then. But if I'm not, you keep
it, will you?" There was a tense eagerness about him that stirred her
strongly.

"Why, yes--I--I--guess so. But what shall I do if you don't get back
before I leave?"

"Take it with you. Leave word where I can find you and take it."

"You see," he half-apologized, after a moment's thought, "these
northern P. O.'s change hands so much, so many people handle the mail,
that I--I'm afraid I might lose one of these letters, and--and--they're
mighty important; at least, one of them is going to be. Will you do
it? I--I think I'd trust you--though I don't just know why."

"Yes," Marian said slowly, "I'll do that."

Three minutes later she saw him skillfully disentangling his dogs and
sending them on their way:

"One of those college boys," she whispered to herself. "They come
North expecting to find gold shining in the sand of the beach. I've
seen so many come up here as he is, happy and hopeful, and in three or
four years I've seen them go 'outside,' old beyond their years,
half-blind with snow-blindness, or worse; broken in body and spirit. I
only hope it does not happen to him. But what's all the mystery, I'd
like to know?"

She gave a sudden start. For the first time she realized that he had
not given her his name.

"And I promised to personally conduct that mysterious mail of his!" she
exclaimed under her breath.

CHAPTER IV

FOR HE IS A WHITE MAN'S DOG

Two months had elapsed since the mysterious college boy had passed on
north with his dog-team.

Many things could have happened to him in those months. As Marian sat
looking away at the vast expanse of drifting ice which had been
restless in its movements of late, telling of the coming of the spring
break-up, she wondered what had happened to the frank-eyed, friendly
boy. He had not returned. Had a blizzard caught him and snatched his
life away? The rivers were overflowing their banks now, though thick
and rotten ice was still beneath the milky water. Had he completed his
mission north, and was he now struggling to make his way southward? Or
was he securely housed in some out-of-the-way cabin, waiting for open
water and a schooner?

A letter had come, a letter in a blue envelope, and addressed as the
other to Phi Beta Ki. That was after Lucile's return. Lucile had been
away to the Nome market with her deer herd when the first letter had
come, but had now been home for a month. The two of them had l