his
going were an ordinary incident in their day's routine, and stood there,
while he passed out, the very embodiment of that stoicism for which her
race is so renowned.

* * * * *

An-ina was alone. Only the skeleton of her life at the fort remained to
keep her company. The flesh was shorn from the bone. That flesh which
had made her life an existence of joy which the greatest terror of Unaga
was powerless to rob her of. It is true there were a few of the trail
dogs left behind, and some of the reindeer. But what were these half
wild creatures in exchange for a human companionship in which her whole
soul was bound up?

But An-ina was free of the vain imaginings which curse the lives of
those who boast the culture of civilization. She was content in her
woman's memory, in her looking forward, and the present was full of an
hundred and one occupations which held her mind to the exclusion of
everything but the contemplation of the coming joy of reunion.

She had claimed to herself a bravery equal to that of her men folk. She
might well have claimed more. She possessed, in addition to that active
courage which belongs to the adventurer, the passive, courageous
endurance of the woman. So, with an unruffled calm, she set about the
daily "chores" that were hers, and added to them all those labours which
were necessary that this outland home should lack nothing in its welcome
to her men.

For the moment the world about her was still and silent. It was as
though Nature remained suspended in doubt between the seasons. The open
season was passed, when the earth lay bare to the lukewarm sun of
summer. A white shroud covered the nakedness of the world, and already
ice was spread out over the waters. But winter had not yet made its
great onslaught.

It was coming. Oh, yes. It was near. The brief hours of daylight warned
that. So did the mock-suns which hovered in the sky, chained by the
radiant circle which held the dying sun prisoned. Then in the north the
heavy clouds were gathering. They gathered and dispersed. Then they
gathered again. And always they banked deeper and darker. The wind was
rising. That fitful, patchy wind which is so full of threat, and which
bears in its breath the cutting slash of a whip.

There were moments in her solitude when An-ina read these warnings with
some misgivings. They were not for herself. They were not even for
Steve. The winter trail was no new thing to h