As he explained this, the Eskimo showed each picture that told the part of the story narrated.
“It seems very real,” said Marian. “How long ago could it have been?”
“And the yellow pebbles and dust must have been gold!” exclaimed Patsy. “Oh, Marian! If we could find that place we’d be rich. Terogloona, could you find the place?”
Again the Eskimo studied the ancient picture-writing.
“_Eh-eh_,” he said at last. “Mebby could.”
“Oh, Marian! We’ll go back,” said Patsy, doing a wild dance on her sleeping bag. “We’ll go back for gold!”
“For the present,” said Marian, quietly, “we have work enough. We must get our herd to Fort Jarvis. Looks as if that will be a difficult enough task.”
“But tell me,” she turned suddenly to Terogloona, “there were more than fifty reindeer with old Omnap-puk, were there not?”
“They are the deer we have been missing all winter, the ones we thought had been killed?”
“Why, then—” she leaped suddenly to her feet in her excitement, “then those people can not have killed our deer at all!”
“Then why did they follow us? Are they following us now? What was it they killed that night, if not our deer? Oh! it’s too perplexing for words.”
Terogloona looked at her and smiled a droll smile. “Many strange things on hill and tundra. Some time mebby know; mebby not. Terogloona must go watch; you sleep. To-morrow mebby very hard.” Taking up the rifle, he left the tent.
Before creeping into her sleeping bag, Marian stepped out of the tent to cool her heated brow in the crisp night air. Above her the stars gleamed like tiny camp-fires; beyond her the dark forest loomed. From the distance she caught the bump and grind of ice crowding the banks of the river.
Morning came, and with it the problem of crossing the river. They had been traveling by compass. As far as Marian could tell, to go either up or down the river would be to go out of their direct path. Terogloona advised going north. Some signs unintelligible to the girls, but clear enough to him, appeared to promise a crossing two or three miles above.
For once the canny instincts of the Eskimo failed. He was no longer in his own land of barren hills, tundra and sea; perhaps this caused him to err. One thing was certain, as they traveled northward the hills that lined the stream grew more rugged and rocky, and the river more turbulent.