed through hermind the question, "Why is he so cheerful now? Why so anxious to getacross the Straits?"

One explanation alone came to her. He had deceived them. The envelopewas secure in his possession. It had imparted to him news of greatimportance. He was eager to cross the Straits and put its instructionsinto execution. What these instructions might be, she could not tell. The North was a place of rare furs, ivory and much gold. Anything waspossible. 

"No, " she almost exploded between tight-set teeth, "no, I won't talk itover with him, I won't. "

One thing, however, she did do. Under pretense of missing some articlefrom her wardrobe when on the beach ready to start for East Cape, shehastened to the cabin on the beach, and executed a quick search for themissing envelope. The search was unrewarded. 

One thing, though, arrested her attention for a moment. As she leftthe cabin she noticed, near the door, the print of a man's skin-boot inthe snow. It was an exceedingly large print; such as is made by acareless white man who buys the first badly-made skin-boots offered tohim by a native seamstress. The college boy could not have made thattrack. His skin-boots had been made by some Eskimo woman of no meanability. She had fitted them to his high-arched and shapely feet, asshe might have done had he been her Eskimo husband. 

"Oh, well, " she exclaimed, as she raced to join her companions, "probably some native who has passed this way. "

Even as she said it, she doubted her own judgment. She had never inher life seen a native wear such a clumsy and badly-shaped skin-boot. 

CHAPTER VIII

THE VISIT TO THE CHUKCHES

It was with a feeling of strange misgiving that Marian found herself onthe evening of the day they left the wreck entering the native villageof East Cape. Questions continually presented themselves to her mind. What of the bearded stranger? Was he the miner who had demanded theblue envelope? If it were he; if he appeared and once more demandedthe letter, what should she say? For any proof ever presented to her, he might be the rightful owner, the real Phi Beta Ki. What could shesay to him? And the natives? Had they heard of the misfortunes of thepeople of Whaling? Would they, too, allow superstitious fear toovercome them? Would they drive the white girls from their midst?

This last problem did not trouble her greatly, however. They wouldfind a guide at once and begin their great adventure of crossing fromthe Old World to the New on the ice-floe. 

An interpreter was not hard to find. Many of the men had sailed onAmerican whalers. They were told by one of these that there was butone man in all the village who ever attempted the dangerous passage ofBering Straits. His name was O-bo-gok. 

O-bo-gok was found sitting cross-legged on the sloping floor of hisskin-igloo, adjusting a new point to his harpoon. 

"You tell him, " said the smiling college boy, "that we want to go toCape Prince of Wales. Can he go tomorrow?"

The interpreter threw up his hands in surprise, but eventuallydelivered his message. 

The guide, a swarthy fellow, with shaggy, drooping moustache and apowerful frame, did not look up from his work. He merely grunted. 

"He say, that one, no can do, " smiled the interpreter. 

The college boy was not disturbed. He jingled something in his hand. Marian, who stood beside him, saw that he held three double eagles. She smiled, for she knew that even here the value of yellow disksmarked with those strange pictures which Uncle Sam imprints upon themwas known. 

The man, dropping his harpoon, began to talk rapidly. He waved hishands. He bobbed his head. At last he arose, sprang from the sleepingcompartment and began to walk the space before the open fire. He wasstill talking. It seemed as if he would never run down. 

When at last he had finished and had thrown himself once more upon thefloor of the sleeping-room, the interpreter began:

"He say, that one, he say, 'Wanna go Cape Prince Wales two month, threemonth, all right, maybe. Go now? Not go. ' He say, that one, 'Wannago now; never come back. ' He say, that one, 'Two, three, four dayscome ice. Not plenty ice, ' say that one. 'Some water, some ice. Seewater. Too much water. Wanna cross. No cross. Quick starve. Quickfreeze. '

"'He say, that one, 'Tide crack spirit all-a-time lift ice, push icethis way, that way. Wanna kill man. No can go. '

"He say, that one, 'Great dead whale spirit wanna lift ice, wanna throwice this way, that way, all way. Wanna kill man. Man no go CapePrince Wales. '

"He say, that one, 'Wanna go Cape Prince Wales, mebby two month, mebbythree month. Mebby can do. Can't tell, ' he say, that one. "

The college boy smiled a grim smile and pocketed his gold. 

"Which all means, " he said, "that the ice is not sufficiently compact, not well enough frozen together for the old boy to risk a passage, andthat we'll be obliged to wait until he thinks it's O. K. Probably twoor three months. Meanwhile, welcome to our village! Make yourselvesat home!" He threw back his shoulders and laughed a boyish laugh. 

"Oh!" exclaimed Marian, ready to indulge in a childish bit of weeping. 

"Yes, " smiled the boy, "but think of the sketches you'll have time tomake. "

"No canvas, " she groaned. 

"That's easy. Use squares of this sealskin the women tan white formaking slippers. "

"The very thing!" exclaimed Marian. She was away at once in search ofsome of this new style canvas, in her eagerness to be at work on somewinter sketches of these most interesting people, quite forgetting theperil of natives, the danger of the food supply giving out, theprobability of an unpleasant meeting with the bearded stranger. 

Lucile, always of a more practical frame of mind, at once attacked theknotty problem of securing comfort and food for her little party. Thequestion of a warm shelter during these months of sweeping winds andbiting frost was solved for them by the aged chief Nepos-sok. Hefurnished them with a winter igloo. An interesting type of home theyfound it and one offering great comfort. An outer covering of walrusskin was supported by tall poles set in a semicircle and meeting at thetop. The inside of this tepee-like structure was lined with a greatcircling robe of long-haired deerskin. The hair on these winter skinswas two inches long and matted thick as felt. When this lining hadbeen hung, a floor of hand-hewn boards was built across the rear sideof the inclosure. This floor, about six by eight feet, was coveredwith a deerskin rug, over which were thrown lighter robes of soft fawnskin and out-of-season fox skins. Above this floor were hung curtainsof deerskin. This sleeping room became a veritable box of long-haireddeerskins. When it was completed the girls found it, with a seal oillamp burning in it, warm and cozy as a steam-heated bedroom. 

"Who could dream of anything so comfortable in a wilderness like this?"murmured Lucile before falling asleep in their new home on the firstnight. 

Phi was given a place in the chief's sleeping room. 

The space in the igloo before the girls' sleeping room was given overto stores. It was used too as kitchen and dining room. Here, by asnapping fire of dwarf willows, the three of them sat on the edge ofthe sleeping room floor and munched hardtack or dipped baked beans fromtin cans. 

The problem of securing a variety of food was a difficult one. Thesupply from the ship was found to be over-abundant in certain lines andwoefully lacking in others: plenty of beans and sweet corn in cans, some flour and baking powder but no lard or bacon; some frozen andworthless potatoes; plenty of jelly in glasses; a hundred pounds ofsugar. So it ran. Lucile was hard pressed to know how to cook with nooven in which to do baking and with no lard for shortening. 

She had been studying this problem for some time when one day shesuddenly exclaimed, "I have it!"

Drawing on her parka she hurried to the chief's igloo and asked forseal oil. Gravely he poured a supply of dark liquid from a woodencontainer into a tin cup. 

Lucile put this to her lips for a taste. The next instant she withgreat difficulty set the cup on the floor while all her face wasdistorted with loathing. 

"Rotten!" she sputtered. "A year old!"

"Eh--eh, " grinned the chief, "always eat 'em so, Chukche. " Thoroughlydisheartened, she left the igloo. But on her way back she came upon awoman skinning a seal. Seeing the thick layer of fat that was takenfrom beneath the animal's skin she hastened to trade three cans ofbeans for it. Bearing this home in triumph she soon had the fat tryingout over a slow fire. 

Seal oil proved to be quite as good cooking oil as lard. Evendoughnuts fried in it were pronounced delicious by the ever-hungry Phi. 

Experimenting with native food was interesting. Seal steak was notbad, and seal liver was as good as calf's liver. Polar bear steak andwalrus stew were impossible. "Wouldn't even make good hamburger, " wasPhi's verdict. The boiled flipper of a white-whale was tender aschicken. But when a hind quarter of reindeer meat found its way intothe village there was feasting indeed. 

In a land so little known as this one does not seek long foropportunities to express strange and unusual things. Marian had notbeen established a week with Lucile in their igloo, when an unusualopportunity presented itself. 

Among the supplies brought from the ship was found a well-equippedmedicine-chest. During her long visits in out-of-the-way places, Marian had learned much of the art of administering simple remedies. She had not been in the village three days before her fame as a doctorbecame known to all the village. 

She had learned, with a feeling of great relief, that the beardedstranger who had posed as a witch-doctor had gone away from thevillage. Whether he had gone toward Whaling, or south to some othervillage, no one appeared to know. Now that he had departed, it seemedobvious that she was destined to take his place as the villagepractitioner. 

It was during one of her morning "clinics, " as she playfully calledthem, that a native of strange dress brought his little girl to her fortreatment. The ailment seemed but a simple cold. Marian prescribedcough syrup and quinine, then called for the next patient. Patientswere few that morning. She soon found herself wandering up the singlestreet of the village. There she encountered the strange native andhis child. 

"Who are they?" she asked of a boy who understood English. 

"Reindeer Chukches. "

"Reindeer Chukches?" she exclaimed excitedly. "Where do they live?"

"Oh, mebby fifteen miles from here. "

"Do they live on the tundra as they used to?"

"Yes. "

"Are there many of them?"

"Not now. Many, one time. Now very few. Not many reindeer. Too muchnot moss. Plenty starve. Plenty die. "

"Ask the Chukche, " Marian said eagerly, "if I may go home with him tosee his people. "

The boy spoke for a moment with the grave-visaged stranger. 

"He say, that one, he say yes, " smiled the boy. 

"Tell him I will be back quick. " Marian was away like a shot. 

Tearing into their igloo she drove Lucile into a score of activities. The medicine chest was filled and closed, paints stowed in their box, garments packed, sleeping-bags rolled up. Then they were away. 

Ere she knew it, Lucile was tucked in behind a fleet-footed reindeer, speeding over the low hills. 

"Now, please tell me where we are going, " she asked with a smile. 

"We are going to visit the most unique people in all the world--theReindeer Chukches. They are almost an extinct race now, but the timewas when every clump of willows that lined the banks of the rivers ofthe far north in Siberia hid one of their igloos, and every hill andtundra fed one of their herds. 

"Long before the Eskimos of Alaska thought of herding the reindeer, short-haired deerskin and soft, spotted fawn-skins were traded acrossBering Straits and far up along the Alaskan coast. These skins camefrom the camps of the Reindeer Chukches of Siberia. Many years ago theMikado of Japan, in the treasure of furs with which he decorated hisroyal family, besides the mink, ermine and silver fox, had skins ofrare beauty, spotted skins, brown, white and black. These werefawn-skins traded from village to village until they reached Japan. They came from the camps of the Reindeer Chukches. And now we are tosee them as they were many years ago, for they have not changed. And Iam to paint them! Paint them! Think of it!"

"Yes, but, " Lucile smiled doubtfully, "supposing the ice gets solidwhile we're gone. Suppose Phi takes a fancy to cross without us? Whatthen?"

Marian's face sobered for a moment. But the zeal of a born artist andexplorer was upon her. 

"Oh, fudge!" she exclaimed, "it won't. He won't. I--I--why, I'llhurry. We'll be back at East Cape in no time at all. "

No wildest nomadic dream could have exceeded the life which the twogirls lived in the weeks that followed. 

Trailing a reindeer herd over hills and tundra; camping now in a clumpof willows by the glistening ice of a stream, now beneath some shelvingrock, and now in the open, wind-swept tundra; eating about an openfire, while the smoke curled from the top of the dome of the tepee-likeigloo, they reveled in the strange wildness of it all. Here was apeople who paid no rent, no taxes, owned no land yet lived always inabundance. In the box beside the sleeping platform were tea and sugar. Over the fire hung a copper teakettle of ancient design. In thesleeping-box, which was made of long-haired deerskins, were many robesof short-haired deerskin, fawn-skin and Siberian squirrel. 

To all these the two girls were more than welcome. Their guide and hisdaughter did not live alone. A little tribe whose twenty igloos dottedthe tundra traveled with him. These people were sometimes in need ofsimple remedies. For these they were singularly grateful. They, theirwomen and their children, posed untiringly for sketches. But one thingMarian had not taken into consideration; these people seldom visitedthe village of East Cape. Although she did not know it, their herdswere at this time feeding away from this trading metropolis of theStraits region. Each day while she seized every opportunity to sketchand hastened her work as much as she could, found them some ten milesfarther from East Cape. 

When at last, by signs and such native words as she knew, she indicatedto her native friends that she was ready to return to East Cape, theystared at her in astonishment and indicated by a diagram on the snowthat they were now at a point three days' journey from that town andthat none of them expected to return before the moon was again full. 

No amount of gesturing and jabbering could make them understand that itwas necessary for the girls to return at once. 

"We'll never get back, " Marian mourned in despair, "and it's all myfault. "

"Oh, we'll make it still, " encouraged Lucile, cheerfully. "Probablythe Straits are not fully frozen over yet anyway. "

However, after a week of inaction, even Lucile lost her cheerful smile. 

One morning, after they had reached what appeared to be the finaldepths of despair, they heard a cry of, "Tomai! Tomai! Tomai, " risein a chorus from among the tents. By this they knew that visitors hadarrived. They hurried out to find the villagers grouped about threefur-clad figures standing beside three reindeer hitched to sleds of astrange design. 

By a few words and by signs they were made to understand that thesepeople came from a point some two hundred miles farther north, avillage on the north coast of Russia. 

As ever, eager to look upon some new type, Marian crowded through thethrong when, to her immense surprise, the smaller of the three, inreality only a boy, sprang forward, and, kneeling at her feet, kissedthe fur fringe of her parka. 

This action, so unusual among these natives, struck her dumb. But oncehe had looked up into her face, she understood all; he was none otherthan the strange brown boy who had come swimming to them from the seaoff the coast of Washington. 

She was so surprised and startled at first sight of him that she foundherself incapable of action. It seemed to her that she must be seeinga ghost. It appeared entirely incredible that he should be in this outof the way place when they had left him, months before, on a desertedisland of Puget Sound. 

Her second reaction was one of great joy; here was someone who reallyowed them a debt of gratitude. Might they not hope to receiveassistance from him in solving the problem of making their way to theshore of Bering Straits?

Springing to his feet, the boy mingled native dialect with badly spokenEnglish in his expression of joy at meeting them again. 

