, Harlan noticed that
Ellen's silent gratitude found vent in a dozen little ways, though he
was aware also that he never had an opportunity of seeing the girl
alone. Since the _Hoonah_ was expected any day now, Ellen had
suggested that the young man bring his blankets across the Island and
"bunk" with Kayak Bill until their departure. Had it been offered
three weeks earlier, this arrangement would have been eagerly accepted.
But Gregg's attitude toward life on Kon Klayu had changed. It was
still changing.

He was now cooking his own meals at the Hut, clumsily, it is true,
since his unaccustomed hands had never before held a frying-pan. But
he was learning, and he was surprised to find himself taking pleasure
in the experience. He thanked Ellen for her invitation, but refused
it. He would not have been human had he not felt a certain
satisfaction in doing so.

He wondered tentatively if Kayak Bill had suspected the struggle that
was going on within him during his first days on the Island--the fear
of delirium tremens, the fight he was making to conquer the craving for
liquor which continued, intermittently now, to torment him. The old
man said nothing on the subject, but on one pretext or another Harlan
noticed that Kayak managed to spend much of his leisure time at the
Hut. Often, if the night were fine, he would roll up in a blanket
before the fire and stay there until morning.

Kayak Bill's sauntering feet had followed Dame Fortune over every
gold-trail from Dawson to Nome, and there was no trick of Alaskan camp
life that he had not learned. He never tried to force his knowledge on
the younger man, but casually, in the course of his slow, whimsical
monologues, he taught Harlan much that was of inestimable value to him.
Indeed, if it had not been for the old man, Harlan might have been
forced to swallow his pride long before and ask for shelter at the
Boreland cabin, for despite his brave talk of living in the Hut, it was
a shelter of the rudest type, built, probably, as a feeding station by
the experimenting fox-farmers.

Its structure interested him. It was made by standing whale ribs up on
end about two feet apart in a circle. The spaces between were filled
with turf, which abounded all over the island, thus making a wall two
feet thick. Harlan had repaired it, and in the words of Kayak who
helped him, had "rigged" himself up a stove from kerosene cans. It was
the old hootch-maker who showed him ho