Sometimes, in a kind of fury, Ellen wondered if the pigeon bore a charmed life—if it could not die! Dead, her problem would be solved for her. . . . Yet she dared not let it die. . . not while there was a chance—! Standing before the cage day after day, Ellen would torment herself with a thought. If she should leave the door unlatched, so that it would jar open . . . if, of its own accord, the bird should fly away! Then, when the White Chief came she could disclaim all knowledge of its going. . . . But there was the lock of her hair, about which she had lied to her husband. It was still in possession of the trader who, secure in his power over everyone in his wilderness kingdom, was capable of any melodramatic folly, of any false tale. And Shane, hot-headed, protective—she shuddered. In her overwrought imagination she saw her husband's hands stained with another man's blood. . . . No, the bird was a kind of thing fastened upon her which she could not, must not in all conscience lose.
Torn by these conflicting emotions and sick with foreboding, she would turn away from the cage. Tomorrow—she would wait until tomorrow. Perhaps the Hoonah would come tomorrow. Perhaps it was even in sight now! With hope and longing so intense that it bordered on despair she would leave the cabin and climb to the Lookout to scan the empty sea.
One sunny afternoon she was standing there alone watching a dark streak of steamer-smoke move slowly southward. Below her, stretching away to the wide horizon lay the sea, its great, smooth swells heaving jade-green in the sunlight. Autumn color lay over the tundra moss, the rice-grass, the short alder bushes. Autumn, a soothing autumn was in the air, promising the northern world of growing things a long, snow-enfolded peace; but herself and her little family—what?
For some time she had half-consciously been aware of a strange encircling hush. She looked about her and realized that nowhere was a seabird of any kind. Then far out, a dark mass like a fallen cloud, challenged her attention. Even as she wondered it rose into the air and began to advance swiftly toward her, . . . it resolved itself into thousands of small black birds.
"The sea-parrots!" Ellen spoke aloud in her surprise. "They must be going south." She had not known that this would happen. She felt a dull regret that it should be so.
With crimson beaks pointed south they came nearer and nearer, until, flying directly overhead, they cast a shadow as if a cloud had passed over the sun. The sky was black with them. Noiseless on the wing, there was something ominous in the sea-parrot's silence during the quarter of an hour in which they flew steadfastly over the island on their course. Ellen watched them with an interest divided between wonder and awe.
Before they had passed an increasing wild chorus came to her ears. She turned to face the north again where another cloud—grey-white—was coming. She knew it to be composed of her noisiest neighbors, the gulls, bound also for southern shores.
Over the island these birds sailed with gay squawkings, their wide wings seeming to wave a contemptuous good-bye. It was as if they scorned, yet pitied the human creature below who must stay behind because she had no wings to bear her away.
The last call dimmed and died. Despite the lazy swash of the swells on the beach below the sunny afternoon was heavy with silence. Ellen's eyes swept the vast circle of the distance. The smoke of the south-bound steamer was no more. Far down the tundra toward the cliffs stood the one lone tree of Kon Klayu facing the sea like a waiting woman with long, wind-blown hair. . . . An appalling sense of loneliness flooded Ellen. A sudden, overwhelming need for human companionship swept her. . . . She turned hastily into the trail that led down to the cabin—then checked herself, as the sound of some one whistling came to her. She glanced back.
Walking briskly toward her along the tundra trail that led from his Hut to the Lookout came Gregg Harlan. He must recently have borrowed Shane's razor, for the soft, dark beard that had shadowed his face was gone. Bareheaded, he advanced swingingly, vigorously, his chin up, his whole figure the personification of youth, confidence, and a new strength. For the first time Ellen was glad to see him.