At last, when the crowd had gone its way and the girls had invited himto their tent, he told them in the few words of English he had learnedsince seeing them, and with many clever drawings, the story of hisadventures. 

He was a native of the north coast of Russia; a far away point wherewhite men's boats never come. One whaleship had, however, been carriedthere by the ice-floes. After trading for the natives' furs and ivory, and having found an open channel of water to the east, the captain hadkidnaped him and carried him from his home. He had been made thecaptain's slave. 

So badly was he treated, over-worked, kicked, cuffed and beaten, thatwhen at last he saw land off the coast of Washington, dressed only inhis bird-skin suit, he had leaped overboard when no one was looking andhad attempted to swim ashore. 

The ship had passed on out of sight. He had been swimming for twohours when the girls rescued him from what was almost sure to have beena watery grave, for he was almost ready to give up hope. 

He had been missed from the ship and the captain, fearing the strongarm of the law if he were rescued by others, sent three seamen tosearch for him along the island. How he had fared with these, thegirls knew well enough. 

After leaving the camp of the girls he had wandered in the woods andalong the beach for two weeks. He had at last been picked up by somehonest fishermen who turned him over to the revenue cutter which madeAlaskan ports. By the cutter he had been carried to Nome and fromthere made his way, little by little, by skin-boat, dog-team, andreindeer back to his native village. When he had finished telling hisstory he turned to Marian and said:

"Idel-bene?" (yours) meaning he would like to hear their story. 

Marian was not slow in telling their troubles. 

"Me, I will take you back, " the boy exclaimed as she finished. "To-daywe go. "

Two hours later, with sleds loaded, they were discussing two possibletrails, one leading down a river where blizzards constantly threatened, the other a valley trail through wolf-infested hills. The lattercourse was finally chosen, since it promised to be the least dangerousat that time of the year. Then they were away. 

CHAPTER IX

A CLOSE CALL

They had made half the distance to the village. Hopes were runninghigh, when something occurred which threatened disaster. 

Far up on the side of the hill along the base of which they weretraveling, there stood here and there a clump of scraggly, wind-tornfir trees. Suddenly there appeared from out one of these clumps ofscrub trees, a gray streak. Another appeared, then another andanother, until there were six. They did not pause at the edge of thebush, but rushed with swift, gliding motion down the steep hillside, and their course led them directly toward the little caravan. Sixgaunt gray wolves they were, a pack of brigands in the Arctic desert. 

Perhaps Marian, who rode on the last sled, saw them first. PerhapsAd-loo-at, the native, did. At any rate, before she could scream awarning to him he had slapped his reindeer on the back and the sled onwhich Marian rode shot forward so suddenly that she was nearly thrownfrom her seat. In driving in the north they do not travel single file, but each deer runs beside the sled of the one before it. The driverwho is to occupy the foremost position chooses the best trained deerand attaches two reins to his halter that he may guide him. Thedrivers who follow use but one rein. By jerking this they can causethe reindeer to go faster, but they have no power to guide him. Hesimply trots along in his place beside the other sled. 

Marian had thought this an admirable arrangement until now. It lefther free to admire the sharp triangles of deep purple and light yellowwhich lay away in the distance, a massive mountain range whose tops attimes smoked with the snow of an oncoming blizzard. Or, if she tiredof this, she might sit and dream of many things as they glided over thesnow. But now with a wolf-pack on their trail, with the nearest humanhabitation many miles away, with her reindeer doing his utmost to keepup with the racing lead-deer, that slender jerk-line with which shecould do so little seemed a fragile "life-line" in case of emergency. 

With wrinkled brow she watched the pack which now had made its way downthe hillside and was following in full cry on their trail. They werenot gaining; her heart was cheered by that. At least she did not thinkthey were, yet, yes, there was one, a giant wolf, a third larger thanhis fellows, outstripping the others. Now he appeared to be ten yardsahead of them, now twenty, now thirty. The rest were only holding thepace of the reindeer, but this one was gaining, there was no mistakingthat. She shivered at the thought. 

It was a perilous moment, and she felt so helpless. She longed to urgeher deer to go faster. She could not do that. He was keeping hisplace with difficulty. She could only sit and hope that somehow thewolf-leader would tire of the chase. 

Even now she was not sorry they had come, but it was unfortunate, shethought, that there were no rifles on their sleds. Ad-loo-at had takenwith him only an old-fashioned native lance, a sharp steel point setupon a long wooden handle. That was all the weapon they had and, footby foot, yard by yard, the gaunt, gray marauder was coming closer. Marian fancied she could hear the chop-chop of his frothing jaws. 

Then, suddenly came catastrophe. With the mad perversity of his kind, her sled deer, suddenly turning from his position beside the sled, whirled about in a wide, sweeping circle which threatened to overturnher sled and leave her alone, defenseless against the hungry pack. 

It was a terrible moment. Gripping the ropings of the sled with onehand, she tugged at the jerk-rein with the other. 

"It's no use, " she cried in despair; "I can't turn him. "

One glance down the trail turned her heart faint; her sled-deer was nowracing almost directly toward the oncoming pack, the gray leader not ahundred yards away. 

In desperation, she threw herself from the sled, and, grasping at somedwarf willows as she slid, attempted to check the career of the maddeer. Twice her grip was broken, but the third time it held; the deerwas brought round with a wrench which nearly dislocated her shoulder. 

And now the deer for the first time scented danger. With a wild snorthe turned to face the oncoming foe. A large deer with all his scragglyantlers might hold a single wolf at bay, but this deer's antlers hadbeen cut to mere stubs that he might travel more lightly. With suchweapons he must quickly come to grief. 

It was a tragic moment. Marian searched her brain for a plan. Flightwas now out of the question, yet defense seemed impossible; there wasnot a weapon on her sled. 

Suddenly her heart leaped for joy. The fight was to be taken from herhand. Ad-loo-at, with the faithful oversight which he exercised overthose entrusted to his care, having seen all that had happened hadwhirled his deer about, tied it to Lucile's sled and now came racingover the snow. He swung above his head the trusty native lance whichhad meant defeat to so many wild beasts in the days of long ago. 

But what was this? Instead of dashing right at the enemy, the Eskimoboy was coming straight for the reindeer and on the opposite side fromthat on which the wolf was approaching. 

"He doesn't see the leader, " Marian groaned. "He thinks the rest ofthe pack are all there are. "

But in another second she knew this to be untrue, for, stooping low, the boy appeared to go on all fours as he glided over the snow; he wasstalking the wolf even as the wolf was stalking the deer. 

Realizing that the wolf was planning to attack the deer and not her, Marian set herself to watch a spectacle such as she would seldomwitness in a lifetime. 

She had often seen the antics of the Eskimo and Chukche hunters as theyperformed in the cosgy (common workroom) during the long Arctic nights. She had seen them go through this gliding motion which Ad-loo-atpracticed now. She had seen them turn, leap in the air and kick ashigh as their heads with both feet, landing again on their feet with asmile. She had admired these feats, which no white boy could do, buthad thought them only a form of play. Now she was beginning to realizethat they were part of the training for just such emergencies as this. 

Now her eyes were on the wolf, and now on the boy. As the wolfapproached she cringed back to the very end of her jerk-line. She sawhis red tongue lolling, heard the chop-chop of his iron jaws and caughtthe wicked gleam of his eyes. 

The boy appeared to time his pace, for he came on more slowly. Thedeer, still facing the wolf, gave forth a wild snort of rage. Heappeared to be unconscious of the fact that he was as defenseless ashis driver. 

Now the wolf was but a few yards away. Suddenly, pausing, he sprangquickly to the right, to the left, then to the right again. Before thedeer could recover his bewildered senses, the wolf leaped full for hisside. 

But someone else leaped too. With a marvelous spring, the Eskimo boylanded full upon the reindeer's back. Coming face to face with thesurprised and enraged wolf, he poised his lance for the fatal thrust. But at that instant, with a bellow of fear, the deer bolted. 

In wild consternation Marian tugged at the skin-rope. In anothermoment she had the deer under control and turned to witness a battleroyal. The Eskimo had been thrown from the deer's back, but, agile asa cat, he had landed upon his feet and had turned to face the enemy. He was not a moment too soon, for with a snarl of fury the wolf wasupon him. 

For a fraction of a second the lance gleamed. Came a snarl, half ofrage, half of fear, as the wolf fell backward. But he was on his feetagain. It was to no purpose. All was over in an instant. Longpractice with the lance had given the boy power to baffle his enemy andsend the lance straight to the wild beast's heart. 

"Come, " Marian was startled by the sound of his voice at her side. Shehad managed to retain her hold on the jerk-rein. She now felt it beingtaken from her, knew that she was being lifted onto the sled and, thenext moment, sensed the cool breeze that fanned her cheek. They wereracing away to join Lucile and to continue their journey. 

As she looked back, she saw the cowardly pack snarling over the bonesof their fallen leader, and realizing that all danger was past, settleddown in her place with a sigh as she said:

"That--that was a very close one. "

"Too much close, " Ad-loo-at smiled back. "In north we must go--how yousay it--pre--pre--"

"Prepared, " supplemented Marian. "We'll never travel again withoutrifles. "

"Oh! yes. Mebby, " the boy smiled back. "Mebby all right. Mebby riflemiss fire. Him never miss fire. " He patted first his lance, then themuscles of his strong right arm. "Better prepared think mine. "

Marian smiled as the brown boy ran ahead to free his own deer andprepare to continue the journey. "Surely, " she thought, "physicalfitness is a great thing. The boy has paid us well for fighting hisbattles for him on Puget Sound. "

No further adventures befell them on their journey, but it was withthankful hearts that they saw the familiar outlines of the village atEast Cape. As the reindeer came to a stop they sprang from their sled, but Ad-loo-at made no move to follow them. "Me--I go back, " he saidgravely. "You safe--I no stay. "

"But you must rest--and eat, " remonstrated Lucile. "And the reindeers, they need rest. "

"Huh, " came the answer, with a shrug. "Better time to rest when allwork is done. Me young; reindeers young--we rest at camp. "

"But you must wait till I--I--well, there is something that I--thatyou--" Lucile fumbled for the right words. She sensed that the boy, for all his youth, had a grown-up way of looking at things. There wasthat talisman she had carried ever since that night he had left themthere on the island of Puget Sound--the three elk teeth set with jadeand an uncut diamond. "Don't let him go, Marian, till I come back. "

She darted into their igloo, to return an instant later, the odd jewelgleaming in her hand. At sight of it a smile spread over Ad-loo-at'sface. "Ch--k!" he chuckled. 

"You must take it back, " Lucile demanded. 

The boy threw back his head and laughed boisterously. "It is a charm, "he said. "Can one Chukche take back a charm? It will keep you--whatyou say?--safe, yes. Me, I have this. " He held up his lance. 

"But you must, " urged Marian in turn. 

"Must--hear you that, reindeer. Heya! let us go!" He waved his lancealoft in farewell. "Heya--mush!" he commanded, and the three reindeerbroke into the untiring stride that would soon carry them from sight. The two girls stood watching him till, with a last wave of his hand, hedisappeared around a hill. Then, alone again, they thought of Phi. 

"I wonder if he has gone on without us, " said Marian. 

"I wonder. No, there he is!" exclaimed Lucile. "He's coming down thehill to meet us. "

"Are--are we too late?" Lucile faltered as he reached their side. 

"About six hours, I should say, " Phi grinned. 

"Six hours?"

"His nibs, the old Chukche guide, left for Cape Prince of Wales and allsuburban points some six hours ago. Some one offered him more moneythan I did. I have a fancy it was your friend, the bearded miner whowanted my mail. "

"And--and you waited for us?"

"Naturally, since the guide left. "

"But you could have gone sooner?"

"Some three days, I'm told. "

"But you didn't?"

He smiled and shrugged his shoulders. 

Marian's head whirled. She was torn between conflicting emotions. Most of all, she felt terribly ashamed. Here was a boy she had notfully trusted, yet he had given up a chance to escape to freedom andhad waited for them. 

"I--I beg your pardon, " she said weakly. She sat down ratherunsteadily on the reindeer sled. 

"We couldn't help it, " she said presently. "They just wouldn't bringus back. Isn't there some other way?"

"I've thought of a possible one. I'll make a little try-out. Be backin an hour. "

Phi was off like a flash. A few minutes later the girls thought theyheard him calling old Rover, who had been left in his care. 

"Wonder what he wants of him?" said Lucile. 

"I don't know, " said Marian. "But I do know I'm powerful hungry. Let's go find something to eat. "

CHAPTER X

FINDING THE TRAIL

"I think we can go. " Phi smiled as he spoke. His hour for a try-outhad expired. He was back. 

"Can--can we cross the Straits?" Marian asked, breathless with emotion. 

"I think so. "

"How?"

"Got a new guide. I'll show you. Be ready in a half-hour. Bring yourpictures and a little food. Not much. Wear snowshoes. Ice isterribly piled up. "

He disappeared in the direction of his own igloo. 

Marian looked about the cozy deerskin home where were stored their fewbelongings, then gazed away at the masses of deep purple shadows thatstretched across the imprisoned ocean. For a moment courage failed her. 

"Perhaps, " she said to herself, "it would be better to try to winterhere. "

But even as she thought this, she caught a vision of that time when sheand her companion had been crowded out of a native village to shift forthemselves. Then, too, she thought of the possible starving-time inthe spring, after the white bear had gone north and before walrus wouldcome, or trading schooners. 

"No, " she said out loud, "no, we'd better try it. "

When the girls joined Phi on the edge of the ice-floe, they lookedabout for the guide but saw none. Only Rover barked them a welcome. 

"Where's the guide?" asked Lucile. 

"You'll see. C'm'on, " said the boy, leading the way. 

For a mile they traveled over the solid shore-ice. They then came to astretch of water, dark as midnight. At the edge of this was atwo-seated kiak. 

Phi motioned Lucile to a seat. Deftly, he paddled her across to theother side. It was with a sinking feeling that she felt herselfsilently carried toward the north by the gigantic ice-floe. 

Marian and the dog were quickly ferried over. Then, after drawing thekiak upon the ice, the boy turned directly north and began walkingrapidly. At times he broke into a run. 

"Have to make good time, " he explained as he snatched Marian's roll ofsketches from her hand. "Got to get the trail. "

They did make good time. Alternately running and walking, they kept upa pace of some six or seven miles an hour. 

"Why, I thought--thought we were going to go east, " puffed Marian. "We're just going down the beach. "

Phi did not answer. 

They had raced on for nearly an hour when they suddenly came upon akiak drawn up as theirs had been on the ice. 

"Ah! I thought so, " said the boy. "Now's the time for a guide. Here, Rover!"

