Sharply outlined against the dazzling sky, sailing along on steady planes like a great white bird of the air, her engine purring and thrilling, and her propeller screaming, an air-ship passed athwart his vision!
Enthralled, his eyes followed it. It was less than half a mile away to his right. He tried to shout aloud, but his voice was feeble, and seemed to be thrown back at him from the air. Before he could rouse the girl, or convey to her senses what was occurring, the ship of the air had vanished. It dipped out of sight into the mouth of a little valley.
He looked again. No, his eyes did not deceive. Smoke was curling up from the valley, a thin blue spiral. The bird man had alighted there. There was a camp of men. Food and warmth, rescue and life for his precious burden—all were there in that little valley, a bare quarter of a mile away across the snow. Could he ever reach it?
Into his brain leaped a multitude of quick thoughts. Joy and the shadow of an old suspicion came together. He knelt again in the snow and aroused Rose Emer.
"Lady," he said very softly, "you are saved. Yonder," and he pointed across the snow toward the valley—"yonder is the smoke of a camp, and an air-ship from the south just landed in that valley."
Rose Emer strained her eyes across the snow. She saw the smoke and comprehended. For an instant she bowed her face on her arms. When she raised it her eyes were streaming. Out of hard despair tear time had come again. She caught his hand to her breast, and then raised it to her lips. He snatched it from her.
"Oh, but I thank you; words are too feeble to say it. I thank you for life, Polaris!"
"Lady," he made answer, "I am going to make a strange request of you. Yonder are those of your own people—the American captain and his men. It is my wish that when we come among them you will say nothing of my origin, of where you found me, or what has befallen us, more than is necessary to tell—"
"It is enough that you ask it," the girl broke in. "Never mind any further reason. I will do as you say."