the beachline rice-grass waved
luxuriantly. Indian celery thrust its graceful, creamy parasols above
beach forget-me-nots, strawberry blooms, black lilies, blue geraniums
and thick carpets of delicate wee flowers that have no names. The
green of the tundra on top of the Island was splashed with yellow
buttercups and pink and lavender daisies, and on every little brown
pool and lake floated golden lilies. The warm salt wind from the sea
stirred the fragrance of it all--the flowers, the moist tundra, the
sun-warmed sand into a perfume that is the breath of Alaska; a clean,
invigorating perfume that once known can never be forgotten. It is
charged with that indefinable charm, that hint of promise, which is so
much a part of the great North country.

To Jean and Gregg, racing along the beaches on their various hunts for
food, it brought a joy of spring that, when they were in the open, made
them forget completely the growing seriousness of their situation.
Nearly every day now the air was softly, embracingly warm, and owing to
the scarcity of garments, no one was wearing more than was necessary.
The men had long been going barefooted, and Jean, as soon as the
weather and the nature of her work permitted it, put her only remaining
pair of worn shoes in the loft against the day when she should leave
Kon Klayu. She, too, went barefooted for the most part, delighting in
the feel of the cool sand against her feet, but she carried with her
the hair-seal moccasins given her by Add-'em-up Sam's widow at
Katleean. These she put on to walk over stones or along the tundra.

As the sea-parrots were daily growing more wary, and Lollie had now to
exercise the greatest caution to get near enough to club them, the need
of eggs became imperative. One day Jean and Harlan were racing along
the beach headed for the south cliffs to make their accustomed search.
A rope coiled about the young man's waist held to him a bucket which
dangled and bobbed as he ran. The afternoon was sunny and a fresh sea
wind lifted the hair on their bare heads. The surf ringed the grey
sands at their feet with long foaming lines.

"It's so beautiful, so beautiful, this land and sea, Gregg, that I feel
today must bring us some good luck!" Jean, out of sheer exuberance,
was skimming along ahead, her arms outspread, her chin high, as she
dipped and leaped in imitation of Senott's sea-gull dance which she had
seen at the Potlatch.

"Wait a minute, wild girl