He seized the dog by his collar and set him on the invisible trail ofthe men who had deserted that kiak. The dog walked slowly away, sniffing the ice as he went. His course was due east. The threefollowed him in silence. Presently his speed increased. He took on anair of confidence. With tail up, ears back, he sniffed the ice onlynow and then as he dashed over great, flat pans, then over littlemountains of broken ice, to emerge again upon flat surfaces. 

Marian understood, and her admiration for Phi grew. He had found thetrail of the men who had crossed the Straits before them. He had putRover on that trail. Rover could not fail to follow. The trail wasfresh, only seven hours old. Rover could have followed one as manydays old. 

"Good old Rover, " Marian murmured, "good old Rover, a white man's dog. "

All at once a question came to her mind. They had been obliged to goseveral miles north to pick up the trail. This was due to the movementof the floe. This movement still continued. It was carrying themstill farther to the north. The Diomede Islands, halfway station ofthe Straits, were small; they offered a goal only two or three miles inlength. If they were carried much farther north, would they not missthe islands?

She confided her fears to Phi. 

"I thought of that, " he smiled. "There is a little danger of that, butnot much, I guess. You see, I'll try to time our rate of travel, andfigure out as closely as I can when we have covered the eighteen milesthat should bring us even with the islands. Then, too, old Rover willbe losing the trail about that time. When that bearded friend of yoursand his guide leave the floe to go upon the solid shore ice of theislands, the floe is going to keep right on moving north. That breaksthe trail, see? When we strike the end of that trail we can go duesouth and hit the islands. If the air is at all clear, we can seethem. It's a clumsy arrangement, but better than going it without atrail. "

Marian did "see, " but this did not entirely still the wild beating ofher heart as she leaped a yawning chasm between giant up-ended cakes ofice, or felt her way cautiously across a strip of newly-formed ice thatbent under her weight as if it were made of rubber. 

It was with a strange, wild thrill that she realized they were far outover the conquered sea. Hundreds of feet below was the bed of BeringStraits. Above that bed a wild, swirling current of frigid salt waterraced. 

Once, as they were about to cross a stretch of new ice, Phi threwhimself flat and hacked a hole through the ice. Water bubbled up, while Marian caught the wild surging rush of the current. 

For a second her knees trembled, her face blanched. Phi saw and smiled. 

"Never fear, " he exclaimed; "we'll make it all right. And when you getback home you'll have a story to tell that will make Eliza's crossingon the ice seem like a picnic party crossing a trout stream onstepping-stones. "

It was not long after that, however, when even this daring boy's facesobered. Old Rover, who had been following the trail unhesitatingly, suddenly came to a halt. He turned to the right, sniffing the ice. Then he turned to the left. After that he looked up into the face ofthe boy, as if to say:

"Where's the trail gone?"

Phi examined the ice carefully. 

"Been a sudden jam here, " he muttered; "then the ice has slid along, some north, some south. It has all happened since our friends passedthis way. You just wait here. I'll take Rover to the north and lethim pick up the trail. When I find it, I'll come back far enough tocall to you. May be to the south, though, but we'll soon see. "

He disappeared around a giant ice-pile and, in a twinkling, was lost toview. 

The two girls, placing their burdens of food and Marian's sketches onan up-ended ice-cake, sat down to wait. They were growing weary. Thestrain of the adventure into this puzzling, unknown ice-field wastelling on their nerves. 

"I wish we were safe at Cape Prince of Wales, " sighed Marian. 

"Yes, or even East Cape, " said Lucile. "I think I'd be content to staythere and chance the year with the natives. "

"Anyway, Phi's doing his best, " said Marian. "Isn't he a strange one, though? Do you think he has the blue envelope?"

"I don't know. "

"Well, I think he has. "

"I don't know, " Lucile said sleepily. Fatigue and the keen Arctic airwere making her drowsy. 

Presently, she leaned back against an ice-cake and fell asleep. 

"I'll let her sleep, " Marian mused. "It'll give her strength for whatcomes next, whatever that is. "

An hour passed, but no call echoed across the silent white expanse. Marian, now pacing back and forth across a narrow ice-pan, now pausingto listen, felt her anxiety redoubled by every succeeding moment. Whatcould have happened to Phi? Had some mishap befallen him? Had a slipthrown him into some dangerous crevice? Had thin ice dropped him tosure death in the surging undercurrent? Or had he merely wandered toofar and lost his way?

Whatever may have happened, he did not return. 

At length, with patience exhausted, she climbed the highest ice-pileand gazed away to the north. The first glance brought forth a cry ofdismay. A narrow lane of dark water, stretching from east to west, extended as far as eye could see in each direction. It lay not aquarter of a mile from the spot where she stood. 

"He's across and can never recross to us, " she moaned in despair. "Nocreature could brave that undercurrent and live. And there is no otherway. "

Then, as the full terror of their situation flashed upon her, she sankdown in a heap and buried her face in her hands. 

They were two lone girls ten miles from any land, on the bosom of avast ice-floe, which was slowly but surely creeping toward the unknownnorthern sea. They had no chart, no compass, no trail to follow and noguide. To move seemed futile, yet to remain where they were meant suredisaster. 

As if to complete the tragedy of the whole situation, a snow-fogdrifted down upon them. Blotting out the black ribbon of water andevery ice-pile that was more than a stone's throw from them, it swepton to the south with a silence that was more appalling than had beenthe grinding scream of a tidal wave beneath the ice. 

"Lucile! Lucile!" she fairly screamed as she came down to the surfaceof the pan. "Lucile! Wake up! We are lost! He is lost!"

 * * * * * *

What had happened to the young college boy had been this: He hadhastened to the north in search of the trail. Rover, with nose closeto the ice, had searched diligently for the scent. For a long time hissearch had been unrewarded, but at last, with a joyous bark, he sprangaway across an ice-pan. 

The boy followed him far enough to make sure that he had truly foundthe trail, then, calling him back, turned to retrace his steps. 

Great was his consternation when he discovered the cleavage in thefloe. Hopefully he had at first gone east along the channel in searchof a possible passage. He found none. After racing for a mile, heturned and retraced his steps to the point where he had first come uponopen water. From there he hurried west along the channel. Anothertwenty minutes was wasted. No possible crossing-place could be found. 

He then sat down to think. He thought first of his companions. Thatthey were in a dire plight, he realized well. That they would be ableto devise any plan by which they could find their way to any shore, hedoubted; yet, as he thought of it, his own position seemed morecritical. The trail he had found would now be useless. He was northof the break in the floe. Land lay to the south of it. He had no wayto cross. In such circumstances, the dog with his keen sense of smell, and his compass with its unerring finger, were equally useless. 

"Nothing to do but wait, " he mumbled, so he sat down patiently to wait. 

And, as he waited, the snow-fog settled down over all. 

CHAPTER XI

"WITHOUT COMPASS OR GUIDE"

It was with a staggering sense of hopelessness that the two girls onthe bosom of the Arctic floe saw the snow-fog settle down. 

"It's likely to last for days, and by that time--" Marian's lipsrefused to frame the words that expressed their condition when thesnow-fog lifted. 

"By that time--" echoed Lucile. "But no, we must do something. Surely, there is some way!"

"Without compass or guide?" Marian smiled at the impossibility of therebeing a solution. 

Unconsciously, she had repeated the first line of an old song. Lucilesaid over the verse:

 "Without compass or guide. On the crest of the tide. Oh! Light of the stars, Pray pilot me home. "

Involuntarily, her glance stole skyward. Instantly an exclamationescaped her lips:

"Oh, Marian! We can see them! We can! We can!"

"What can we see?" asked Marian. 

"The stars!"

It was true. The snow-fog, though spread over the vast surface of theice, was shallow. The stars gleamed through it as if there were no fogat all. 

Wildly their hearts beat now with hope. 

"If we can locate the big dipper, " said Lucile, whose astronomicalresearch had been of a practical sort, "we can follow the line made bythe two stars at the lower edge of the dipper and find the North Star. All we have to do then is to let the North Star guide us home. "

This was quickly done. And in a short while they had mapped out acourse for themselves which would certainly come nearer bringing themto the desired haven than would the north-ward drift of the ice-floe. 

"But Phi?" exclaimed Lucile. 

Marian stood for a moment undecided. Should they leave this spotwithout him? She believed he would make a faithful attempt to rejointhem. What if they were gone when he came? Suddenly she laughed. 

"Rover!" she exclaimed. "He can follow our trail. If Phi comes, hewill have only to follow us. He can travel faster than we shall. Hemay catch up with us. "

So with many a backward glance at the gleaming North Star, the twogirls set their course south by east, a course which in time shouldbring them in the vicinity of the Diomede Islands. 

In their minds, however, were many questions. Would furthertide-cracks impede their progress? Would the snow-fog continue? If itdid, would they ever be able to locate the two tiny islands which were, after all, mere rocky pillars jutting from a sea of ice?

 * * * * * *

Phi did not sit long on the ice-pile under the snow-fog. He was bornfor action. Something must be done. Quickly he was on the run. 

As he rushed back over the way in which he had come, something caughthis eye. 

An immense ice-pan had been up-ended by the press of the drift. It hadtoppled half over and lodged across the edge of a smaller cake. Now, like an ancient drawbridge, it hung suspended over the black moat ofthe salt water channel. 

The boy's quick eye had detected a very slight movement downward. Ashe remembered it now, the cake had made a far more obtuse angle withthe surface of the pool a half-hour before than it did now. 

Was there hope in this? Hastily he arranged three bits of ice in onepile, then two in another. By dropping on his stomach and squintingacross these, he could just see the tip of the up-ended cake. If itwere in motion the tip would soon disappear. Eagerly he strained hiseyes for a few seconds. Then, in disgust, he closed his eyes. Thecake did not seem to move. 

For some time he lay there in deep thought. He was searching in hismind for a way out. 

After a while he opened his eyes. More from curiosity than hope, hesquinted once more along the line. Then, with a wild shout, he spranginto the air. The natural drawbridge was falling. Its point haddropped out of line. 

The shout died on his lips. His eyes had warned him that the channelof water was widening. If it widened too rapidly, if the drawbridgefell too slowly, or ceased to fall at all, hope would die. 

Moment by moment he measured the two distances with his eye. Rover, sitting by his side, now and again peered up into his eyes as if tosay: "What's it all about?"

Now the drawbridge took a sudden drop of a foot. Hope rose. Then, again, it appeared wedged solidly in place. It did not move. Thechannel widened a foot, two feet, three. Hope seemed vain. 

But now came a sudden tide tremor across the floe. With a crunchingsound the massive cake toppled and fell. 

The boy was on his feet in an instant. The chasm was bridged. But thecake had broken in two. Could he make it?

Calling to his dog, he leaped upon the slippery surface. Anever-widening river of water flowed where the cake had split. With onewild bound, he cleared it. The dog followed. In another moment theywere safe on the other side. 

"That's well over with, " the boy sighed, patting the old dog on thehead. "Now the question is, how can we find our friends?"

That, indeed, was a problem. They had covered considerable ground. The ice had been shifting. To pick up their back trail seemedimpossible. An hour's search convinced him that it could not be done. He sat down in a brown study. He could not go away and leave thesegirls to drift north and perish, yet further search seemed futile. 

Just as he was about to despair, Rover began to bark in the distance. Following the sound, he came to where the dog was apparently barking atnothing. But as the boy approached, the dog shot away over the ice. 

"A trail!" he muttered, following on. 

The ice was hard and smooth. A soft skin "muckluck" would leave nomark. Even the hard toes of a white bear would not scratch it. 

When the boy had followed for a half-hour, he thought of these things, and paused to consider. What if he were following the meandering trailof a lumbering white bear? And if it happened to be a trail of a humanbeing, was it his own trail, that of the girls, or of the bearded minerand his guide?

His compass would tell something. Studying his compass then, he walkedforward slowly. 

Fifteen minutes of this told him that this was no white bear's trail. It went too straight ahead for that. Neither could it be his owntrail, for he would have come to a sudden turn before this. One thingmore was certain: The person or persons who made this trail were headeddue south by east. They would, if they did not change their course, intime reach the vicinity of the Diomede Islands. Were they his friends, or the unfaithful guide and his party? This he could not tell. 

After a few moments' reflection he decided that there remained but onething for him to do: to follow this trail. 

"All right, old dog, " he said, "let's see where this ends, and who's atthe end. Might be an Eskimo hunter who has wandered far on theice-floe, for all I know; but he'll end up sometime. "

Moment by moment the scent of the trail they followed grew fresher. Hecould tell this by the old dog's growing eagerness. At every ice-pilethey rounded, he expected to catch sight of human figures. Would it betwo men or two girls? He could not tell. Not a chance footprint insoft snow had caught his eye. 

When he had fairly given up hope of overtaking them, as he speededaround a gigantic ice-pile he came at once in sight of those hefollowed. So overjoyed was he at sight of human beings that, beforedetermining their identity, he shouted cheerily:

"Hey, there!"

The figure nearest him wheeled in his track. Then, with the fiercegrowl of a beast, he sprang at the boy's throat. 

So taken by surprise was Phi that he made no defense. He caught avision of a pair of fiery eyes set in a mass of shaggy hair; the nextinstant he felt himself crashed to the hard surface of the ice. 

The advantage was all with the man. Larger, stronger, older, with thehandicap of the aggressor, he bade fare to finish his work quickly. 

The native guide had passed beyond the next ice-pile. Rover hadfollowed. 

But the boy's college days had not been for naught; he knew a trick ortwo. As if stunned by the fall, he relaxed and lay motionless. Seeingthis, the man took time to plant his knees on the boy's chest beforemoving his horny hands toward his throat. 

The next instant, as if thrown by a springboard, the man flew into theair. Phi sprang to his feet, his one thought of escape. Turning, hedashed around an ice-pile, then another and another. But fate was notwith him. Just at the moment when he felt that he could elude hispursuer, his foot struck a crevice in the ice, and he went sprawling. Again the wild terror was upon him. 

But this time there came tearing over the ice a new wild terror, andthis one his friend. Old Rover, silent and determined, sprang clean atthe man's throat. The assailant went down, striking out with hands andfeet, and roaring for mercy. 

Phi dragged the dog off. "Get!" he said. The man looked surly, butone look at the determined boy and the eager jaws of the dog set himslouching away. 

"You're some dog!" the boy laughed at the old leader. "Well, now, I'llsay you are!"

CHAPTER XII

"WHAT IS THAT?"

