was a shallow space beneath a tray of color-tubes in the very bottom of Marion's paint-box. There, on leaving Cape Prince of Wales, she had stowed the blue envelop addressed to Phi Beta Chi. She had not done this without misgivings. Disturbing thoughts had come to her. Was it the right thing to do? Was it safe! The latter question had come to her with great force when she saw the grizzled miner's face framed in the port-hole of that schooner.
But from the day they landed at Whaling, on the mainland of Siberia, all thoughts of the letter and the two claimants for its possession were completely crowded from her mind. Never in all her adventurous life had Marion experienced anything quite so thrilling as this life with the Chukches of the arctic coast of Siberia.
In Alaska, the natives had had missionaries and teachers among them for thirty years. But here, here where no missionaries had been allowed nor teachers been sent, where gold gleamed still ungathered in the beds of the rivers, here the natives still dwelt in their dome-like houses of poles and skins. Here they fared boldly forth in search of the dangerous walrus and white bear and the monstrous whale. Here they made strange fire to spirits of the monsters that they had slaughtered, and spoke in grave tones of the great spirit that had come down from the moon in the form of a raven with a beak of old ivory.
It is little wonder that Marion forgot all thought of fear amid such surroundings, as she worked industriously at the sketches which were to give her three wonderful years of study under well-known masters.
But one day, after six weeks of this veritable dream-life, as she lifted the tray to her paint-box, her eyes fell on the blue envelop.
Instantly a flood of remembrance rushed through her mind; the frank-faced college-boy, the angry miner, were pictured in her memory. Her hand trembled. She could not control her brush. The sketch she had been working upon went unfinished.
That very evening she had news that disturbed her still more. A native had come from East Cape, the next village to the south. He had seen a white man there, a full-bearded man of middle age. He had said that he intended coming to Whaling in a few days. He had posed among the natives as a spirit-doctor and had, according to reports, worked many wonderful cures by his incantations. Three whales had come into the hands of the East Cape hunters. This was an excellent catch and had been taken as a good omen; the bearded stranger was without doubt highly favored by the spirits of these dead whales.
"I wish our skin-boat would come for us," said Lucile, suddenly, as they talked of it in the privacy of their tent.
"But it won't, not for three weeks yet. That was the agreement."
"I know," said Lucile, resignedly, "the only thing we can do is to wait."
If the East Capers had been favored with three whales, the men of Whaling were not. One lone whale, and that a small one, was their total take. Witch-doctors began declaring that the presence of strange, white-faced women in their midst was displeasing to the spirits of dead whales. The making of the images of the people on canvas was also sure to bring disaster.
As reports of this dissatisfaction came to the ears of the girls, they began straining their eyes for a square sail on the horizon. Still, their boat did not come.
Then came the crowning disaster of the year. The walrus-herd, on which the natives based their last hope, passed south along the coast of Alaska instead of Siberia. Their caches were left empty. Only the winter's supply of white bear and seal could save them from starvation.
"Dezra! Dezra!" ["Enough! Enough!"] the natives whispered among themselves.
The day after the return of the walrus canoes, Marion and Lucile went for a long walk down the beach.
Upon rounding a point in returning, Marion suddenly gave a gasp:
"Look, Lucile! It's gone; our tent!"
"Gone!" murmured Lucile.
"I wonder what,—"
"Look, Marion! the whole village!"
"Let's run."
"Where to? We'd starve in two days, or freeze. Come on. They won't hurt us."
With anxious hearts and trembling footsteps, they approached the solid line of fur-clad figures which stretched along the southern outskirts of the village.
As they came close they heard one word repeated over and over: "Dezra! Dezra!"
And as the natives almost chanted this single word, they pointed to a sled on which the girls' belongings had been neatly packed. To the sled, three dogs were hitched—two young wolf-hounds, with Rover as leader.
"They want us to go," whispered Lucile.
"Yes, and where shall we go?"
"East Cape is the only place."