ot snow. It good. Then
sometime An-ina watch. She watch, watch, all time, and when him wake,
an' eat, then him white man come an' mak pow-wow. Good?"

"Fine." Steve returned all the papers to the drawers in the desk and
stood up. "Guess I'll eat right away, and after that we'll get along an'
take a peek at these folks. The boys got the snow clear outside?"

"Him dig much. Snow plenty gone."

"Good. And little Marcel?" Steve enquired, with a tender smile. "Has he
been digging?"

The squaw's eyes lit.

"Oh, yes, him boy dig. An' Julyman, an' him Oolak all laff. Boy dig all
time, everywhere." An-ina laughed in her silent way. Then she sobered,
and a great warmth shone in her eyes. "Boss white man officer love him
boy? Yes?"

Steve nodded in his friendly way.

"Oh, I guess so," he admitted. "You see, I've got a little girl baby of
my own way back--where I come from."

"So."

There was no mistaking the understanding in the woman's significant
ejaculation.

* * * * *

Steve and An-ina passed out into the wonderful glowing twilight. There
was no need for the sun in the steely glittering heavens. The full
moonlight of the lower latitudes was incomparable with the Arctic night.
From end to end in a great arc the aurora lit the world, and left the
stars blazing impotently. The cold was at its lowest depths, and not a
breath of wind stirred the air. Up to the eyes in furs the two figures
moved out beyond the stockade into the shadowed world.

The squaw led the way, floundering over the frozen snow-drifts with the
gentle padding sound of her moccasined feet. Steve kept hard behind her
yielding himself entirely to her guidance.

Out in the open no sign remained of the dome-roofed settlement of the
Sleepers. The huts had served to buttress the snow for the blizzard.
They were buried deep under the great white ridges which the storm had
left.

It was something upon which Steve had not calculated. And he swiftly
drew the squaw's attention.

"Say," he cried, pointing at the place where the huts had been visible,
"I kind of forgot the snow."

The squaw's eyes were just visible under her fur hood. Their brightness
suggested a smile.

"No 'Sleeper' man by this hut. Oh, no," she exclaimed decidedly. "No
winter, then him 'Sleeper' man live by this hut. Winter come, then him
sleep by woods. Much hut. Plenty. All cover, hid-up. Come, I show."

Steve was more than relieved. The snow had lo