When the man had gone, Phi sat down upon an up-ended ice-cake to restand think. His logical course was evident enough; to wait for perhapshalf an hour, allowing the man, who would doubtless be able to overtakehis guide, to get a sufficient distance ahead to prevent any furtherunpleasant encounters. Still, he was glad now to have his rifle, smallas it was. He had brought only a few cartridges for it, as they werean added weight. These had been spilled from his pocket in thescuffle, but by a diligent search he was able to find five. He wasabout to abandon the search when, with an exclamation of astonishment, he sprang forward, and bending, picked up an envelope. 

"The blue envelope, " he exclaimed. "My blue envelope. He must be thebearded miner the girls told me about. It was lucky he tried toassassinate me after all. "

The envelope had been torn open, but the letter, though blurred withgrime and dirt, was still in it. With eager fingers he pulled it out. 

"Couldn't read our cipher, so he was going to Nome for help, I reckon, "he muttered. "All I've got to say is, it's lucky he lost it and Ifound it. "

He read the missive hastily, then a light of hope shone in his eye. 

"If only I can make it back to the American shore, " he exulted. "Rover, old boy, get back on your job. We're going to the islands. "

Hopefully he hurried forward. But they had tarried too long, for, nota hundred rods from their starting point, they came upon a broad, darkbreak in the floe, such a break as no draw-bridge of ice would everspan. 

"And, like the other, it's endless, " Phi groaned as his eye swept theline from left to right and from right to left again; then he sat downto think. 

A half hour before this Lucile had said to Marian: "Listen, I think Ihear a dog bark. "

They listened and the bark came to them very distinctly. 

"Is it Rover, or does it come from the island?" asked Lucile. 

"I can't tell, " whispered Marian. 

For some time they listened. When at last they prepared to resumetheir journey, Lucile glanced upward again. Then a cry ofconsternation escaped her lips; the fog had thickened; the stars werelost to them. They were again adrift on the trackless floe withoutcompass or guide. 

At the moment when Phi sat down to think, they were just coming insight of that same break in the floe, on the side of which he sat. They were not a mile apart, but the distance had as well been a hundredmiles as, in this labyrinth of ice-floes, no person finds another, and, as it turned out later, Phi took the trail to the left and they the oneto the right. 

Why the two girls chose to travel to the right along the break, theycould not have told, nor why they traveled at all, unless becausemotion quieted their nerves and served to allay their fears. Perhapsthere was something of Providence in it. Certainly it did bring them abit of good fortune. 

Lucile had rounded a gigantic ice-pile when suddenly she grippedMarian's arm. 

"What's this?" she exclaimed. 

A brown object lay some distance ahead of them. With bated breathsthey crept cautiously forward; it might be a white bear or walrus. 

Suddenly Marian threw up her head and laughed. "It's only a kiak. Some Eskimo has left it on the ice and the floe has carried it away. "

"May be a valuable find. Let's hurry, " exclaimed Lucile. 

Breaking into a run, they soon reached its side. 

"Let's explore it!" whispered Marian. "You take the forecastle andI'll take the after-cabin, " she laughed, as she thrust her arm into theopen space toward the stern of the kiak. 

"Why, there is something there!" she exclaimed. 

"Something here, too!" answered Lucile excitedly, as her slender whitehand tugged away at a bundle which had been thrust into the prow of theboat. 

"It's like going through your stocking Christmas morning!" laughedMarian, for the moment quite forgetting their dilemma in the excitementof discovery. 

Marian drew forth a large sealskin sack. It was heavy and was tiedtightly at the mouth. It gave forth a strange plop as she turned itover. 

"Some sort of liquid, " she announced. "Probably seal-oil. "

With difficulty she untied the strings and opened the sack. Thenquickly she pinched her nose. "Whew! What a smell!"

"Let's see, " said Lucile, dropping the bundle she had just draggedforth. "Yes, it's seal-oil. That's a good find. "

"Why? We can't use that stuff. It must be at least a year old androtten. Talk about limburger cheese! Whew!"

She quickly tied the sack up again. 

"Well, " said Lucile, "we probably won't want to use it for food, butwhite people as fine-blooded as we have been compelled to. It's betterthan starving. But I was thinking about a fire. If we ever find anyfuel where we're going--wherever that is--" she smiled a trifleuncertainly, "we'll need some oil to help start the fire if the fuel isdamp, as most driftwood is. "

"Driftwood? When do we go ashore?" laughed Marian. 

"It's well to be prepared for anything, " smiled Lucile. "Let's seewhat's in my prize package. "

Marian leaned forward eagerly while Lucile untied a leather thong. 

"Deerskins!" she cried exultantly. "Four of them! Enough for asleeping-bag! And wrapped in a sealskin square which will protect usfrom the damp. I believe, " she said thoughtfully, "that this nativemust have been planning a little trip up the coast, and if he was theremust be other useful things in our ark, for an Eskimo never venturesfar without being prepared for every emergency. "

Once more they bent over the kiak, each one to search her corner. 

"Another sack!" cried Lucile; "a hunting sack, with matches wrapped inoiled sealskin, a butcher knife, some skin-rope, a pair of boola ballswith the strings, a fish line with hook and sinker; two big needlesstuck in a bit of canvas. That's about all, but it's a lot. "

"I've found a little circular wooden box, " said Marian. "More food, Iguess; probably the kind you can't eat without gagging. No, " shecried, after a moment, "here's a big square of tea--the Russian kind, all pressed hard into a brick. There's enough for a dozen tea parties. Oh, joy! here are three pilot biscuits!"

"Pilot biscuits!" Lucile danced about on the ice. 

These large brown disks of hardtack, so often despised, would not havebeen half so welcome had they been solid gold. 

"Well, I guess that's about all, " but Marian smiled. "I'm hungryalready, but we daren't eat anything yet. We'll save these and eat thedeer meat first that we brought along. "

"We'll be pretty awful hungry, I am afraid, " said Lucile, "before weleave the ocean. But what worries me just now is a drink. Do yousuppose we could find an ice-pool of fresh water?"

A short search found them the desired pool, and each drank to herheart's content. They then sat down upon the top of the kiak for abrief consultation. After talking matters over they decided that thebest thing they could do was to remain by the kiak until the fogcleared. It was true that the kiak, carefully managed, would carrythem across the break in the floe, but, once across, they would be nobetter off than before, since they had no way of determiningdirections. Furthermore, neither of them had ever handled a kiak andthey knew all too well what a spill meant in that stinging water. 

"Guess we'd better stick right here, " said Marian, and Lucile agreed. 

"Now, " suggested Lucile, "we'll put your middy on a paddle and set itup as a sign of distress; then, since the ice isn't piling, I think wemight both sleep a little while. "

The flag was soon hoisted, and the girls, with the sealskin squarebeneath them, lay down under the deerskins and attempted to sleep. Butthe deerskins were not large enough to cover them, and kept slidingoff. They were chilled through and sleep was impossible. 

"Lucile, " said Marian at last, "I believe we could set the kiak up andbank it solidly into place, then creep into it and sleep there. "

"We might, " said Lucile doubtfully. 

The kiak was soon set, and, after many doublings and twistings, withmuch laughter they managed to slide down into it, and there, with twoof the deerskins for a mattress and two for covers, they at last fellasleep in one another's arms, as peacefully as children in atrundle-bed. 

"Oh, Marian, you're too--too chubby!" Lucile laughed, as she attemptedto struggle from the bean-pod-like bed, after they had slept for sometime. 

Their first glance at the break in the floe told them it had widenedrather than narrowed. A look skyward showed them that the fog too hadthickened. Lucile's brow wrinkled; her eyes were downcast. 

"Cheer up!" said Marian. "You can never tell what will happen. Thingschange rapidly in this Arctic world. We'd better explore our ice-floe, hadn't we? And don't you think we could eat a bit before we go?"

Cheered by the very thought of something to be done, Lucile munched herhalf of the pilot biscuit and bit of reindeer meat contentedly. 

Then, after they had seen to it that their white middy flag wasproperly fastened, for this must act as a guide back to camp, theyprepared to go exploring. 

Armed with the butcher knife, Lucile led the way. Marian carried thefishing tackle, and about her waist were wound the strings of the boolaball. 

"Quite some hunters, " laughed Marian. "Regular Robinson Crusoettes!"

Several wide circles of the camp revealed nothing but ice, thewhiteness of which was relieved here and there by spots of water, blackas night. 

"Might be fish in them, " suggested Marian. 

"Yes, but you couldn't catch them. You can only catch tomcod through ahole in the ice. "

They were becoming tired, and had spoken of turning back, when Marianwhispered:

"Down!"

She pulled her companion into the dark side of an ice-pile. 

A shadow had passed over the ice. Now it passed again, and Lucile, looking up, saw a small flock of ducks circling for a pool of water nottwenty yards away. 

"Wha--what's the idea?" she whispered. 

"Boola balls. Maybe we can catch one. They come from the north; noteasily scared. "

"Can you--"

"Yes, my brother showed me how to handle the boola balls. You whirlthem about your head a few times, then you let them go. If the stringstrikes a duck's neck, it winds all about it; then the duck can't fly. "

With eager fingers Marian straightened out the twelve feet ofdouble-strand leather thong. 

"There! There! They're down!" whispered Lucile. 

"You stay here. If they rise and fly away, call me. "

Creeping around two piles of ice, Marian threw herself flat and beganto crawl the remaining distance across a flat pan of ice. Her heartwas beating wildly, for in her veins there flowed a strain of thehunter's blood of her Briton ancestors of many generations back. 

Now she was forty feet away, now twenty, now ten, and the ducks had notflown. Stretching out the thong, she rose on an elbow and set theballs whirling over her head. Once, twice, three times, then up shesprang and with one more whirl sent the string singing through the air. 

The young ducks, craning their necks with curiosity, did not move untilsomething came crashing at them, and a wildly frantic girl sprangtoward them. 

To the duck about whose neck the string had encircled, this move wastoo late, for Marian was upon him. And a moment later, looking verymuch like the old woman who went to market, with a dead gray duckdangling from her right arm, Marian returned in triumph. 

"Oh, Lucile, " she cried, "I got him! I got him!"

"Fine! You shall have a medal, " said Lucile. 

"But how _will_ we cook him?"

"Well, " said Lucile, after a moment's thought, "it's growing colder;going to freeze hard. They say freezing meat is almost as good ascooking it. I don't know--"

"Look!" cried Marian suddenly, balancing herself at the crest of a highpile of ice. "What's all that black a little way over there to theleft? It's not like ice. Do you suppose it could be an island?"

"Is the ice piling there?" Lucile asked, clinging to her friend's side. "No, it isn't, so it can't be an island, for the island would stop theice as it flows and make it pile up. "

"But what can it be?"

"We can't go over there, for we can't see our flag from there. "

"Yes, we can, " said Marian. "I'll take off my petticoat and put it onthis ice-pile. We can see it from there, and when we get back here wecan see the flag. "

This new beacon was soon established. Then, with trembling and eagerfootsteps, the girls hastened to what appeared to be an oasis in adesert of ice. 

CHAPTER XIII

STRANGE DISCOVERIES

It was a strange sight that met the eyes of the two girls as theypaused halfway to the dark patch on the surface of the ice which loomedlike a giant's shadow in the snow-fog. With eager feet they dashed on, leaping narrow chasms and stumbling over ice barriers in their mad rush. 

The revelation which came as they rounded the last pile of ice was botha surprise and a disappointment. Great heaps of ashes, piles ofbottles and tin cans, frozen masses of garbage; junk of everydescription, from a rusty tin dipper to a discarded steel range, mettheir eyes. 

"It's a graveyard, " murmured Marian, "a graveyard of things peopledon't want. "

"That some people didn't want!" corrected the more practical Lucile. "Marian, we're rich!"

"Rich?" Marian stared. 

"Why, yes! Don't you see? There's an old clothes wringer; that's gota lot of wood in it. And there's an old paper bucket. That'll burn. There's a lot of things like that. It won't take any time at all toget enough wood to cook our duck!"

"A fire! A fire!" exclaimed Marian, jumping up and down in a wilddance. Then, seized with Lucile's spell of practical philosophy, shegrasped a rusty tin kettle. 

"We can cook it in this. There's a hole in it, but we can draw a clothinto that, and we can scour it up with ashes. "

The next few minutes echoed with glad exclamations: "Here's an oldfork!" "Here's half a sack of salt!" "Here are two rusty spoons!""Here's a broiler, " and so it went on. 

One would have believed they were in the greatest department store inthe land, with the privilege of carrying away anything that would fitin their kitchen and that suited their fancy. Truth was, they wererummaging over the city of Nome's vast garbage pile. That garbage pilehad been accumulated during the previous year, and was, at this time, several hundred miles from the city. During the long nine months ofwinter the water about Nome is frozen solid some two miles out to sea. All garbage and junk is hauled out upon the ice with dog-teams anddumped there. When spring comes the ice loosens from the shore, and, laden with its great cargo of unwanted things, carries it throughBering Straits to haunt the Arctic Ocean, perhaps for years to come. It is moved hither and yon until time and tide and many storms have atlast ground it into oblivion. 

The long Arctic twilight had begun to fall when the two girls, hungryand weary, but happily laden with many treasures which were to makelife more possible on their floating palace of ice, made their waytoward their camp. 

Besides scraps of wood enough for two or three small fires, and cookingutensils of various sorts, they had found salt, a part of a box ofpepper, and six cans of condensed milk which had doubtless been frozenseveral times but had never been opened. 

"We could live a week, " said Lucile exultantly, "even if we didn't haveanother bit of good luck. "

"Yes-s, " said Marian slowly, "but let's hope we don't have to; I'mafraid I'd get awful hungry. "

They dined that night, quite happily, on a third of their duck, soupmade of duck's broth and condensed milk, and half of a pilot biscuit. 

"Oh, Marian, " said Lucile, as she thought of sleep, "that kiak's socrowded when we sleep there. "

"Yes-s, " said Marian, thoughtfully, "it is. I wonder if we couldn'tmake a sleeping-bag?"

At once needles and some sinew thread found in the native's hunting bagwere gotten out, the four deerskins were spread out, two on the bottomand two on top, with the fur side inside, and they went to work with awill to fashion a rude sleeping-bag. 

Their fingers shook with the chill wind that swept across the ice andtheir eyelids drooped often in sleep, yet they persevered and at lastthe thing was complete. 

"Are you sure it won't be cold?" said Lucile, who had never slept in asleeping-bag. 

"Oh, no, I know it won't, " Marian assured her. "I've heard my fathertell of spreading his on the frozen ground when it was thirty belowzero, and sleeping snug as a 'possum in a hollow tree. "

"All right; let's try it, " and Lucile spread the bag on the sealskinsquare. 

