Schooner-Siberia," translated Philip. "It sounds mightily like that,
Celie. Look here--" He opened his pocket atlas again at the map of the
world. "Where did you start from, and where did you come ashore? If we
can get at the beginning of the thing--"

She had bent her head over the crook of his arm, so that in her eager
scrutiny of the map his lips for a moment or two touched the velvety
softness of her hair. Again he felt the exquisite thrill of her touch,
the throb of her body against him, the desire to take her in his arms
and hold her there. And then she drew back a little, and her finger was
once more tracing out its story on the map. The ship had started from
the mouth of the Lena River, in Siberia, and had followed the coast to
the blue space that marked the ocean above Alaska. And there the little
finger paused, and with a hopeless gesture Celie intimated that was all
she knew. From somewhere out of that blue patch the ship had touched
the American shore. One after another she took up from the table the
pieces of paper that carried on the picture-story from that point. It
was, of course, a broken and disjointed story. But as it progressed
every drop of blood in Philip's body was stirred by the thrill and
mystery of it. Celie Armin had traveled from Denmark through Russia to
the Lena River in Siberia, and from there a ship had brought her to the
coast of North America. There had been a lot of fighting, the
significance of which he could only guess at; and now, at the end, the
girl drew for Philip another sketch in which a giant and a horde of
beasts appeared. It was a picture of Bram and his wolves, and at last
Philip understood why she did not want him to harm the wolf-man. Bram
had saved her from the fate which the pictures only partly portrayed
for him. He had brought her far south to his hidden stronghold, and for
some reason which the pictures failed to disclose was keeping her a
prisoner there.

Beyond these things Celie Armin was still a mystery.

Why had she gone to Siberia? What had brought her to the barren Arctic
coast of America? Who were the mysterious enemies from whom Bram the
madman had saved her? And who--who--

He looked again at one of the pictures which he had partly crumpled in
his hand. On it were sketched two people. One was a figure with her
hair streaming down--Celie herself. The other was a man. The girl had
pictured herself close in the embrace of this man's arms. Her own arms
enci