alone, but Alan thought it odd that she should be explaining to herself that the tundra-soil, in spite of its almost tropical summer richness and luxuriance, never thawed deeper than three or four feet, below which point remained the icy cold placed there so long ago that “even the spirits did not know.”  He smiled when he heard Wegaruk measuring time and faith in terms of “spirits,” which she had never quite given up for the missionaries, and was about to make his presence known when a voice interrupted him, so close at his side that the speaker, concealed in the shadow of the wall, could have reached out a hand and touched him.

“Good morning, Mr. Holt!”

It was Mary Standish, and he stared rather foolishly to make her out in the gloom.

“Good morning,” he replied.  “I was on my way to your place when Wegaruk’s voice brought me here.  You see, even this icebox seems like a friend after my experience in the States.  Are you after a steak, Mammy?” he called.

Wegaruk’s strong, squat figure turned as she answered him, and the light from her candle, glowing brightly in a split tomato can, fell clearly upon Mary Standish as the old woman waddled toward them.  It was as if a spotlight had been thrown upon the girl suddenly out of a pit of darkness, and something about her, which was not her prettiness or the beauty that was in her eyes and hair, sent a sudden and unaccountable thrill through Alan.  It remained with him when they drew back out of gloom and chill into sunshine and warmth, leaving Wegaruk to snuff her tomato-can lantern and follow with the steak, and it did not leave him when they walked over the tundra together toward Sokwenna’s cabin.  It was a puzzling thrill, stirring an emotion which it was impossible for him to subdue or explain; something which he knew he should understand but could not.  And it seemed to him that knowledge of this mystery was in the girl’s face, glowing in a gentle embarrassment, as she told him she had been expecting him, and that Keok and Nawadlook had given up the cabin to them, so that he might question her uninterrupted.  But with this soft flush of her uneasiness, revealing itself in her eyes and cheeks, he saw neither fear nor hesitation.

In the “big room” of Sokwenna’s cabin, which was patterned after his own, he sat down amid the color and delicate fragrance of masses of flowers, and the girl seated herself near him and waited for him to speak.

“You love flowers,” he said lamely.  “I want to thank you for the flowers you placed in my cabin.  And the other things.”

“Flowers are a habit with me,” she replied, “and I have never seen such flowers as these.  Flowers—­and birds.  I never dreamed that there were so many up here.”

“Nor the world,” he added.  “It is ignorant of Alaska.”