, astonished eyes and quivering chin. . . .
This last bought stabbed her with poignant regret wounding her heart
with such anguish and self-reproach and longing that she burst into
sobs as she climbed blindly to the top of the gulch.

On the crest of the hill all three stopped for a moment, out of breath
from the steep ascent.

Spread out like a vast beautiful meadow the top of the Island lay flat
as the palm of a hand. The tundra, softly green and brown, was
splashed with the yellow and rose and purple of late-blooming wild
flowers. Small brown pools of water bordered with moss were sunk here
and there. To the north and east not a tree or bush broke the level
but southward the tundra rose gently toward the top of the cliffs a
mile or more away, where the air was thick with seabirds. A narrow
path, suggestive of heavy padded feet, ran from north to south along
the edge of the hill.

Despite this gentleness, this softness of contour characteristic of the
tundra meadows of the North, there was a feeling of wind-swept spaces.
The air was exquisitely pure. Jean, looking about her, involuntarily
drew a deep, long breath. Midway between her and the edge of the
distant cliffs stood the one lone tree of Kon Klayu--a small gnarled
spruce, its branches all growing from one side of the trunk, bearing
mute testimony to the velocity of the prevailing gales. There was
about this tree an air of almost human loneliness and--waiting. On the
brow of the hill it faced the sea like a woman with long, wind-blown
hair. Near it rose a dome-shaped mound like an Eskimo hut in form but
many times larger.

As the girl's eyes followed the trail south she suddenly became aware
of a small, slowly-moving object, . . . then another.

"Oh, Ellen!" There was glad relief in her voice. "_There_ he is!
There they are--Loll and Kobuk! See! Their heads are bobbing just
above the grass toward the tree!"

At the first exclamation Boreland had started hurriedly along the
trail. The two women followed him calling to the boy as they ran. But
Loll, evidently deeply interested in his own small adventures, did not
hear their shouts. Kobuk was now hobbling on ahead and despite his
bandaged leg, was tacking hither and thither woofing in the manner of
the huskie when he wishes to bark. As Loll neared the tree they saw
him branch off the trail and a few minutes later disappear around the
hummock.

But Kobuk did not follow.

With short staccat