ing the apparent
miracle of rising in the north and traveling east instead of west. Alan
knew the men-folk of the village had departed hours ago for the distant
herds. Always, when the reindeer drifted into the higher and cooler
feeding-grounds of the foothills, there was this apparent abandonment,
and after last night's celebration the women and children were not yet
awake to the activities of the long day, where the rising and setting of
the sun meant so little.

As he rose from the table, he glanced again toward Sokwenna's cabin. A
solitary figure had climbed up out of the ravine and stood against the
sun on the clough-top. Even at that distance, with the sun in his eyes,
he knew it was Mary Standish.

He turned his back stoically to the window and lighted his pipe. For
half an hour after that he sorted out his papers and range-books in
preparation for the coming of Tautuk and Amuk Toolik, and when they
arrived, the minute hand of his watch was at the hour of eight.

That the months of his absence had been prosperous ones he perceived by
the smiling eagerness in the brown faces of his companions as they
spread out the papers on which they had, in their own crude fashion,
set down a record of the winter's happenings. Tautuk's voice, slow and
very deliberate in its unfailing effort to master English without a
slip, had in it a subdued note of satisfaction and triumph, while Amuk
Toolik, who was quick and staccato in his manner of speech, using
sentences seldom of greater length than three or four words, and who
picked up slang and swear-words like a parrot, swelled with pride as he
lighted his pipe, and then rubbed his hands with a rasping sound that
always sent a chill up Alan's back.

"A ver' fine and prosper' year," said Tautuk in response to Alan's first
question as to general conditions. "We bean ver' fortunate."

"One hell-good year," backed up Amuk Toolik with the quickness of a gun.
"Plenty calf. Good hoof. Moss. Little wolf. Herds fat. This
year--she peach!"

After this opening of the matter in hand Alan buried himself in the
affairs of the range, and the old thrill, the glow which comes through
achievement, and the pioneer's pride in marking a new frontier with the
creative forces of success rose uppermost in him, and he forgot the
passing of time. A hundred questions he had to ask, and the tongues of
Tautuk and Amuk Toolik were crowded with the things they desired to tell
him. Their voices filled the