The Blue Envelope

Questions continually presented themselves to her mind. What of the bearded stranger? Was he the miner who had demanded the blue envelope? If it were he; if

rtunes of the people of Whaling? Would they, too, allow superstitious f

y would find a guide at once and begin their great adventur

hard to find. Many of

were told by one of t

age who ever attempted

ts. His name

on the sloping floor of his skin-igloo

he smiling college boy

Wales. Can he

hands in surprise, but even

ooping moustache and a powerful frame, did n

no can do," smile

him, saw that he held three double eagles. She smiled, for she knew that even here the value o

head. At last he arose, sprang from the sleeping compartment and began to walk the spa

own himself once more upon the floor of

say, that one, 'Wanna go now; never come back.' He say, that one, 'Two, three, four days come ice. Not plenty ice,'

all-a-time lift ice, push ice this wa

lift ice, wanna throw ice this way, that way, all

les, mebby two month, mebby three month. Me

led a grim smile an

boy to risk a passage, and that we'll be obliged to wait until he thinks it's O. K. Probably two or three months. M

ready to indulge in a

ut think of the sketches

as," she

this sealskin the women tan

rness to be at work on some winter sketches of these most interesting people, quite forgetting the peril of nati

uter covering of walrus skin was supported by tall poles set in a semicircle and meeting at the top. The inside of this tepee-like structure was lined with a great circling robe of long-haired deerskin. The hair on these winter skins was two inches long and matted thick as felt. When this lining had been hung, a floor of hand-hewn boards was built across the rear side of the inclosure.

wilderness like this?" murmured Lucile before fal

lace in the chief

o as kitchen and dining room. Here, by a snapping fire of dwarf willows, the three of them sat

n others: plenty of beans and sweet corn in cans, some flour and baking powder but no lard or bacon; some frozen and worthless potatoes; plenty of jelly in g

em for some time when one day sh

and asked for seal oil. Gravely he poured a supply o

stant she with great difficulty set the cup on the f

e sputtered.

she came upon a woman skinning a seal. Seeing the thick layer of fat that was taken from beneath the animal's skin she ha

oil as lard. Even doughnuts fried in it were

steak and walrus stew were impossible. "Wouldn't even make good hamburger," was Phi's verdict. The boiled flipper of a white-

to express strange and unusual things. Marian had not been established a we

sits in out-of-the-way places, Marian had learned much of the art of administering simple remedies. S

e away from the village. Whether he had gone toward Whaling, or south to some other village, no one appeared to kn

reatment. The ailment seemed but a simple cold. Marian prescribed cough syrup and quinine, then called for the next patient. Patients were fe

asked of a boy who

eer Ch

he exclaimed excitedly

ifteen miles

n the tundra as

es

re many

few. Not many reindeer. Too much no

id eagerly, "if I may go hom

moment with the gr

ne, he say yes,

back quick." Marian

s. The medicine chest was filled and closed, paints stowed in their

ed in behind a fleet-footed rein

where we are going,"

an extinct race now, but the time was when every clump of willows that lined the banks of the rivers

hes of Siberia. Many years ago the Mikado of Japan, in the treasure of furs with which he decorated his royal family, besides the mink, ermine and silver fox, had skins of rare beauty, spotted skins, brown, white and black. These were fawn-sk

the ice gets solid while we're gone. Suppose Ph

ment. But the zeal of a born a

He won't. I-I-why, I'll hurry. We'll

exceeded the life which the two gi

moke curled from the top of the dome of the tepee-like igloo, they reveled in the strange wildness of it all. Here was a people who paid no rent, no taxes, owned no land yet lived always in abundance. In the box beside the slee

hey were singularly grateful. They, their women and their children, posed untiringly for sketches. But one thing Marian had not taken into consideration; these people seldom visited the village of East Cape. Although she did not know it, t

return to East Cape, they stared at her in astonishment and indicated by a diagram on the snow that they were now at

uld make them understand that it was ne

arian mourned in despair,

ucile, cheerfully. "Probably the Strait

f inaction, even Lucile

! Tomai," rise in a chorus from among the tents. By this they knew that visitors had arrived. They hurried out to find

that these people came from a point some two hundred mi

hen, to her immense surprise, the smaller of the three, in reality only a boy,

ooked up into her face, she understood all; he was none other than the strange

t seemed to her that she must be seeing a ghost. It appeared entirely incredible that he should be in

them a debt of gratitude. Might they not hope to receive assistance from hi

the boy mingled native

ression of joy at

their tent, he told them in the few words of English he had learned sinc

ever, been carried there by the ice-floes. After trading for the natives' furs and ivory, and having found an open channe

st he saw land off the coast of Washington, dressed only in his bird-skin suit,

o hours when the girls rescued him from what was almost sure to

f the law if he were rescued by others, sent three seamen to search for hi

hermen who turned him over to the revenue cutter which made Alaskan ports. By the cutter he had been carried to Nome and from there made his way, li

meaning he would like

slow in telling

" the boy exclaimed as she

blizzards constantly threatened, the other a valley trail through wolf-infested hills. The latter course wa