power again; and his own feeble efforts in that
long and fighting process of planting the seeds which meant its ultimate
ascendancy possessed in themselves their own reward.

Long after Tautuk and Amuk Toolik had gone, his heart was filled with
the song of success.

He was surprised at the swiftness with which time had gone, when he
looked at his watch. It was almost dinner hour when he had finished with
his papers and books and went outside. He heard Wegaruk's voice coming
from the dark mouth of the underground icebox dug into the frozen
subsoil of the tundra, and pausing at the glimmer of his old
housekeeper's candle, he turned aside, descended the few steps, and
entered quietly into the big, square chamber eight feet under the
surface, where the earth had remained steadfastly frozen for some
hundreds of thousands of years. Wegaruk had a habit of talking when
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 i