The Purple Flame

es, and she looked out and saw approaching the most disreputable group of Eskimos she had ever seen. Dressed in ragged parkas of rabbit skins, and driving the gauntest, most

skin boots and rawhide harness," she groaned. "If the

then with a sudden resolve that she

some spot where they have relatives who are able to feed them. The safety of the herd depends upon that. With food

halted their dogs and were talking to old Terogloona. The dogs were acting strangely. Sawing at the strong ra

upper end of the range!" She remembered hearing Marian tell how a whole herd of five

"If even one of them gets loose when there is a reindeer a

t get these people to move on at

she said: "Wha

a simple: "Suna-go-pezuk-peet

and much waving of hands, the

y foxes, black fox, red fox, white, blue and cross fox. He say, th

ll they eat?

preted the question, smi

es," he answered q

re lying, and she knew it, but remembering a bit of advice of her father's: "Ne

eakfast with me; that we will have pancakes and re

angers who had understood the word sugar and was passin

petites of these half starved natives. Even Terogloona grumble

be fed, then we w

n Terogloona, looking up from his labors, uttered an exclamation of surpris

's herd,"

best pasture? And what can we do to stop them? Must Marian's mission be in vain? Must she go al

s, she sat down unsteadily upon

ay out. Then, of a sudden, a wolfdog jumped up at her ve

arer the camp than the others, had attracted the dog's attention. Lik

ng to her feet. The next insta

come into the tent for a moment. I

like white flint. It rang like steel to the touch of her iron shod staff. It was impossible to make an impression in its surface with the soft heel of her deerskin boots. The only

other sort waited her; death in the form

Now she had covered half the distance; now two-thirds; now she could be scarcely a hundred yards away. And now she saw clearly. She had not been mistaken. T

r. Their knife-like hoofs, cutting into the flinty snow, would carry them safely upward. She now regrette

e wild beating of her heart, and setting her eyes upon the goa

broad parapet of snow and the next instant found herself looking down at a world which but the moment before had appeared to be reaching up white menacing hands at her. Then she turned to peer

rself again, and turning s

the reindeer up. Here i

reindeer turn about and begin the long, zig-zag course that in

rian said soft

e upon discovering a strange cave in the mountains, had come to her. "Am I," she asked herself, "the first person whose footsteps have echoed in those mysterious corridors o

er passed this way. They were on the side of a mountain. She had never known of a person crossing the range before. So she reasoned, b

iled up the mountainside. They would soon be here. Then she and Attatak wo

h the fervent reverence of a child, she lifted her e

et shrank from it. Like a child afraid of the dark, she feared to go forward alone. So, drawing h

re crept into her mind

"I do wonder how Patsy is