After removing their skirts and rolling them up for pillows, togetherthey slid down into the soft, warm depths of their Arctic bed. 

"Um-m, " whispered Marian. 

"Um-m, " Lucile answered back. And the next moment they were both fastasleep. 

All through the night they slept there with the Great Dipper circlingaround the North Star above them, and with the ice-floe carrying them, who could tell where?

The two following days were spent in fruitless hunting for wild duckand in making trips to the rubbish pile. These trips netted nothing ofuse save armfuls of wood which helped to add a cheery tone to theircamp. Though the fog held on, the nights grew bitterly cold. Theywere glad enough to creep into their sleeping-bag as soon as it grewdark. There for hours they lay and talked of many things: Of the landto which the ice-floe might eventually bring them, the people who wouldbe living there, and the things they would have to eat. Then, again, they would talk of school days, and the glad, good times that nowseemed so far away. Of one subject they never spoke; never once didone wonder to the other what their families were doing in theirfar-away homes. They did not dare. It would have been like singing"Home Sweet Home" to the American soldiers on the fields of France. 

The second day's tramp to the rubbish pile brought them a greatsurprise. They were busily searching through the piles of cans for apossible one that had not been opened, when Lucile, happening to hear anoise behind her, looked up. The next instant, with a startledwhisper, which was almost a cry, "Marian! Quick!" she seized Marian bythe arm and dragged her around an ice-pile. 

"Wha--what is it?" whispered the startled Marian. 

"Bear!"

 * * * * * *

At this very moment, on another section of that same vast floe, Phi layflat on his stomach, his eye traveling the length of his rifle barrel. His brow was wrinkled. He moved uneasily, as a gambler moves who wouldrisk all on one throw of the dice but does not quite dare. 

He shook the benumbed fingers of his right hand, then gripped the rifleonce more. His forefinger was on the trigger. He had arrived at acrisis. He was half starved and freezing. For three days now he hadwandered over the vast expanse of ice-pans that covered the waters ofBering Straits. During that three days he had secured only two smallbirds, dovekies they were, birds who linger all winter in the Arctic. These he had shared with Rover. 

From the moment the snow-fog had settled down upon him and the break inthe ice-floe had blocked his way so effectively, he had wandered aboutwithout knowing where he was going. The ice-floe constantly drifting, first this way, then that, may have carried him east, west, north, south. Who could tell where? Who could guess his position on thesurface of the ocean at the present moment?

A brown seal was the cause of his excitement now. The seal, lyingasleep upon the ice-pan before him, must weigh something like seventypounds. This was meat enough to last him and his dog many days. 

He was not a good shot and knew it. He had wandered over the ice-floesof the ocean at times with a rifle under his arm, yet never before hadhe stalked a seal. Only the grimmest necessity could have induced himto do so now. There was something altogether too human in thosebobbing brown heads as they appeared above the water or lifted to gazeabout them on the ice. But now his need and the need of the dogdemanded prompt action. 

Two things made a perfect shot a necessity: The seal was sleepingbeside his hole; if he was not killed instantly he would drop into thehole and be lost to the hunter. And this was the last cartridge in therifle. The two birds had cost him four shots. The seal must besecured by his last one. There seemed a certain irony about a fatewhich would allow him to waste his ammunition on small birds, thenoffer him such a prize as this with only one shot to win. 

He knew well enough how to stalk a seal; he had watched the Eskimos doit many times. Lying flat on your stomach, you cautiously creepforward. Every moment or two you bob your head up and down inimitation of a seal awakened and looking about. If your seal is awake, since his eyesight is poor he will take you for a member of his ownspecies and will go back to sleep again. 

Knowing all this, Phi had dragged himself a hundred feet across theice, without disturbing the seal. Only fifty feet remained, yet to hisfeverish brain this seemed too great a distance. Seeing his sealbobbing his head, he bobbed in turn, then, when the seal had dozed offagain, continued his crawl. 

He had made another six yards when, with a sudden resolve, he slid therifle forward, lifted it to position, glanced steadily along itsbarrel, then pulled the trigger. 

There followed a metallic snap, then a splash, The rifle had missedfire; the seal had dropped into its pool. 

For a moment the boy lay there motionless, stunned by the realizationthat he was still without food and was now powerless to procure any. 

"Well, anyway it was luck for the seal, " he smiled uncertainly. "Itsure was his lucky day!"

Rising unsteadily, he put two fingers to his mouth and uttered a shrillwhistle. From behind a towering ice pile, Rover, gaunt and miserableyet unmistakably a white man's dog, and, by his bearing, a one timeleader of the team, came limping toward him. 

"Well, " the boy said, patting the dog, "it's hard luck, but we don'teat. It's harder for you than for me, for you are old and I'm young, but somehow--somehow, we'll have to manage. If only we knew. Ifonly--"

He stopped abruptly and his eyes opened wide. Off to the left of them, like a giant fist thrust through the fog, there had appeared the darkbulk of a granite cliff. 

"Land, Rover, land!" he muttered hoarsely. 

The next moment, utterly overcome with excitement, he sank weakly tothe surface of the ice-pan. 

"This won't do, " he said cheerily, after a brief period of rest. "Rover, old boy, we must be traveling. If the ice is crowding thatshore, which it must be from the feel of the wind, there's a chance forus yet. "

CHAPTER XIV

A LONESOME ISLAND

After fleeing from the great white bear, the two girls crouched behindthe ice pile with bated breath. Expecting at any moment to see thelong neck of the gigantic beast thrust around the corner of the icepile, they longed to flee, yet, not daring, remained crouching there. 

"Do you think he saw us?" Marian whispered. 

"No. He was snuffing around looking for something to eat. "

Marian shivered. 

Lucile worked her way about the ice-pile to a point where she could seethrough a crack between cakes, then she motioned Marian to join her. Together they watched the antics of the clumsy white bear. 

"My! Isn't it huge!" whispered Marian. 

For a time the bear amused himself by knocking rusty ten-gallongasoline cans about. At last, seeming to scent something, he begantearing up a particular garbage pile. Presently a huge rat ran out andwent scurrying away. There followed a lively chase which ended in aprolonged squeal. 

"He got him!" Marian shivered. 

The bear had moved out of their view. Cautiously, they turned and madetheir way from ice-pile to ice-pile, from the rubbish heap toward camp. 

"I hope he doesn't get our scent and follow us, " said Lucile. "Theydon't usually bother people much, though. "

In spite of her belief that the bear would not harm them, Lucile didnot sleep well that night. "You can never tell what a hungry bearmight do, " she kept saying over and over to herself. 

At last, late in the night, she fell asleep and slept soundly untilmorning. When finally she did awake, it was with the feeling thatsomehow something had changed. 

"Land! Land!" something seemed to be whispering to her. It could havebeen nothing short of intuition which gave her this suggestion. Theyhad been riding on the surface of a gigantic ice-floe. It was, perhaps, twenty miles wide by a hundred long. There was no sense ofmotion. So silent was its sweep, one might imagine oneself to be uponland; yet, as she crept quickly out of her sleeping-bag, she saw atonce that the motion of the floe was arrested and off to the right sheread the reason. A narrow stretch of rocky shore there cast back thefirst rays of the morning sun. 

"Marian! Marian!" she called excitedly. "Land! Land! An island!"

There could be no questioning this great good fortune. The oneremaining problem was to reach the shore of that island. They did notdare to abandon their kiak, sleeping-bag, and scanty supplies, for whocould tell them that this was not a small uninhabited island? They hadtraveled many miles with the ice-floe in some direction, perhaps manydirections. Who could say where they were now?

"The ice must be piling close to shore, " said Lucile, "but we must tryit. It's our only chance. "

After a hasty breakfast of tea and a last remaining bit of cold duck, they piled all their supplies and equipment into the kiak, then, bidding farewell to the humble ice-pan which had given them such a longride, they began dragging the kiak toward the island. 

This proved a long and tedious task, requiring all the skill andstrength they possessed, for the island, though scarcely four miles inlength, had appeared to be much closer than it really was. Theice-piles, too, grew rougher and more uneven as they advanced. Whenthey neared the shore, they found themselves in infinite peril, for theice was piling. Here a huge cake a hundred feet across and eight feetthick glided without a sound, up--up, into mid-air, at last to crumbleand fall; and here a mass of small cakes were thrown into convulsions. 

Pick their way as they might with greatest care, they were more thanonce in danger of being crushed by overhanging ice-pans, or of beingplunged into a dark pool of water. 

When, at length, in triumph, they dragged their kiak to a rocky shelfwell above the trembling ice, Marian, from sheer exhaustion, threwherself flat upon the rock and lay there motionless for some time. Lucile sat beside her absorbed in thought. 

At last Marian sat up. "Well, we're here, " she smiled, giving herblistered hands a woeful look. 

"Yes, " smiled Lucile, "we're here. Now where is 'here' and what's itlike?"

The two girls looked at one another solemnly for a full minute. Intheir larder was still a little tea, a pint bottle of weak duck soup, ahalf-can of much frozen condensed milk--and that was all. They were onan island of which as yet they knew nothing. Above them towered great, overhanging cliffs. Before them the giant ice-pans rose, crumbling andcreaking in mad turmoil. 

"Life is so strange, " said Lucile, at length; then energetically:"Let's make some soup of the things we have left. Then, if we can getup there, we'll explore our island. We'll have three or four hours ofdaylight left, and if there's anything for us to eat anywhere, thesooner we find it out the better. "

The climb to the top of the island, which they undertook an hour later, was scarcely less dangerous than had been the struggle to cross thetumbling ice-floe, for this island was little more than a giganticgranite bowlder rising for a distance of some five hundred feet out ofthe sea. 

They crept along a narrow shelf where a slip on some pebble might sendthem crashing to death in the tumbled mass of ice below. They scaledan all but perpendicular wall, to drag their sleeping-bag and the fewother belongings, which they had dared attempt to carry, after them bythe aid of a skin-rope. Then, after a few minutes' rest, they wouldrise to climb again. 

But at last, their efforts rewarded, they found themselves standing onthe edge of a snow-capped plateau. "Now, " said Lucile, "if there areany people living on the island, it won't be on top of it, but in somesheltered cranny down by the shore where they are away from thesweeping winds and where they can hunt and fish. "

"But think what they may be like!" said Marian. "They may be savageswho have never seen a white man. We don't even know whether we are ahundred miles from Bering Straits or five hundred. And neither of ushas ever been on an island in the Arctic Ocean!"

"That, " said Lucile, "has nothing to do with it. We're on one now. Wecan't very well go back to the ocean ice. We haven't any food. Wecouldn't hide on this little island if we wished to. So the best thingto do is to try to find the people, if there are any, and cast our lotwith them. I once heard a great bishop say that 'humanity iseverywhere very much the same. ' We've just got to believe that and goahead. "

Shouldering the sleeping-bag, and leaving to Marian the remainingseal-oil in the skin-sack, the butcher knife, and the fishing outfit, she marched steadily forward on a course which in time would enablethem to make the outer circle of the island. 

"See those piles of stones?" Lucile said fifteen minutes later. "Thosedid not just happen to be there. They were put there by men. See howcarefully they are piled. The piles look tall and slim. I have hearda sea captain say that the natives of this coast, in very early days, when there was warring among tribes, piled stones on high points likethis to make those who desired to attack them think they were men, andthat there were many warriors in the place. "

"Then, " said Marian, catching her breath at the thought, "there must bepeople on this island. "

"Not for sure, " said Lucile. "The people who piled up those rocksmight merely have been living here temporarily, using this island as ahunting station; and then, even if they were living here permanently, famine and contagious diseases may have killed all of them off. "

They trudged on again in silence. Everywhere the rocky rim of theisland frowned up at them, offering no suggestion of a path down to thefoot, or of a rocky shelf below where a group of hunters might build avillage. 

"There's a place somewhere, " said Lucile stoutly, as she lowered herburden to the snow and paused for a brief rest. "There's a path downand we must find it, if it's nothing more than to find a safe spot bythe sea where we can fish for smelt, tomcod and flounders. "

Dusk was falling when, at length, with a little cry of joy, Lucilesprang forward, then began a cautious descent over a winding andapparently well-worn trail which even the snow did not completelyconceal. 

With hearts beating wildly, in utter silence they made their way down, down the winding way--to what? That, they could not tell. 

Finally Lucile paused. She caught her breath quickly and clutched ather throat. 

At length, in a calmer moment, she pointed down and to the right of thetrail. 

"See that square of white?"

Marian strained her eyes to peer through the gathering darkness. 

"Yes, " she said at last, "I see it. "

"That, " said Lucile in a tone that was tense with emotion, "is the roofof a house--a white man's house!"

"Wha--what makes you think so?" gasped Marian. 

"There's nothing as square as that in nature's panorama. And a nativedoes not build a house like that. "

"And if it is?"

"If it is, we must trust ourselves to their care, though I'd almostrather they were natives. " She closed her eyes and saw again therough, unkempt white men, beach combers, who lived by trading, huntingand whaling with the natives. They were a hard, bad lot, and she knewit. 

"Well, " she sighed, "come on. Let's go down. "

Down they went, each turn of the path bringing them closer to themysterious house. 

"There's no light, " said Lucile at last. 

"There are no tracks in the snow, " added Marian, a moment later. 

"It's boarded up, " said Lucile, as they came closer. It would havebeen hard to judge whether there was more of relief or ofdisappointment in the tone in which she said this. 

They stood there staring at the house. It was a nice house, a bungalowsuch as one might desire for a summer home in the mountains or at theseashore. 

"Who do you suppose brought all that fine lumber up here and built thathouse?" said Lucile. 

"I wonder who, " echoed Marian. 

They took a turn about it. All the windows had been boarded up withrough lumber. There were two doors. These were fastened with padlockand chain. An examination of the locks showed that keys had not beenused in them for months. 

Lucile's eyes were caught by poles and some platforms to the right, along the rocky shore. She walked in that direction. 

"Marian, come here!" she cried presently. Marian came running. "Look!Here's a whole native village! They've built their homes out of rocks. See! It's like tunneling into the side of the mountain. Must be homesfor a hundred people!"

"And not a soul here! How strange!"

"Not even a dog!" Lucile's own voice sounded strangely hollow to her, as if echoed by the walls of a tomb. 

CHAPTER XV

TWO RED RIDING HOODS

Before Phi struck out for the unknown land which had so suddenly thrustitself into his line of vision, he paused to ask himself the questionwhether he had come upon some island or a point on the mainland. Finding himself unable to answer the question, he at once set plans forreaching that land. 

