n the nap of the cloth apron, they turned to their own outfit.

Harlan solved their water problem by digging a hole below the large
rocker and catching the waste after it had done its work above. Long
before the pool was completed he and Jean were on terms of laughing
friendliness. This was the first time he had been with her, without
being uncomfortably aware of the watchful and disapproving eye of
Ellen. He felt a distinct exhilaration.

He poured sand into the hopper while Jean rocked and Loll, detailing
much little-boy wisdom, dipped up the water from the hole beside them.

Though it was her first year in the North, Jean, he thought, had fallen
into the ways of the country with the natural ability that marks the
young sea-gull launching out on the deep. Evidently she had dressed
hastily that morning. Her khaki-flannel shirt, belted loosely with
green leather and worn like a Russian blouse, lay open at the throat.
Her mass of dark hair was tucked under a green tam o' shanter perched
at an unconsciously rakish angle. Unframed by her hair her face had a
piquant, boyish look, and her wide-set hazel eyes seemed larger than
usual. There was a ghost of a golden freckle or two on the bridge of
her straight little nose. From her green tam to her stout leather
boots Harlan could find no evidence of a single feminine artifice--not
a thing, perhaps, that might have appealed to him a year ago,--yet he
was conscious of a stir of pleasure as he looked at her.

He placed a shovel of sand in the hopper, spilling half of it on Lollie
who was at the same moment pouring in water. The girl laughed at his
clumsiness, as she loosened her hold on the rocker handle and
straightened, tossing her head so that the tam assumed a different but
equally alluring angle. Her sleeves were rolled to the elbow. She had
the lithe slimness, and the greens and browns that suggested the
outdoors. When she turned away from him presently to look out over the
sun-lit sea, Harlan rested his shovel in the sand to watch her.

"I wonder where my Kobuk is this morning?" The remark came from Loll
squatting at the edge of the water-hole, waiting for it to fill again.

Neither answered him.

"Have you noticed how clearly, on days like this, one can see the
mainland, though it is ninety miles away?" Jean asked, her mind
apparently intent on the far horizon. "There seems to be something in
the atmosphere that brings it nearer."

"I whisht I knew w