nd hung it over the seal-oil lamp. Soon a bit
of fish was boiling.
"Better warm stuff at first," she explained, "He must be nearly frozen."
All this time the boy, with his look of fear gone, sat staring at them,
his big brown eyes full of wonder.
"I'd like to know where he came from and how it is that he's alone,"
said Marian.
"So would I," said Lucile. "Well, anyway, we'll have to do the best we
can for him. You know what it says somewhere about 'entertaining
angels.'"
"Yes, and that reminds me. He must have a place to sleep. I'll go see
what I can find."
She returned presently with an arm-load of deerskins.
"There's everything out there," she smiled, nodding toward the native
village; "just as if they were gone overnight and would be back in the
morning."
"I wonder," said Marian, with a little thrill, "if they will."
An hour later, with a pole propped solidly against the door, with the
boy slumbering soundly in the opposite corner, and the seal-oil lamp
flickering low, the girls once more gave themselves over to sleep.
When they awoke, they found the cabin encircled by a howling whirlwind
of snow, one of those wild storms that come up so suddenly in Arctic
seas and as suddenly subside.
The frozen fish, which was a large one, sufficed for both breakfast and
dinner for the three of them. The boy, a bright little fellow, with
the ruddy brown cheeks of an Italian peasant boy, but with the slight
squint of eyes and flatness of nose peculiar to these natives of the
North, watched every move they made with great interest.
They tried from time to time, to talk to him, but he did not,
apparently, know a word of English, and even to the few words of Eskimo
they knew he gave no response.
"Oh, Lucile!" Marian exclaimed at last. "Are we in Russia or America?
Who is this boy? Where are his people?"
Lucile did not reply. She was too deeply perplexed for words. But the
boy, seeming to have caught something of the purport of Marian's words,
tore a splinter from the board wall of the cabin, and, having held it
in the blaze of the seal-oil lamp until it was charred, began to draw
on the floor.
First he drew a large circle, then a small one. Next, on the large
circle he drew lines to represent men, as children often do, a straight
line for the back and one each for an arm and a leg, with a circle for
a head. When he had drawn many of these, he drew a square within the
smaller circle, and wit
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