The rifle, now a useless incumbrance, he left leaning against anup-ended cake of ice. That shore, if not lifted high by a mirage, wasat least ten miles away. And ten miles to a boy and dog who haveappeased their hunger for three days with two small birds, is no meandistance. 

Bravely they struck out. Now they crossed a broad, level pan and nowclimbed a gigantic pile of bowlder-like fragments that rolled andslipped at their every move, threatening to send them crashing to thesurface of the ice-pans or to submerge them in the deep, open pool ofstinging water that lay at its base. 

Exercising every precaution, the boy made his way slowly forward. Morethan once he paused to wait for the dog, time after time lifting himover a dangerous crevice or assisting him in climbing a particularlydifficult barrier. 

"I know you'd help me if you could, " he said with a smile as hemoistened his cracked lips, "so if we go down, we go together. "

Time after time, dizzy-headed and faint, he sat down to rest, only torise after a moment and struggle on again. At times, too, he wasobliged to shake himself free from the spells of drowsiness which thechill wind and brisk Arctic air threw over him. 

"We--we'll make it, old boy. We--we'll make it, " he repeated over andover. 

Little by little the landscape broadened before them. The bit ofrugged shore line which lay there like a vision might be a point ofland on the continent of North America or of Asia. Then again it mightbe the side of an island. Phi thought of this in a vague sort of way. His chief desire to put foot once more on something that did not driftwith wind and tide, he bent every effort to making the goal. 

At last, after what seemed days of struggle, he stood within a quarterof a mile of the shore. 

The ice was piling on that shore, a scene of disordered grandeur beyonddescription. It was as if the streets of a city, six or eight feet inthickness and solid as marble, should suddenly begin to rise, tobuckle, to glide length upon length in wild confusion. For some timethe boy and the dog stood upon the last broad pan that did not pileand, lost in speechless wonder, viewed that marvel of nature with theeyes of unconcerned spectators. 

At last the boy shook himself free from the charm. "Rover, " there wasawe in his tone, "do you know what we must do? We must cross that andreach that shore before the wind shifts or we are lost. "

As if understanding his meaning, the dog lifted his nose in air andsong, the dismal song known only to the sled dog of the Arctic. 

"Well--here goes!"

Phi scrambled to the surface of a gliding cake, then, having racedacross its surface, leaped a narrow chasm, to race on again. Such anobstacle race had never before been entered into by a boy and a dog. Rover, seeming to have regained some of the spirit of his younger days, followed well. Once, with a dismal howl, he fell into a crevice, butbefore an ice-pan could rear up and crush him, a strong arm dragged himfree. 

They had made two-thirds of the distance when, on a broad pan thatshuddered as if torn by an earthquake, Phi paused. One glance at therocky coast brought a sharp exclamation to his lips. 

"It's like the wall of a prison, " he muttered; "straight up. 

"No, " he whispered a moment later, "there's a bare chance--that rockyshelf. But it's fifteen feet above the ice, and how's one to reach it?There may be a way. One can but try. "

They were off again. Each fresh escape brought them face to face withnew and more startling dangers. Here they were lifted in air, to leapaway just in time from a crash. Here they crossed a pile of crushedand slivered fragments only to face a dark and yawning pool of saltwater waiting to sting them into insensibility. But always there was away out. Each moment brought them closer to the frowning wall. 

A last, close-up survey told the boy that there was no path, noslanting incline, no rugged steps to the shelf above. But from theshelf upward there appeared to be a possible ascent. 

At that moment he saw something that made him catch his breath hard. Agigantic ice-pan, measuring hundreds of feet from side to side, hadbegun to glide upward over a mass of broken fragments toward that cliff. 

"It will go as high as the shelf if it hasn't too many seams, " he saidaloud. "It may go up. And it may crash. But it's our only chance. "

He looked at the dog. That the old fellow could make this periloustrip, could mount himself on the very edge of a giant, tilting cake ofice and ride up--up--up, inch by inch and foot by foot, to pause therea breathless distance in mid-air and then at the one critical second, leap to safety on the rocky shelf, the boy did not dream for a moment. Yet he had no thought of leaving Rover behind. 

"Come on, " he said quietly, "we'll make it somehow, or we'll go downtogether. "

Mounting the tilting monster, they stationed themselves at its veryedge and stood there motionless, a boy and a dog in the very midst ofone of nature's most stupendous demonstrations of power. 

A long minute passed--two--three. They were now ten feet in air; theshelf, a yawning distance still before them, appeared to frown downupon them. To the right of them an ice-pan half the size of the one onwhich they rode, having come within some ten feet of the wall, brokeand crumpled down with a crash. 

Still their cake glided on. Now they were fifteen feet from the shelf, now ten. A running jump for the boy would land him safely on theledge. But there was the dog. There came a creaking grind, asnapping, crashing sound, then silence. The pan had broken in two. Half of it had broken off under the strain. The part on which theyrode still stood firm. They were now twenty feet in air. A dark poolof water lay beneath them. The boy gave one glance at the blue heavensand the blinking stars; then, stooping, he picked up the dog and heldhim in his arms. He stood there like a statue, a magnificent symbol ofcalm in the midst of all this confusion. 

With the ice still gliding upward, holding his breath, as if in fearthat the very force of it might send the hundreds of tons crashing tothe abyss below. Phi waited the closing of the gap. 

Eight feet, seven, six, five, four. 

"Now!" he breathed. 

His right foot lifted, his left stiffened, his body shot forward. 

The next moment there was a sickening crash--the ice-pan had broken ina thousand pieces. But the boy and the dog, saved by a timely leap, lay prone upon the surface of the rocky cliff. 

For some time the boy lay sprawled upon the rocky ledge motionless. This last supreme effort had drawn out his last reserve of nervousenergy. Amid the shrill scream of grinding ice rising from the tossingmass below, he lay as one whose ears are closed forever to sound. 

The dog, with ears dropping, eyes intent, lay watching him. At lasthis tail wagged gently to and fro--there had been a flutter of motionin the boy's right hand. Meekly the dog crawled forward to lick theglove that covered that hand with his rough tongue. At that the boyraised himself to a sitting position, and, rubbing his eyes, staredabout him. 

"Rover, old boy, " he drawled at last, "that was what you might call aclose squeak. "

The dog rose and wagged his tail. 

"Rover, " the boy said solemnly, "I took a long chance for you justthen. Why did I do it? If you'd been the leader of my team forseveral winters before old age overtook you; if you'd maybe pulled meout of some blizzard where I'd have frozen to death if it hadn't beenfor your keen sense of smell, which enabled you to follow the trail, there'd have been some sense to it. But you weren't and you didn't;you're only a poor, old, heroic specimen someone has played traitor toand deserted in old age. Well, that's enough of that; we're on landnow. What land is it? What are the people like? When do we eat?That last question is most important for the moment. What say we tryscaling the cliff and then look about a bit?"

The dog barked his approval. Together they began scaling the cliff, which at times appeared to confront them as an unsurmountable barrierand at others offered a gently rising slope of shale and rock. 

 * * * * * *

When Lucile and Marian had made sure that there were no people in thedeserted native village, they returned to the mysterious bungalow. 

"We've got to get in there, " said Marian, "don't matter whose it is. "

Searching about, she found a stout pole. With this she pried off aboard from a window, then another and another. 

"Give me a lift, " she said, raising one foot from the ground. 

Once boosted up she found that the window was not locked. The sashwent up with a surprising bang, and the next instant she was inside andassisting Lucile to enter. 

The place had a hollow sound. "Like an old, empty church, " said Marian. 

Lucile scratched a match. They were in a large room which wasabsolutely empty. A hasty exploration of the three remaining rooms, which were much smaller, revealed the same state of affairs. 

"Now what, " said Lucile, knitting her brows in deep thought, "do youthink of that?"

"Anyway, it's dry, and not too cold, " said Marian. 

"But it's empty, and I'm hungry. Say!" she exclaimed quickly, "youbring in our things; I'll be back. "

She bounded out of the window and hurried away toward the nativevillage, which lay silent in the moonlight. 

Marian had succeeded in dragging their sleeping-bag and otherbelongings through the window and was there waiting when Lucile calledfrom outside:

"Here, take this!"

"How heavy!" exclaimed Marian. And a moment later, upon receiving thesecond object, "How cold!"

"The first, " said Lucile, "is a flat, native seal-oil lamp. We canburn our seal-oil in it. I have a handful of moss in my pocket tostring along the side for wick. It'll make it more cheery and it'llseem warmer. The other, " she went on, "is a frozen whitefish; found iton one of the caches. Guess the natives won't miss it if they comeback. "

"If they do. But where are they?" asked Marian in a puzzled tone ofvoice. 

"Dead, perhaps. Let's eat, " she added abruptly, as Marian shivered. 

"But, Lucile, we can't cook the fish. "

"Don't have to. Frozen fish is good raw if it's frozen hard enough. I've tried it before. You just shave it off thin like chipped driedbeef and gulp it right down before it tastes too fishy. "

Marian did not think she would like it, but she found it not half bad. 

When they had dined, and had sat by the yellow glow of their seal-oillamp for a time, they took a good long look at the moon as it shone outover the shimmering whiteness of the sea. 

"That, " said Marian impressively, "is the same moon that is shining onall our friends wherever they are to-night. "

The thought gave them a deal of comfort. 

When, in time, their sleeping-bag was spread out on the floor, and theyhad snuggled comfortably down into its soft depths and were ready to gooff into the land of dreams, with their seal-oil lamp still flickeringin one corner, Marian said with a laugh: "Snug as two little Red RidingHoods. "

"Yes, but if the big bear comes home?" murmured Lucile. 

"He won't, " said Marian with conviction. But the next moment her faithwas shattered. There came a sound from without, and the next instantsome heavy object banged against the door. 

"What was that?" both exclaimed at once in hoarse whispers. 

CHAPTER XVI

A FORTUNATE DISCOVERY

As Phi and his dog reached the top of the cliff and were about to stepupon the uneven, snow-covered tableland which lay before them, theboy's eyes chanced to light upon a strange looking brown mass which layon the rock beneath the shelter of a projecting ledge. 

"What do you suppose that is?" he said to the dog, at the same timestepping aside to examine it. "It's a net, " he commented. "Too finefor a fish net--must be a bird net. That'd be good luck for us if itwere summer. Place must be alive with birds then from the looks of allthe deserted nests, but now--now you're no good to us. " He kicked thenet contemptuously. "Tell us one thing though, " he confided to Rover;"there are people on this island, or at least have been. Natives ofsome kind, they must be, for no white man would have the patience tomake a net of sealskin as fine as that. Question is, were they justcamping here to gather eggs or do they live here? If they live here, what kind of people are they? Well, anyway, let's go see. "

Wearily he dragged his tired limbs up a gentle slope. Wearily the olddog followed on. 

But as they reached the crest the dog became suddenly alert. His earscocked up, his legs stiff, he sniffed the air. 

"What's that, old fellow? Birds? You've a bit of bird dog blood inyou. Lots of leaders have, but I guess you're mistaken. Not birdsthis late in the year. "

He moved forward a few feet, then his mouth flew open, but no soundcame out. Had he seen a white streak flit across the snow? He had. There was another and another. 

Slowly he backed away. Followed reluctantly by the dog, he retreatedto the rocky shelf where lay the net. 

"We may be able to use you yet, " he remarked as he picked up an end ofthe net. "If you're not too rotten, you'll serve us a good turn. There are ptarmigan out there. Don't know how many, but enough if wecatch them. Ptarmigan are good too, " he smiled at the dog, "good asquail and about as plump. Boy, Oh, boy! won't we feast though if onlywe can catch them? But, " he sobered suddenly, "how I'm going to dropboth ends of this net at just the right moment is more than I can tell. "

The net proved to be in serviceable condition. It was some ten yardsby three wide and was of a finely woven mesh. Two ten-foot poles layfarther back under the ledge. One of these was quickly attached to anend of the net, then the net wound upon it. The second stake wasfastened to the remaining loose end. 

Carrying the net to a level stretch at the top of a ridge, he unrolledit, then for a full five minutes stood studying it. At last he turnedthoughtfully to the right and strolled along the net. Suddenlysomething caught his foot and he sprawled upon the ground. 

Rising, he looked at the thing that had tripped him. Then a light ofjoy spread over his face. 

"Creeping willows!" he exclaimed. "The very thing!"

He spent the next three minutes pulling at long strands of creepingwillows. When he had found two long, strong ones, he left them stillfast to earth at one end and went for his net. One pole he set on endand proceeded to fasten it there by the aid of the creeping willows, guying it to right and left, as a flag-pole is often braced. He thenran out the length of his net and, having pulled it tight, with theother pole perpendicular, he gave this pole a sudden pull and twist, then threw it to the ground. The net went flat. 

"Capital!" he cried. "That will do it. "

Having reset his net he took a long, circular route; he came up at lasta hundred yards from his fence-like net. The dog had followed meeklyat his heels, but now, seeming to sense what was needed, he beganrocking back and forth, first to the right, then to the left. Now andthen a white spot rose a foot or two above the snow to soar forward. The boy's eyes snapped. Here was sport that meant life to him and tohis dog if they won. 

Now they neared the net. His heart beat fast. Suppose the birdsshould rise and soar away? Then all this work would be lost. But theystill ran or fluttered forward. 

"Must be eight or ten of them, " was his mental comment. 

Now they were nearing the net. Veering swiftly to one side, the boyraced to the reclining pole. Lifting it lightly he drew the net toposition. So white were the birds that he could scarcely distinguishthem from the snow. But, suddenly, he caught a faint shock. A bird inlow flight had struck the net. With wildly beating heart, he threw thenet to the snow, then went racing down its length. 

"One, " he exclaimed, fairly beside himself, "two, three, four. " Eachtime he named the count he had drawn a bird from the meshes. At lasthe was to the end and sank down exhausted. The dog was at his side. 

"Rover, old top, " he murmured, "four of em; four beauties! We eat, oldtop! We eat!"

The dog's eyes rolled hungrily, but he did not offer to touch the birds. 

With eager, trembling fingers the boy tore the feathers from two of thebirds, then tossed to the dog the wings, legs and back, reserving forhimself the dark, rich meat of the breasts, a food fit for a king'stable. He cut this off in thin strips and spread it upon a hard-packedbank of snow. The thermometer must stand at ten below. The thinstrips would soon be frozen solid. They would then be almost aspalatable as if they had been cooked. 

With a meal in sight, he found his mind becoming more composed. Histhoughts wandered back to the question of the nature of the land he haddiscovered. 

