glistening snow, gray rocks, and black forests was entrancing. The sudden up-rushing of a st

been whirled off on this wild adventure instead of herself. "She is so much stronger t

id, a note of encouragement in his tone. "This is o

e conversation. "I'm so tough you c

ou off, Bill." Mary's

ent husky. "You're one grand gal. I don

haps I shouldn't say it, but I wouldn't have got it

part?" M

what did he do but stand right still and laugh! Roared good and plenty as if it was all being done in the movies. When I y

. Right then and there he wished Loome

lways demanding that we get going at once, insists he is losing a chance at big money by the delay

that has anything to do with Mr. Il-ay-ok, the Es

proved. Nightly, but oh, so slowl

ravel. Mark's genius for fixing things at last won over the sulky m

the smaller plane. Would these, cut from green wood, as they

en bed of a narrow stream to a spot where the land appeared to drop from beneath her. Creeping out on a flat rock, she gazed in awed silence down a sheer four hundred feet or more to the treetops of one

night she shuddered beneath her blankets, as she listened to the men shouting to one another down there

e dropped. As she drew her feet from the b

e thought. "Just wh

found to her consternation that, for a space of seconds, she did not have the courage to look down

hen a drop to her k

" The plane

to camp ready to serve hot coffee and sour

the older of the two pilots. "A day an

strut and guy. It was necessary to test all these and to tighten some. That night,

after that storm! Not a cloud was in the sky. Not soon would she forget it, dark spruce trees towering toward the sky, gray wa

he murmured. "

Kennedy, way up there almost beneath that star. Tom Kennedy was not her grandfather, he was on the other side of Florence's family, yet, so intimate had the relatio

ding transportation to Nome. Only a few days before, Mark, having received his last paymen

his husky reply to her protest. "You've

uld be done. Had there been a boat, it might have been possible to secure steerage

oney in the north. Nothing like what it was in the days of dog-team travel, but plenty. Fifty dolla

or work on the little valley farm. "Winter is the time

ay. I-I've got to," sh

andfather and wondering vaguely about Mr. Il-ay-ok, the Eskimo, when, cat

ve than by day. She wondered, with a touch of panic, why he was here. Then, reassured by the n

them. Then, because she could endure the silence no longer, and because she truly wanted to k

t is, he wants to be. He won't be long. I-" the man's voice rose, "

ry's voic

It cut a circle and disappeared in the dark blue of night. A streak o

toward the north. "None of you dirt-diggers down here will ever be up there where the nor

ort of a rough poet she thought. At that mom

. What does an Eskimo know about makin' money? Nothin'! Then what's t

me. "The Government's told the Eskimo they gotta take their reindeer b

. They'll stick to the shore. They'll hunt seal an' walrus, or starve.

o'll buy? Me! Me and my company. We got money. We'll get rich on reindeer. Reind

nks he can stop us. He's educated. Think of it! E

ice, polite little

s outside now, down in Washington. The last boat's come from up yonder. No more for nine months. Reinde

irplanes," M

"I wish to-they'd get the things going. He migh

play with me.' I used to sing that in school. Can you e-mag-ine!" His laugh rose

Everything is O. K. We'll be ou

" Peter Loome patt

eir stay here might be prolonged, she was thinking of t