ed high in the blue. As the
trembling pearl of twilight came on, an occasional belated gull flew
overhead with a single, gently-sad question. The wind died away and
the song of the surf mellowed to a croon.

After the dishes were done Ellen and Jean put Lollie to bed in the
blankets spread in the larger tent while Boreland and Kayak Bill,
smoking and discussing the possibilities of the sands of Kon Klayu,
squatted about the drift-wood fire. Presently Jean left her sister and
stepped out into the gloaming. She turned toward the south and walked
along the edge of the sea-drift. The smooth hard beach was a lure to
her feet.

She lifted her chin, breathing deeply and swinging her arms free as she
walked. The air was faintly cool with the smell of the sea and with it
mingled the multi-scented breath of northern Indian summer: lupine,
sundried sand, beach grass and celery bloom. Soft and dim and
strangely lovely dreamed this Island of the ruby sands. From a shadowy
grove of alders inland came the three plaintive notes of a sleepy
golden-crown sparrow voicing the beauty, the mystery, the gentleness of
the North. Enchantment broods in the twilight of Alaskan nights. Jean
had felt it many times during the summer, and loved it--the vague, wild
sense of romance in its dusks. Tonight the thrill and promise of life
seemed more poignantly sweet than ever before. She longed suddenly for
some one to share this hour with her. . . .

Reluctantly, at last she turned from the dim beckoning distance, and
retraced her steps.

As she neared camp, Kobuk, yawning, rose from his post by Ellen's tent,
to greet her. Boreland and Kayak Bill had gone to bed in the smaller
tent, and about the greying embers of their bonfire, rubber boots
stood, like grotesque plants, each one drying upside down over a stake
driven into the sand.

Jean undressed and slipped between the blankets beside her
sister. . . . The clean, fresh smell of trampled rice-grass drifted
about her pillow. . . . As the tide came in the murmur of surf on the
distant shoals was soothing as a cradle song, and the girl, with a
tired sigh, adjusted her body to the unyielding, sandy bed, and drowsed
off into slumber, unaware of the peril that was even then creeping
nearer and nearer to the sleepers on the beach of Kon Klayu.

CHAPTER XIII

THE CABIN

It was long past midnight when Jean was startled into wakefulness.
Kobuk was barking with the queer, short woo