Little knowing what lay just before him, he munched the frozen stripsof flesh; then, strengthened and enheartened, he began making plans fora night on the newly discovered land. 

A freezing wind swept across the plateau. He must find shelter fromthis if he was to secure the sleep his tired form demanded. After asearch, he found a rocky crevice which, by the aid of some squares ofsnow cut from a near-by bank, he converted into a three-sided house, with the open side away from the wind. From the sheltered sides of thegreat rocks that lay tumbled about here and there, he gathered moss bythe armful and carrying it to his house, made a thick soft bed forhimself and the dog. 

His next thought was of a fire. He had no desire to eat more raw meat, besides he was not unmindful of the cheering influence of even a tinyblaze. The ground was everywhere over-run with creeping willows. These he clipped off with his hunting knife and tied in bundles. Somewere dry and dead. These he kept in a separate bundle. When he had anarmload, he carried them to a spot near the door of the house. 

He had no matches, but this did not trouble him. Cutting off a foot ofa pole used with the net, he split it in two pieces. One of thesehalves he split again and from these smaller pieces he formed the bowand drill of an Eskimo bow-drill. With a tough creeping willow runnerfor a string to his bow, with dry moss for tinder, he soon had, first asmoke, then a blaze. Not long after this, he was turning a carefullypicked and cleaned fowl over a cheerful flame. 

Having broiled this to a turn, he shared it with the dog, then lay downto sleep. Before the sweet oblivion of sleep quieted his achingmuscles, the old haunting questions came back to him, "What land? Whatpeople?" There were but two questions now; the third had beentemporarily solved; they still had a bird for breakfast, and that therewere others to be caught he did not doubt. 

CHAPTER XVII

OUT OF THE NIGHT

After Marian and Lucile had heard the crash against the door of theboarded-up house, and had stilled their wildly beating hearts, theydragged themselves halfway out of their sleeping-bags and sat up. 

"What was it?" Marian repeated. Her teeth were chattering so she couldhardly whisper. 

"It saw the light from the seal-oil lamp, " Lucile whispered. A coldchill ran up her back. "Sh! Listen!"

It was a tense moment. A dead silence hovered over the room. Had theyheard a sound as of low moaning or whining, or was it the wind?

"Marian, " whispered Lucile, "what sort of a sound does a polar bearmake?"

"I don't know, " Marian shivered. 

"Whatever it is, we're not going to open that door. "

"I--I don't know. " The moan came distinctly now, and a scratchingsound. "Perhaps we ought. Perhaps--perhaps it is some one in trouble. "

Lucile was silent; she had not thought of that. 

For five minutes they sat there listening. Not a word passed betweenthem. Now and again there came that awful, low moan and thescratching. Save for the dismal wail of the wind that had arisen andwas singing about the corners of the house there was no other sound. The seal-oil lamp in the corner flickered constantly, sending a weirdyellow light dancing from floor to ceiling. 

"Lucile, " said Marian at last, "I can't stand it any longer. If it'ssomeone in distress, they'll surely freeze, and then we could neverforgive ourselves. The chain will let the door open a crack. If it'sa bear, or a wolf, or a wild dog, he can't break the chain. If it'ssomeone, whoever he is, even if he's drunk, we ought to help him. "

Lucile shivered, but she arose and, fumbling about, found the butcherknife. 

"I'll stand by with the knife. " She followed Marian, as they tiptoedtoward the door. 

The moon was shining brightly through the window. Whatever was at thedoor, they would be able to see it once the door was open a crack. 

"Now! Ready!" whispered Marian, as she grasped the doorknob and turnedit. 

With a wildly beating heart Lucile waited at her side. 

But the door did not open. "It's stuck, " whispered Marian. "I--Iguess you'll have to help me. "

Reluctantly laying down the knife, Lucile put both hands over Marian'sand exerted all her strength in a pull. 

The next instant the door gave way, but instead of being permanentlyheld by the chain, it was only momentarily checked by it, then flewwide open, sending both girls crashing to the floor. The rusty staplehad broken. 

Too frightened to breathe they scrambled to their feet. Lucile fumbledabout for the knife. Marian seized the door to close it. Then in onebreath they exclaimed, "Why, it's only an Eskimo boy!"

It was true. Before them on the snow, peering white-faced at them, wasa native boy, probably not over ten years old. 

He dragged himself to a sitting position, then attempted to rise. Atthis he failed, and fell over again. 

"He must be injured, " said Marian. 

"Or starved, " answered Lucile. 

It was plain that the boy was at this time quite as much frightened ashad been the girls a moment before. 

"We must get him inside and find out if he is hurt, " said Lucile, bending over and grasping the boy by the shoulder. As she did this heuttered a low moan of fear and shrank back. 

Disregarding this, the two girls lifted him gently, and, carrying himinside, set him on their sleeping-bag with the wall of the room as aprop to his back. 

"I believe his foot's hurt, " said Lucile suddenly. "See how hisskin-boot is torn!"

To cut away the boot, which was stiff and frozen, was a delicate task. When this and the deerskin sock had been removed, they saw that thefoot had indeed been badly crushed. The deerskin sock had prevented itfrom freezing. 

By carefully pressing and working it this way and that, Luciledetermined that there were probably no bones broken. It, however, wasswelling rapidly. 

"We must bandage it at once, " said Lucile. 

"With what?"

Lucile's answer was to tear a six-inch strip from the bottom of herunderskirt. The wound was then tightly and skillfully bandaged. 

"Next thing's something to eat, " said Lucile, rising. "You stay hereand I'll see what I can find to cook something in. "

She soon returned with a huge brass teakettle of the Russian type. Into this she put snow, and hung it over the seal-oil lamp. Soon a bitof fish was boiling. 

"Better warm stuff at first, " she explained, "He must be nearly frozen. "

All this time the boy, with his look of fear gone, sat staring at them, his big brown eyes full of wonder. 

"I'd like to know where he came from and how it is that he's alone, "said Marian. 

"So would I, " said Lucile. "Well, anyway, we'll have to do the best wecan for him. You know what it says somewhere about 'entertainingangels. '"

"Yes, and that reminds me. He must have a place to sleep. I'll go seewhat I can find. "

She returned presently with an arm-load of deerskins. 

"There's everything out there, " she smiled, nodding toward the nativevillage; "just as if they were gone overnight and would be back in themorning. "

"I wonder, " said Marian, with a little thrill, "if they will. "

An hour later, with a pole propped solidly against the door, with theboy slumbering soundly in the opposite corner, and the seal-oil lampflickering low, the girls once more gave themselves over to sleep. 

When they awoke, they found the cabin encircled by a howling whirlwindof snow, one of those wild storms that come up so suddenly in Arcticseas and as suddenly subside. 

The frozen fish, which was a large one, sufficed for both breakfast anddinner for the three of them. The boy, a bright little fellow, withthe ruddy brown cheeks of an Italian peasant boy, but with the slightsquint of eyes and flatness of nose peculiar to these natives of theNorth, watched every move they made with great interest. 

They tried from time to time, to talk to him, but he did not, apparently, know a word of English, and even to the few words of Eskimothey knew he gave no response. 

"Oh, Lucile!" Marian exclaimed at last. "Are we in Russia or America?Who is this boy? Where are his people?"

Lucile did not reply. She was too deeply perplexed for words. But theboy, seeming to have caught something of the purport of Marian's words, tore a splinter from the board wall of the cabin, and, having held itin the blaze of the seal-oil lamp until it was charred, began to drawon the floor. 

First he drew a large circle, then a small one. Next, on the largecircle he drew lines to represent men, as children often do, a straightline for the back and one each for an arm and a leg, with a circle fora head. When he had drawn many of these, he drew a square within thesmaller circle, and within the square drew two characters to representpersons. He next drew, between the two circles, many irregularfigures. In the midst of this mass of irregular figures he drew acharacter for a person. 

He made a motion with his hand to indicate that the irregular figuresbetween the circles were in motion. Next he made a motion with hischarcoal pencil to indicate that the lone person was moving across theirregular figures between the circles. This motion was halting, as ifthe person, many times, stumbled and fell. The course of the charcoalat last reached the edge of the square, and there it drew the recliningfigure of a person. 

Lucile had watched every move intently. 

"Do you see what he is telling us?" she cried excitedly. "It is theold native way of telling stories by drawings. He has said, by the twocircles, that there are two islands, one large, one small. On thelarge one are many people--his people--on the small one, a house--thehouse we are in. Between the two islands there is floeing ice. Afigure is attempting to cross the ice. He is that one. He falls manytimes, but at last reaches the island and this house. "

"And, " said Marian, "probably the people, many of them, live on thisisland. They were probably over there when the ice came. They did notdare to attempt to cross. When the floe is steady and solid, as itwill be after this storm, then they will cross. And then--" she paused. 

"Yes, and then?" said Lucile, huskily. 

With the setting of the sun, the wind fell. The snow-fog drifted awayand the moon came out. Lucile crept out of the cabin and went insearch of some new form of food. She found the spare-ribs of a sealhanging over a pole on one of the caches. It seemed fairly fresh, andwhen a piece was set simmering over the seal-oil lamp it gave forth anappetizing odor. 

The two girls stood by the window as the food cooked. They werelooking out over the sea, which was now a solid mass of ice. 

"I almost believe I can catch the faint outline of that other island, "said Lucile. 

"Yes, I think you can, " said Marian. "But what was that?" She grippedher companion's arm. 

"What?" said Lucile. 

"I--thought--yes, there it is; out there to the right. Some darkobject moving among the ice-cakes. "

"Yes, now I see it. And there's another and another. Yes, perhapstwenty or more. What can they be?"

"Men--and--dogs, " said Marian, slowly. "The tribe is coming home. "There was a little catch in her voice. Every muscle in her body wastense. They were far from their homes, not knowing where they were;and these people, a strange, perhaps wild, tribe of savages. 

Then there came to Marian the words of the great bishop: "Humanity isvery much the same everywhere, " and for a time the thought comfortedher. 

They remained there standing in full view in the moonlight, watchinguntil the men could be distinguished from the dogs; until the wholecompany, some fifty or more people, left the ice and began to climb theslope that led to the village. 

But now they all stopped. They were pointing at the cabin, some ofthem gesticulating wildly. 

After a time they came on again, but this time much more slowly. Intheir lead was a wild-haired man, who constantly went through the weirddance motions of these native tribes; weird, wild calisthenics theywere, a thrusting out of both hands on this side, then that, a bowing, bending backward, leaping high in air. And now they caught the soundof the witch song they were all chanting:

 "I--I--am--ah! ah! ah! I--I--I ah! ah! ah!"

As they neared the cabin Lucile turned away. 

"I--I think, " she said unsteadily, "we had better bar the door. "

At that she lifted the heavy bar and propped it against the door. 

CHAPTER XVIII

A NEW PERIL

Long hours in the cranny of the cliff Phi was wrapped in heavy slumber. Dressed as he was in deerskin and sealskin garments, he did not feelthe cold. The bed was soft, his "house" well sheltered from the wind. 

He awoke at last to start and stare. The sun was painting the peaks ofdistant ice-piles with a touch of pink and gold. He experienced astrange sensation. For one brief moment he fancied himself on themainland of Alaska. This, he realized, was not entirely impossible;the ice-floe might have circled about to carry him near to the coastagain. 

So possessed was he with the idea that he grew impatient at the slowbroiling of their one remaining bird. Once the meal was over, havinghidden the bird net in the crevice, that he might return to it in caseof necessity, he hurried away. With Rover at his heels, he crossed theuneven surface of the plateau, keeping well toward the edge of therocky cliff that he might discover a path, if there should be one, leading down to a village or a miner's cabin. 

In his mind's eye he pictured himself sitting down to a meal of"mulligan" and sourdough flapjack in some friend's mining shack, and, if this dream came true, how quickly he would shape his course towardthe spot he had been directed to by the ciphered note in the blueenvelope!

"I'd walk in on them like old Rip Van Winkle. " He smiled and glancedat his dog. 

"You look the part of Rip's dog, old fellow, " he laughed; "you surelydo. "

Yet, as he thought more soberly, he realized that there was really noreason for supposing that the ice-floe had returned him to the mainlandof America. 

"Might be a point of the mainland of Asia, " he reasoned. "The peoplewho come here hunting may be Chukches. "

Had his mind been less occupied with these speculations he might havetaken note of some movement off to the right of him. As it was, hewalked straight on. 

Suddenly a small, dark object flew past his head. Before he could turnto investigate, a second, better aimed, struck him in the side. Caughtoff his balance, he went crashing to the ground. The next moment thedog gave a yelp of pain. He too had been struck by one of these flyingmissiles which proved to be rocks. 

Stunned, but not seriously injured, Phi rose upon hands and knees andmade all haste to fortify himself behind a massive bowlder. Growlingdefiance, the old dog crouched by his side. 

It was a moment of suspense. What could this mean? Into the boy'smind there crowded many questions. Had he been carried to the shore ofsome island of the far north where the white man had never set foot?Was he about to be attacked by a murderous band of superstitiousnatives? He had seen no one. How many were there and why did they useonly stones for weapons? The bow and arrow are known to the mostignorant savage. 

To these questions he could form no answer. He could only crouch thereand wait. 

He did not have long to consider what his next move should be, for arock grazed his ear. A quick glance in the direction from whence itcame showed him the form of a single native. Instantly the manvanished, but a moment later a second rock flew through the air. Itcame from exactly the same spot. 

"May be only one, " he murmured. 

Encouraged by this thought, he proceeded to stalk his enemy by hurryingaround the bowlder and peering out at him from the other end. 

The ruse worked. He found the man standing in full view, craning hisneck to look around the side of the rock which the boy had just left. 

Presently the native took a few steps forward. Phi thought he walkedwith a kind of stagger. 

"It's strange he'd have the courage to attack me alone, armed only withrocks, " he murmured. 

A yelp from the old dog roused him to action. The native's rock hadfound a mark. His back was turned to the boy and with a sudden, swiftrush Phi leaped out and landed full upon his back. The two of themwent crashing to earth. 

For a moment the man struggled with almost demoniacal strength, thensuddenly he crumpled in the boy's grasp and sank lifeless to the ground. 

Fearing a trick Phi turned the man over and sat upon his chest, pinninghis hands to the ground. But he was unconscious; there was nomistaking that. 

"That's queer, " perplexedly. "I didn't do anything to him that I knowof. Wasn't thrown hard or anything. "

He bent over to gather up a handful of snow with which to rub thenative's brow, when he caught an old, familiar odor. 

Just then the dog came limping up. "Rover, old boy, " Phi smiled aqueer sort of smile, "we're not beyond the reaches of the civilizedwhite man. This fellow's drunk. Hooch. In other words, moonshine; Ismell it on his breath. That's why he was throwing stones at us. Crazy drunk, that's all. Now he's gone dead on us, like a flivver runout of gas. "

The dog smelled of the man and growled. 

"Don't like it, do you? Most honest men and dogs don't. Moonshine'sno good for anybody. And now, just for that, we're in for something ofa task. This fellow'd lie here until he froze stiff as a mastodon tuskif we'd let him, but we can't afford to let him, even if he did pelt uswith rocks. We've got to get him on his feet somehow and make him'walk the dog' till he sweats some of that hooch out of him. "

As he looked the man over for a knife which might prove dangerous oncehe was roused from his stupor. Phi realized that he was not on themainland of America. This man's costume was quite unlike that of theDiomeders. He wore a shirt of eiderduck skins such as was never seenon the Little Diomede, and his outer garments of short-haired deerskin, instead of being composed of parka and trousers were all of one piece. 

"Wherever we are, " he said to the dog, "we'll know what's what in anhour or two. "

 * * * * * *

After witnessing the strange actions of the group of natives as theyclustered in about the boarded-up house, with wildly beating heartsLucile and Marian took their places back a little in the shadows, wherethey could not be seen but could still watch the wild antics of theirstrange visitors. 

"What does it mean?" whispered Marian. 

"I can't even guess, " Lucile whispered back. "Something terriblethough, I am sure. "

By this time the entire group were circling the house, and their wildshrill cadent song rose high and loud:

"Ki--yi--yi--um--Ah! Ah! Ah! I--I--I!"

The single dancer tore his hair again and again, and repeated his madgesticulations. 

Only one figure stood back impassive--not singing and not taking anypart in the weird demonstration. 

Suddenly, at a sign from the wild-haired leader, all the singingceased. He uttered a few words apparently of command, then waved hisscrawny arms toward the house. 

A wild shout rent the air. All the natives, save the impassive one, sprang to their feet and started toward their village. But now theimpassive one leaped up and tried to check them, to drive them back. As well attempt to stop a torrent with the open hand. They pushed himaside and hurried on. 

The next moment the girls heard a pounding at the door, but dared notopen it. 

"What does it mean? What _can_ it mean?" They kept asking one another. 

Presently the mad group came racing back. Some bore on their shoulderspoles and boards hastily torn from their caches. Two others werestaggering under a load which appeared to be a sealskin filled withsome liquid. 

"Seal-oil!" said Lucile. "What--" and then the full meaning of it cameto her like a flash. "Marian!" she said in an almost inaudiblewhisper, "they mean to burn the cabin. That's what the wood and oilare for--to start the fire!"

The words were hardly out of her mouth when Marian gripped her arm. "Look!" she cried. 

A dense black smoke was rolling past the window. 

Roused by her cry, the crippled Eskimo boy sprang upon his one wellfoot and came hopping toward them. 

One look at the smoke, at the madly dancing old man, and he hopped forthe door. Throwing the pole to the floor, he hopped outside and away. 

"He's gone! Deserted us!"

"What does it matter now?" Lucile covered her face with her hands. 

"But look!" cried Marian. 

The boy had hopped out into the howling, dancing circle. The howlinghad ceased. He had tumbled to a sitting position on the snow, but wasspeaking and motioning with his hands. Once he pointed at his bandagedfoot. Twice he put his hands to his mouth, as if to mimic eating. Then he sprang nimbly upon his one foot and would have leaped towardthe now raging fire, but the one who had been first impassive, then hadattempted to restrain the mad throng, restrained him, for the others, leaping at the fire, threw it hither and yon, stamping out with theirfeet the blaze that had already begun eating its way into the building. 

It was all over in a minute. Then the two girls sank down upon thefloor, dizzy and sick, wondering what it was all about. 

 * * * * * *

Phi found that to rouse the native from his drunken stupor was no easytask. After rubbing the man's forehead with snow, he stood him on hisfeet and attempted to compel him to walk. Finding this impossible, heworked his arms back and forth, producing artificial respiration. 

At last his efforts were rewarded; the man opened his eyes and stareddully up at him. For some time he lay there motionless. Then, with awild light of terror in his eye, he struggled to his feet and attemptedto flee. His wabbly legs would not support him. He tumbled to theearth, only to try it again. Rover ran barking after him. 

"Let him alone, " smiled Phi. "As long as he is not in danger ofharming himself, let him work. He's doing as much as we could do forhim. He'll work it out of his system. "

In spite of his muddled state the fellow appeared to possess a sense ofdirection, for the boy soon found that he had come upon a narrow pathleading along the cliff at a safe distance from its edge. 

As he stumbled forward, the native's falls became less frequent. "Sobering up, " was Phi's mental comment. "We'll soon strike a placewhere the path leads down the side of the cliff. I wonder if he canmake that alone or will he break his neck?"

Suddenly the man disappeared from view. 

"That, " said Phi to the dog, "means there's a path leading directlydown, probably to some village. If it is a village there are nativesthere--perhaps hundreds of them. They have seen white men at one timeor another. They may have been badly treated by them and may behostile to them. If one were to judge by the action of this fellow hemust conclude that they are. 

"But that cannot influence our action in any way. If we stay up hereand live on birds they'll find us sooner or later. Might as well godown; the quicker the better, too, for this drunken fellow willdoubtless give a weird and terrible account of us. "

At that he raced along the cliff-top path and the next moment foundhimself slipping and sliding down a zig-zagging trail which led downthe hillside. 

He was halfway down before he caught the first glimpse of the village. Beneath him lay some brown cubes which he knew to be boxlike upperstories to the houses of the natives. 

"That settles one thing, " he murmured. "They're islanders. Thenatives of Russia build their homes of poles, deerskin and walrus-skin, tepee fashion; the American natives use logs and sod. Only islandersbuild them of rocks. "

For a moment his courage failed him. He was a boy on an islandsomewhere in the Arctic, his only companion an old and harmless dog, his only weapon a hunting knife; and he was about to enter a villagefilled with natives. 

"Perhaps, " he said slowly, looking down into the trusting eyes of thedog, "we had better wait. They may all be on a grand spree. And ifthey are it won't be safe. Whatever they may be when they're sober, they'll be dangerous enough when drunk. "

But the peaceful quiet of the village, as it lay there some hundreds offeet below, reassured him. 

"Come on, old boy, " he said at last, "we'll chance it. "

CHAPTER XIX

MYSTERIES EXPLAINED

There was little time left to the girls for wondering after the fireagainst the boarded-up house had been extinguished, for the entirethrong burst in upon them. This time, apparently as eager to welcomethem as they had been a few minutes before to destroy them, they rushedup to grasp their hands and mumble:

"Me-con-a-muck! Il-e-con-a-muck!"

Soon they all filed out again, two of them bearing the boy with thecrushed foot. 

Only one remained. He was a young Eskimo with a clean-cut intelligentface. Lucile, by his posture, recognized the one who had championedtheir cause from the first. 

"Perhaps you wonder much?" he began. "Perhaps you ask how is this?Sit down. I will say it to you. "

The very sound of their own tongue, badly managed though it might be, was music to the two worn out and nerve-wrecked girls. They sat downon the sleeping-bag to listen, while the yellow light of the seal-oillamp flickered across the dark, expressive face of the Eskimo. 

He bent over and drew imaginary circles on the floor, one small and onelarge, just as the boy had done with charcoal. 

"Here, " he smiled, "one island. Here one. This island one house. Here--"

"Where is this island?" broke in Lucile, too eager to know theirposition on the shore of the Arctic to hear him through. 

"Yes, " he smiled, "this island is here, very small. This one is here, very large. " Again the imaginary circles were drawn. 

Lucile smiled and was silent. 

"This one large island, " the native went on, "this one plenty Eskimo. Come to visit some Eskimo. Some live here, these Eskimo. 

"Pretty soon come big ice-floe. Wanna cross, these people. Can't. Wanna cross, one boy. Try cross. Broke foot. You see. Come house. Fell down. Think die, that boy. Wanna come in. Pretty soon, opendoor, white women, you. See white women; scared, that boy, too muchscared. Wanna run, that boy. Can't. Pretty soon see white womangood, kind, that one boy. Plenty fix up foot. Plenty eat, that boy. Wanna stay. 

"Pretty soon come plenty wind; plenty ice. Wanna cross ice all time, those Eskimo. Now can cross. Cross plenty Eskimo, plenty dog-team. Come this island, one little island. See?"

"Where is this island?" Lucile broke in again. 

"Yes, " the speaker smiled frankly, "one big island, one little island. Wanna cross people. All cross people. "

Again Lucile was silent. 

"Pretty soon, " he resumed, "see light in Alongmeet's (white man's)house. Wanna know who come island. Look. See two white face inwindow; two white women. Then pretty much scared. One witch-doctor, old man, hair all so, " he rubbed up his hair. "Say that witch-doctor, 'No come white women this island; too much ice, no come. Spirits come;that's all. ' Say that one witch-doctor, 'Must kill white womanspirits; must burn house. Wanna burn house quick. '

"I say, 'No burn; no spirits mebbe. White women mebbe. '

"He say, that witch-doctor, he say, 'No white woman, white spirit, that's all. ' All people say, 'Spirit! Spirit! Burn! Burn!' Allwanna burn. 

"Me, I wanna stop burn. No can do. Wanna burn. Bring wood, bringoil, all that Eskimo. Pretty soon fire. Wanna come in mine. No cando. 

"By and by come that one boy, rush outa cabin; wanna tell no burnhouse. No spirit; white woman, that's all. No burn. He say, thatboy, 'No burn. See white woman eat fish. Spirits no eat fish. '

"Then all the people say quick, 'No burn! No burn!' So no burn. See?That's all. "

The Eskimo smiled frankly, as he mopped the perspiration from his brow. 

"They wanted to burn us because they thought we were spirits, " Lucilesaid slowly; then suddenly, "What do they call this island?"

"This? This one island?" The Eskimo pointed to the floor. 

"Yes. " The girls learned forward eagerly. 

"This one white man call 'Little Diomede. '"

The two girls stared at one another for a moment. Then they laughed. In the laugh there was both surprise and great joy. They weresurprised that in all the drifting of their ice-floe they had beencarried about in a circle, and at last landed only twenty-two milesacross-ocean from their home, on Little Diomede Island, the halfwaystation between the mainland of America and Russia. 

"We live at Cape Prince of Wales, " said Lucile. "How can we go home?"

The Eskimo merely shrugged his shoulders and smiled. 

"Whose is this house?" asked Marian. 

"Government, " the Eskimo replied. "Schoolhouse one time. Not now. Not many children. I--I teach 'em a little, mine. Teach 'em in nativehouse, mine. "

So there the mystery was solved. They were in a schoolhouse built bythe United States Government, but which was not now being used. Thenatives, always very superstitious, having seen their faces through thewindow, and not believing it possible that any white persons could cometo the island at such a time, had, at the suggestion of the oldwitch-doctor, resolved to burn the house in the hopes of driving thespirits away. When the lame boy had limped into their midst, and hadtold how his wound had been dressed by these white women, and how hehad seen them eat fish, which no spirit can do, according to thesuperstition of the Eskimo, they had been quite ready to put out thefire and welcome the strangers, all the more so since the girls hadbeen kind to one in distress. 

Phi's experience in the village of the island upon which he had beencast was more happy than he could have dreamed of. It turned out thatthe native who had attacked him was the only drunken person on theisland. That it was an island, the Big Diomede, he was immediatelyinformed by a young native who had learned English on a whaler. 

So it turned out that the two parties, Lucile and Marian and Phi andRover, had been carried about on the ice-floe for three days at last tobe landed on twin islands. 

Phi's first thought was for the safety of his former travelingcompanions. When he learned that nothing had been seen of them on theBig Diomede, without pausing to rest he pushed on across the nowsolidly frozen mass of ice which silenced the two miles of ocean which, in summer, sweeps between the two islands. 

It was night when he arrived, the night of the strange witch-doctor'sseance. This had all come to an end. The schoolhouse was dark--thegirls were asleep. From a prowling native he learned that the girlswere there and safe, then he turned in for a long sleep. 

Next day, much to the surprise and delight of the girls, he walked inupon them as they were at breakfast. 

When the story of all their strange adventures had been told Phi drewfrom his pocket a much soiled blue envelope. 

Phi first told how he had finally come into possession of the letter, then he went on:

"I--I guess I may as well tell you about it. It's really no greatmystery, no great story of the discovery of gold. Just the locating ofa bit of whalebone. 

"You see, my uncle came to the North with two thousand dollars. Hestayed three years. Then the money was gone and he had found no gold. That happens often, I'm told. Then, one day he came upon the carcassof an immense bowhead whale far north on the Alaskan shore. It hadbeen washed ashore by a storm. No natives lived near. The bone ofthat whale was worth a small fortune. He cut it out and buried it inthe sand dunes near the beach. So eager was he to make good at lastthat he actually lived on the gristly flesh of that whale until thework was done. Then he went south in search of a gasoline schooner tobring the treasure away. It was worth four or five thousand dollars. But he had made himself sick. He was brought home from Nome delirious. From his ravings his son, my cousin, gathered some notion of a treasurehid away in Alaska. The doctor said he would recover in time. Hisfamily was in need of money. I offered to come up here and find outwhat I could. His son was to write me any information he could obtain. We had written one another letters in Greek while in college. Wedecided to do it in this case, addressing one another as Phi Beta Ki. 

"Apparently my uncle had said too much in his delirium before he leftNome. This crooked old miner, our bearded friend, heard it, and later, somehow, got on my trail. 

"You know the rest, except that this letter gives the location of thewhalebone. In the spring I shall go after it. "

As he finished, a great, glad feeling of content swept over Marian; shehad been right, had made no mistake; the letter was really Phi's. Nowhe had it and all was well. 

The following day they succeeded in finding a competent guide to pilotthem the remaining distance across the Straits, and in due time theyarrived safely at the cabin which had been their home. 

Lucile found a new teacher in her position, but for that she did notcare, as she had already decided to spend a month with Marian in Nome, then take the overland trail home. 

Marian's sketches were received with great enthusiasm by the Society ofEthnology. Because of her extra efforts in securing the unusualpictures of the Reindeer Chukches, they added a thousand dollars to theagreed price. 

Phi's search for the buried treasure was successful, and to him wasgiven the unselfish joy of seeing his uncle, now completely restored tohealth, comfortably set up in a snug little business of his own.